We are bringing Strut into the Bedlam Farm Men’s Support Group. The membership so far includes a man, an ass, a red-coated border collie and a rooster. I got here first, but this has clearly become a women’s place.We need some fellowship. The art show this weekend was called “Anointing The Goddess,” and the farmhouse has definitely gone woo-woo, rocks, alters, flowers and charms everywhere. Then there’s the residents: Maria, Mother, Minnie, the two hens, Oprah and Shirley Partridge, Lulu and Fanny, Lenore and Frieda. Eight ewes, one ram. A lot of strong women.
Most of the men have been put in their place. Lulu and Fanny kick Simon in the head several times a week, if not daily. I often tell Frieda that she is the only real man in the house. The other animals get out of her way. Mother and Minnie are both marauders, the scourge of chipmunks, mice, moles, and birds. As for the humans, I am learning to do what I am told. I married a woman who is part German, part Sicilian. I thought she was very quiet when I first met her, but she is not. She has had quite enough of domineering men in her life, and does not care to take orders.
My mother-in-law was here over the weekend and she asked me why Maria’s sheep give Red such a hard time, butting and kicking him when he tries to herd them. The other sheep, those in the meadow, do what he wants. Well, that’s easy, I said. They are Maria’s sheep. They don’t like being told what to do. I told Red maybe if he asks them nicely and explains what he wishes to accomplish they might stop smacking him around. Red looks like a wolf when he herds, but he is a sweetheart, unfailingly polite even to belligerent ewes. He is a sweetie.
Of all of the men, Strut seems the most enthusiastically and unabashedly male, a throwback really, a symbol of another time. He guards the chickens, climbs on them repeatedly to fertilize their eggs and puffs himself up like a feathered Mussolini all day, crowing to announce his presence. He is quite full of himself. None of the rest of the men on the farm would get away with this for a second.
The animal world has its own customs and cultures, and even there, things are not clear-cut. Strut tried to mount Oprah, the big Brahma, today and she turned around and knocked him on his feathers. He got up, shook himself off and tried to crow a bit, but she just pecked him in the head and he strutted off.
He’s ready for the Bedlam Farm Men’s Support Group.