Day: June 8, 2016

“The Tide Of Love Has Risen So High let me flood over you.”  — Hafiz

This Sunday is June 12, our sixth wedding anniversary. I take it for granted that I will leave the world before Maria, she is 17 years younger than I am. But I had a dream last week in which she died first, and I was reminded of something people rarely talk about: it is wonderful to find the truest kind of love, but the dark side of that is you finally have something to lose that seems unbearable.

It was an upsetting dream, a morbid dream. Maria has had several like it, only I die. I do  not, of course, know how I would handle such a thing, although I do know a number of strong and brave people who have survived it and moved on. The dream reminded me how much I love Maria and how my life changed so completely after we met and  fell in love.

Six years ago, I could not have imagined the life I have now, and she is such a big part of it. I always wanted to find love, but I never knew what a difference it would make in my life, that part really shocks me every time I think about it. I think meeting her saved my life, and finally gave it some authentic direction.

We encourage and support one another every day and have built our own palace of love and trust. It is modest by many standards but glorious to us.

What can really be said about love that is new? The greatest poets and writers and painters on earth have portrayed love in so many different ways. For me, love is connection, a fusing of the souls, a ballet of love and encouragement. It gives me strength to know such a person can love me, it tells me finally, and at long last, that I must be a good and worthy person to receive such a gift.

Maria is the sweetest and most genuine person I have ever known, and also the most passionate and gifted. We are so different yet we seem to see the world in the same way.

For the first time in six years, we are not going anywhere for our anniversary, no inns or treks to the water or to New York City. We want to be at home, with one another, on the farm, with the animals. We plan to go to a nursery in Vermont and buy a shade tree to plant and replace the one that fell over onto the pasture fence last year.

I got Maria a small gift, she will yell at me for getting it,  but she will also like it. She will have made something quite wonderful for me, there is no boundary between her art and her life, and that includes me. She never stops being an artist, and I suppose I never stop being a writer.

I plan to write on this blog on my anniversary.

It’s a good thing we are both like that, otherwise we might drive each other mad.

So Sunday we might go to brunch at the Round House, then head out to choose our tree, and then spend the afternoon planting it, sitting and talking, visiting with the animals, tending and watering our gardens.

Sunday will be one of the best days of my life, as it has been for the past six years. More gratitude than I can express, with all of my words.

I hope to take a few minutes to remember our wedding, in the big old barn at Bedlam Farm, the big doors wide open, a misty rain falling, we were attended by donkeys and dogs and bewildered relatives and many friends.

Like the poet wrote, I know the ecstasy of the falcon’s wings, when they make love against the sky, and the sun and the moon sometimes argue over who will tuck me in at night.

If you think I am happier and having more fun than anyone on this planet, you are absolutely correct.

I am approaching the second anniversary of my open heart surgery, I think it came right after the July 4th weekend of 2014. Today was my once-a-year visit to my cardiologist, Dr. Steven Annisman of the Southwestern Vermont Medical Center. I only see Dr. Annisman once a year, I get an EKG, he checks my heart and asks me a half-dozen questions – any pain, shortness of breath, etc.

He came to Vermont from New York, he is a shy man, I think, with a quick smile and a great love of music. We aren’t close friends or anything, but we do have this tradition in our short relationship of recommending an album or new group to one another when we meet.

I recommended the new Paul Simon album Stranger to Stranger, we talked about him for a few minutes, and he recommended a new group called Snarky Puppy, originally from Texas, not based in Brooklyn, of course.

Dr. Annisman lights up when talking about music.  He agreed to be photographed, he didn’t want to see the photo.

As it typical in the modern health care system, we get about 10 minutes with one another after the nurse checks me out, and that  is once a year. He checks the pulse in my feet, and of course,  my heart.

Dr. Annisman follows heart data closely, we don’t range too far from it. Like most male doctors, he doesn’t talk a lot, or have too much time. I like him, he is honest and his smile is too warm to be anything but genuine. I always try to see nurse-practitioners and always ask for women, if possible.

They are the only ones who will talk to me about the experience of open heart surgery.

But I trust Dr. Annisman, he seems to know his stuff. And he has good taste in music and movies. We are both refugees from the city.

My EKG  was fine, so was my blood pressure, cholesterol level, etc. He asked me if I had any questions, and I asked, since I am doing so well, if I could stop taking the beta-blockers, they sometimes made me drowsy and tired.

He said the data suggested they are highly effective in preventing heart attacks, strokes or seizures, at least for three years. There is no date available after that, we can discuss it again next year, perhaps I can get off of them at that time, he said,  but he wanted me to stay on them.

We had this same struggle last year about the statins, he insisted I stay on them, but reduced the dose. Open heart surgery, especially when coupled with diabetes, is not something you are ever done with. I take it seriously and am proud of myself for the way I deal with it. I would be dead now without modern medicine, for all of its troubles.

I dug in a bit about the beta blockers, and he agreed to cut the dose in half. That seems to be his default position.

