My new Canon 5 D has a wonderful video camera in it, and I tried it out today, waiting for Simon to finish eating some hay and let out a good bray, which he did. This new video camera is sharp and holds colors welll, and it will trigger a whole new era in videos for my site and my work. It is now possible for me to take videos and still photos at the same time, and capture all kinds new stories.
You can see the quality of the video on this short piece. Come and see the video and hear Simon bray:
It seems that Fran will not be able to fly or jump up. Wings too damaged. She has a crate she loves to crawl in at night and seems fine with that, but she can’t hop up on the roost. She is off by herself part of the day, hanging out with the other chickens the rest. They seem to have accepted her, and her wounds seem to be healing well. She is not quite her old self, but better by far than she was, and still improving. Animals are astonishingly adaptable.
It has been a year since Animal Control Officer Jessica Barrett removed Simon from a nearby farm where he was near death, starving, barely able to stand up, his hooves grown out six inches, his teeth grown into his jaws, his ribs protruding, his skin infested with lice and rot.
I think it is important for me to remember him, and the condition he was in, and the inhumane way in which he was treated. Thomas Aquinas said it was important to treat animals well because it was a measure of our humanity. I think this is so. In our country, the idea of helping people seems to be almost heretic, the idea of helping animals powerful and growing. I think these two things are linked.
I believe in treating animals well because it makes me more human, and more, not less, conscious of the plight of human beings, many of whom are in worse shape than Simon was. Animals are voiceless, dependent on our humanity, and whenever I see this photo of Simon, I am reminded to be a better human. More empathetic, more compassionate, more loving. We are grateful for Simon and for Jessica Barrett’s compassion and sense of duty. We have worked hard for two years to bring Simon back to health. Dental and veterinary care, grains and exercise, footwork and salves. He has responded by greeting us with joyous brays and returning our love and connection.
I remain committed to giving him the best possible life.
Lots of news and decisions in my life and in Maria’s. Our offer to purchase the New Bedlam Farm has been accepted and we have signed a contract for our new home. We hope to move in the next several months. I will offer more details when I can. It is a wonderful place, also in Washington County. It is good for us, the animals, our life together. With it has come some other decisions:
– We are going to get sheep again, and lamb. Maria wants to sell Bedlam Farm wool.
– I am going to get another border collie. The time without Rose has reminded me how much I want and need a working dog to help manage and protect the farm, alert us to problems, and handle the sheep we are going to get. I loved lambing and with Maria, it will be a manageable joy. I’ve begun searching for a border collie breeder. I have some ideas. I am eager to work with a border collie again, a breed I love.
– Bedlam Farm has not sold yet, but we are quite confident about that, imagining the good people who want a home in the country with animals. We’ve taken out some classified ads in the New York Times Real Estate Section and may take out some other ads as well in the New York area. Ad runs this Sunday.
So this is a part of the life on the farm, really. We went over to Jenna Woginrich’s Cold Antler Farm to help her dock her lamb’s tail and give him some shots, and then we had a great dinner out together, yakking about blogs, farms, animals, books, and life and then Jenna goes home and wakes up to a 2 a.m. racket and comes rushing out with her rifle and finds her laying chickens slaughtered and scattered all over her yard. This morning, a message on her website saying half of her chickens are gone, their heads missing. Raccoons.
This is a familiar part of life on the farm, this sickening feeling seeing things you are responsible for and live with killed suddenly, and then the process of sorting through it, because you know the foxes or raccoons or whatever will return. Traps? Secure fencing? Sitting out with a rifle? And all of the recommendations come pouring in – trap it, distract it, get lights, bomb proof coops, whistles, guard dogs, and usually the decision is the same – try a Have-A-Heart trap and if that doesn’t work, a trapper, because you will be under siege for a while, vigilant and edgy. It is a nice life, not a perfect life, and there are no simple or easy solutions. There is no such thing as a no-kill farm, and there is no perfectly safe life in paradise for the real animals in the real world. So there is the happy time cuddling a lamb and the other time picking up body parts of animals you were talking to the day before. Jenna can handle it, for sure. But still…
It is disturbing, yet also oddly routine. It happens, anyone with a farm and livestock has experienced it. This lesson, I learn again and again. It is not a crisis, not a drama. It is life itself. Dinner seems a long time off, but just yesterday.
