It is important when the shearer comes. Often, there is news of other sheep and other sheep dogs on other farms. Jim McRae trains border collies, so we can talk about dogs, he is an admirer of Red, who he says is an unusually calm working border collie. He also trims the hooves of the sheep, checks on their weight. He and his partner Tom do remarkably neat and gentle work, there was not a nick or cut on any of the ewes or wethers.
He says they all look great, their weight is good, their coats were clean and soft. They will be cool and comfortable for the warm weather approaching Sheep are funny when they are shorn, they don’t recognize one another and butt heads and run around in circles. They they re-acclimate and settle down. Shearers tend to undercharge for the hard work they do and the long distances they travel. Jim lowers his prices when the cost of gas is low, but we always pay him more than he asks. It’s part of the process. And he deserves it.
The sheep were happy to pose for a group photograph. We got good and clean wool this time.
In some ways, shearing is a ballet. The shearers sit the sheep upright – it gently paralyzes them – Maria marks and collects the wool, Red makes certain the waiting sheep stay in their appointed corner, it goes quickly and efficiently. After the shearing, the sheep’s hooves are trimmed, the wool is stores in the barn.
On the Red Road, I have been reading about the animals. The Native-Americans believed their animals – especially their horses – were life itself, they lived among them, worked among them, they were never apart from them. They were their partners in life in every sense of the word.
In their writings, they were also prescient about the blindness and greed of the whites. They seemed to know they could not preserve their way of live against the onslaught, they knew that the animals, especially the horses, would be driven from the world, in one way or another. And they were, the ponies who live in the American wild were slaughtered by the settlers because they had no work for them to do, and the Indians had been driven off and confines to preserves. The Indians believed the horses would be forgotten, and driven away and slaughtered, but that they would return again one day and be saved.
“When the Earth is sick, the animals will begin to disappear,” wrote Chief Seattle. “When that happens, The Warriors Of The Rainbow will come to save them.”
The animals have begun to disappear. They are being banned and banished everywhere by politicians who think they are saving the animals but are instead condemning them to death and extinction, and who absolutely do not know what they do. Climate change and human development are destroying their habitats, the movement that says it is for the rights of animals is driving them away from people and out of the world, persecuting, harassing and intimidating the people who own and live with them and love them.
This was, of course, the almost inevitable fate and script awaiting the New York Carriage Horses, their banishment was considered almost a foregone conclusion as some of the city’s most powerful interests – the mayor, a millionaire real estate developer and well-funded and organized animal rights organizations targeted the carriage trade.
But early last year, something happened, the scenario changed. The horse began to fight back. The prophecy was fulfilled. Warriors of the Rainbow began to appear to save them. Today, two-thirds of the city’s residents, all three newspapers, and the business and labor communities all oppose efforts to ban the horses, and demand they be kept in the city.
It is an astonishing thing to see and hear the power of the horses and to experience the pull of their pleas and their magic. If you go to New York and see the horses, you will most likely meet the Warriors Of The Rainbow, gathered to save them. Creative people seem to get the horses, they year their messages. Artists, photographers, writers, poets, movie stars, videographers, authors, animal lovers, fiber artists, bloggers and neighbors, sculptors,shamanic elves, animal lovers from Texas and elsewhere come to New York to take pictures of the horses, ride them, capture their images, fight for them. They sign petitions for them, take rides in the park, write letters to the mayor and members of the City Council, visit the carriage drivers and their stables, try and cheer them on.
They have made a lot of noise, there is now a vast creative ecology on the New York Carriage Horses on line, in calendars, poems, photos, blogs and social media stories. If you go to Blue Star Equiculture in Massachusetts, the draft horse sanctuary and organic farming center, you will find the same thing – artists, writers, painters, dancers, academics drawn to the big horses, to capturing the feel of them, taking their photos, grooming them. The Warriors Of The Rainbow are a culture now, an army, a social movement.
The Warriors Of The Rainbow have answered the call and are awakening, opening the hearts and minds of people who love animals.
If you are reading this, you might perhaps become a Warrior For Rainbows yourself, Maria and I joined up instantly. We are a peaceful army of love and connection. We seek to keep animals in our world, we celebrate the work animals have done with and for people. We do not believe that animals should be used or exploited to batter and frighten people. We believe the mission of animals lovers is to help the people who live with animals, not raid their homes and invade their private lives and shame them for their struggles.
We believe it is not possible to hate people and love animals, and that both should be treated with dignity and respect. We believe that work with people is the great salvation for animals, their best hope of remaining in a sick and greedy world. Ariel Fintzi, the New York Carriage Driver whose portrait is at the top of this post, is a commanding figure in the Warriors Of The Rainbow. He has lived with horses his whole life, he works in Central Park driving a carriage horse, he is a gentle and loving soul who answers the call of the horses to heal people and uplift them.
Time is a continuum, the Native-Americans were mostly driven from our world, much as the horses are being driven from their work and our every day lives. But their messages and spirits remain. I believe the time of the horses has come again, they are making a last stand in their great park. The Warriors Of The Rainbow are coming to save them.
Red keeps the sheep in a corner while Tom grabs Susie. Red was invaluable, he kept the sheep in one place, and out of the dirt and the shearer’s way, he stays calm and still even when they jump right over him.