We’ll see how that goes. I might stop taking them before next year if the drowsiness continues. I accept data, but don’t wish to be a slave to it. Doctors can’t back off from date-driven medicine or go beyond it much, I think, government bureaucrats and insurance companies insist. I’ve been nosing around about beta-blockers, they are controversial and there is much debate about them.

They are meant to reduce inflammation and slow the heart down a bit, so that it lasts longer. But nobody knows how much longer, and as we all know, the medical profession often keeps people alive beyond reason or rationality. When it comes to decisions like this, we are on our own.

Curiously, there is no one to help. They can take your heart of your body and make it better, but they cannot talk to you about what has happened. Nobody in the system has time for that.

No doctor will ever tell me to enjoy my life now, and not worry so much about prolonging it. Or ask me how I feel about prolonging my life.  But that is what I think I ought to do, opt for quality of life now, not eternal life.  Because no one really wants to talk to me about it, the open heart surgery has made me more independent and confident about my decisions.

Many of them are good, but I guess we won’t know for awhile.

That last part is fuzzy, and there is no category in data I hear about  for fuzzy.

It was a good visit, I am fine, and doing well, my heart is beating strong and clear. My surgery seems a long time ago, and I am grateful for it.

It saved me, made me better. Maria and I often walk together up what we call “heart hill,” the road I could barely make it up that morning two years ago, when I was gasping for breath and ended up in an ambulance, heading for Albany Medical Center.

I love walking up that hill, not even needing to take a breath, and give myself one or two hallelujahs.

Open heart surgery is a great big deal to the people who experience it – they do stop your heart for a bit and rebuild it – but for doctors, it is just another operation. I imagine Dr. Annisman sees more than 25 heart patients a day.

I think I will never have the conversation I really want to  have about it. I did nearly die, that does get into your head.

When I had dealt with the beta blocking issue, Dr. Annisman and I shook hands. “See you next year,” he said, and he was gone.

By tomorrow morning, I won’t be thinking about it either. That is a pretty amazing thing.

Opening up the new pasture – actually it’s an old one, just with a gate – has prompted me to see the farm in a different way and from a different perspective. Our rotational grazing seems set, I think we will get through the summer without having to buy hay, even with the big pony eating heartily. She gets five hours a day on grass, that’s it.

We have October Light today, the second week of June. The weather now has a life of its own, no matter how hysterical the predictions, it always seems to be different than expected. Climate change is good for photographers, lots of big and beautiful sky.

It is clear to me now that Craig Mosher’s bull and other animals got through his fences and out onto the road numerous times. I don’t have any idea what he did or didn’t do about it.

I believe in the truth, and I believe the truth wants to be free, and will eventually find a way to be free. There is lots more to know.

In my first writing about this case, I called it an outrage. I over-stepped, it is not an outrage.

The Mosher case unfolding in Rutland and Killington, Vt. is a tragedy all around, there is no black and white to it.

Jon Bellis hit a bull in the road one night in July of 2015,  and he and the bull were killed. Bellis’s  wife, who was riding in the car,  survived the accident.

The bull belonged to a respected and admired local excavator named Craig Mosher, and last month, Mosher was indicted on criminal charges of involuntary manslaughter. He is one of the first animal owners in America to ever be charged threatened with jail for an accident involving an animal.

The case has shaken the farming and animal communities in Vermont and  challenged the state’s cherished identity as a place where free-thinking individuals help one another, they don’t sue one another or throw them in jail for things that have always been considered accidents or acts of God.

The Mosher case is more complex than many animal cases. As a reporter I learned not to manage the truth, but to let the truth track me down, which it usually does if you permit it.

It is clear to me now that Craig Mosher’s bull and other animals got through his fences a number of times. The police were often there, neighbors and nearby workers saw it happen many times. A milk truck driver says he knocked on Mosher’s door minutes before the fatal accident to tell him his bull was standing in a motel parking lot across the road (photo above).

Whether one agrees or disagrees with the prosecutor’s decision to bring a criminal indictment against a man everyone says is a good man, the charge was not baseless or utterly without foundation. That doesn’t, of course,  make it right.

The milk truck driver told police that Mosher never came out to look for Big Red, and so the truck driver called the police. Minutes later, the bull and Jon Bellis, a 62-year-resident of Vermont and Connecticut, was dead. The Vermont State Police say they were called at least five times to the Mosher property previously  to respond to reports his animals were out on the road.

Mosher’s friends and supporters say they doubt those allegations, the center piece  of the prosecutions criminal charges. But other witnesses confirm the police affidavit.

I have since heard from several residents of Killington.

One, a woman who has lived and worked near the Mosher property for years – there is a busy state highway and intersection there – said Mosher had been notified numerous times that his animals were getting out. Her friend was sometimes late for work because she encountered the bull in the road. This lines up with the Vermont State Police report, released last week.

It would take a vast and evil conspiracy to have conjured this all up.

