The three surviving chickens look quite natural. Fran was never hardy enough to fit in there.

I was trying to count today how many animals have died here since I moved to the farm in 2003. There was Orson, Rose, Izzy. Lambs, Winston the I, II and III. Carol the donkey. Sheep in the pasture, dead in childbirth, taken by disease, caught in wires, choked to death on weeds. Two steers send to slaughter, a cow sent to Vermont. .A dozen chickens, at least. One goat dead, two sent to other farms. Mother the barn cat and Lenore the oldest veterans on the farm, now that I think about it. Rabid and feral cats, raccoons, possums, skunks, stalked and shot.

Some animals injected, shot, dead of natural causes. Vets, large and small animal, syringes, pills, gauze pads, prolapses. Boxes of syringes and disinfectants. Each time I write about it, each time there is this flood of understanding, this gap of confusion and perspective, all so familiar to me now. The advice, questions, suggestions.  Why say “killing Fran?” Why not call it something else, something pretty? I seem to always be explaining it, when from this end, nothing could be more natural or more obvious. Even today, with Fran. Get a guard dog, shoot the fox, higher fences, more voltage. We love animals so much, but we sometimes seem such strangers to their lives, as if we can spare them the reality of the world.

But the donkeys are guard animals, I think. The foxes don’t come into the pasture, they attack well outside of it, no dopes. The barn cats will not be confined to pastures or barns, they would, I suspect, be more comfortable dying, these freest and most independent of creatures. And do I want a killer guard dog waiting for Red to come in and herd the sheep? Or Lenore to wander into the pasture? Or Frieda to get loose and plunge into battle with him. Or some farmer’s kid wandering into the pasture to say hello to Simon?

I know these thoughts are all well meaning, and thanks for them – sincerely. But I don’t need or want advice, or help from the outside. I’ve been through this many times, and it is not a drama or crisis here, just the way life works. I’m sorry to say I know it all too well. I need help understanding banks and politics, not foxes and hens. The ballet of life, I call it. I have now been on the farm long enough to not be able to remember all of the animals who have died here. And long enough not to want to. Animals die, animals come.  Rose and Izzy gone, Red on the way. Two donkeys, then three. No chickens, now four.

It is the ballet and the parade. Let’s say the dance of life.