Interesting enough, this woman said she disagrees with the severity of the manslaughter charge, she feels drivers who hit animals bear some of the responsibility for the accident, although she was not familiar with the details of the case.  Although there is no evidence Bellis was speeding, the road was well lit and some states hold that drivers do bear some responsibility for hitting an animal directly.

But these accounts of previous escapes are troubling  because they suggest Mosher could have and should have taken some steps to prevent them from happening. I know I would have. I doubt he could or would have been charged with involuntary manslaughter if he had responded, and it is possible that he did and we just don’t know about it.

The next big question for me is whether the best response to this tragedy is to criminalize animal accidents.

Because that is what is almost certain to happen if this stands. This, to my knowledge, has never been done before, and whether Mosher was negligent or not – a judge or jury will decide – the implications for farmers and animal lovers are staggering if this does set a precedent. The Vermont Farm Bureau and the state’s farmers are deeply concerned about it.

And why wouldn’t it set a precedent? Ambitious and prosecutors and greedy lawyers will take note. There are billions of animals in America, on farms, in homes.

Involuntary manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice or forethought, either expressed or implied. It is distinguished from voluntary manslaughter or murder by the absence of intention. It is usually divided into two categories, constructive manslaughter and criminally negligent manslaughter, both of which involve criminal liability.

This is in reality a homicide charge, brought not when there is malice or premeditation, but when the negligence is so extreme it cannot be forgiven or overlooked. Or when rules that should have been followed were not, and repeatedly.

Last night, our friends Ed and Carol Gulley came over to visit with us, and Ed and Carol have been dairy farmers their whole lives. Many of their cows have gotten out onto the road in the years on the farm, it is an inevitable part of farm life, it is a natural thing for animals like cows to explore the world beyond their fences, even if they are not hungry. Lightning strikes and floods are one major reason for escapes, said Ed. But there are many others.

“I’ll tell you this,” he said, “the rule is simple. When somebody knocks on my door and says the cows out, I come running, I don’t always even take the time to get dressed or put my shoes on. I get out there and bring them back. You don’t ever want to leave a cow out on the road, day or night.”

I talked to several other farmers who said the same thing, and their comments reflect my own feelings.

I’ve also had animals get out onto the road, and when I know they are gone, I also come running. Ed and the other farmers say friends and neighbors and passersby always appear to help. Nobody ever thinks to involve the police, it is not considered a crime, rather a part of rural life.

This is an important distinction for me. There is a lot of persuasive evidence to suggest that Mosher’s bull and other animals got through his fences and into a busy intersection a number of times, and that he knew they were escaping. I don’t know what he did or didn’t do about it.

So for me, that is not really in question, nor is it the central question. The question for me is whether or not a criminal indictment on manslaughter charges is really the best punishment for Mosher or the wisest response to a tragic accident. Whatever the cause, it was an accident and it is a profound thing to make it into a crime. There is no evidence of any kind that Craig Mosher wanted to harm anyone, and apparently, he has always been generous in helping many people.

This discussion really ought to take place in Rutland. So far, the prosecutor seems to be hiding behind the fact that grand jury proceedings are secret, she refuses to discuss or explain her thinking. Every lawyer knows she could easily discuss the broad issues the case raises without violating grand jury secrets.

But until she does, it’s hard for me to imagine that the underlying issues behind this awful story will be aired out and considered

The truth about the accident and the animals on Mosher’s pasture will come out in court, the proper place for disposition of a criminal charge.

But the larger truth, the truth for many other people, may not be known for years.

Prosecutors do not work in a vacuum. Prosecutors who bring criminal charges in animal cases out to understanding farming, fences and the real lives of real animals. And they need to talk not only to themselves, but to the many people whose lives and way of life are at stake.

Fate is an especially intelligent dog and I am studying her closely to write about the intelligence of dogs, something I am not always smart enough to see or understand. So I took this video to understand how quickly she  grasps the situations around her and how quickly she can change with little or no “training.”

Fate always jumps into the car first, and then poor Red gets pounced on when he jumps up also. Red was limping and injured recently and he was struggling to jump up into the car, something he normally does quite easily. Fate sensed Red’s comfort, and I said “wait, Fate, wait for Red.” So did Maria.

Now, when Red gets ready to jump up into the car, she hangs back, waits for him to jump up, and then jumps up after  him, she clearly sensed his struggle and acclimated to it. Fate is a dominant dog, after me, she is always first out the door or into a car. She is first everywhere, intense, curious, domineering.

On the surface, this is not a big deal. But if you examine it closely, it is interesting. Fate is adapting her normal behavior, sensing Red’s impairment, and grasping my cues to hang back. She started doing this on her own, and it was reinforced. But it speaks to her ability to conceptualize and respond.

Her willingness to wait for Red to take  his time and jump up into the car is striking. Come and see. This is a good example of the behavioral theory that dogs have a kind of consciousness. They can intuit change,  and can problem solve quickly and effectively, more than we might think.