Day: June 28, 2013

More than 90 per cent of Americans now live on one or the other coasts of our country. Economists have condemned rural life as inefficient in the global economy and more and more people are driven to cities to find work they don’t love to pay for health care they might need for wages that leave them struggling. This has meant, among other things, that most people are becoming disconnected from the natural world, and from the animal world. Animals are not part of our lives, they are relegated to zoos, preserves, videos on YouTube. I have lived with donkeys for more than a decade now, and am struck by how many people I meet that have never seen a donkey. A half-century ago, psychologists predicted that people pressured by technology, disappointed by politics and religion, disconnected from other people as lived more and more on screens, would turn to pets in an effort to heal themselves. I believe this is happening all around us.

I believe a life without a connection to animals or the natural world is a broken life, that animals are healing, calming, they teach us things and center us, make us whole. I work hard to bring animals into my life. Where it is possible, they shop with me, ride with me, walk with me and I am always astonished by how animals like donkeys and dogs, chickens and cats, read the rhythms of my life and enter into the spirit of my life. This morning, it is very windy and dark here, the sun darting in and out, one of those broody mornings that I love. I went out to the Adirondack chair to sit and meditate and Red and Lenore came out behind me. When I meditate, they both sit in front of the chair and are quite still. Sometimes a barn cat saunters through. Usually the chickens come walking through.

I closed my eyes and felt the wind brushing my face, that was my meditation, a stillness, an appreciation for my life. This is my news, these are the stories of my day. Animals have marked the passage of my life, given me work, helped me to heal and to grow. That was my meditation too, how much animals have brought me when I let them into my life, not as emotional puppets for me to exploit, not as spirits that save me, not as children or lovers or best friends or therapists, that is my work and the work of humans,  not theirs, but as companions, magical helpers, spirit creatures that enter my soul and compliment my life. I felt this power strongly in my windy meditation this morning, they were in the silence with me, they had entered my life. I am flattered and honored by their acceptance of me.

Animal escapes are part of any farm, I’ve had about a dozen of them involving donkeys, sheep, cows. It is a great adventure, but it is also a frightening one. It is an awful feeling to see animals like donkeys or cows or pigs running loose on a busy highway. Many are killed that way, and many people driving are injured. Farm animals have no sense of cars or traffic, no instincts to warm them away. No farmer likes to have somebody call or ring and say their animals are out on the road. There is something inherently comical about pigs, but the ones we saw yesterday came awfully close to getting hit by speeding trucks and by people who see trouble and hit the gas pedal rather than stop and help. Tourists especially have no wish to get caught up in somebody else’s trouble.

Still, animal escapes are a binding ritual. Many people meet their neighbors that way up here, and there is almost no one with farm animals who has not experienced the unnerving ritual of an animal escape. When the animals are first spotted every tries and figure out where they came from. Almost invariably, the farmer shows up. This happens to almost everyone on a farm. Rains erode fencelines, animals burrow through and under fence posts, they nose wires apart. We had two sheep breakouts when we moved to the farm, many more escapes at Bedlam Farm, and I still shiver at the site of Red rushing back and forth across a busy highway trying to corral the sheep. We were very lucky that day.

Animal escapes are common here. Few farmers have the money to build escape-proof pastures and animals have a lot of time on their hands to nose around and find weak spots.  These escapes are interesting, they reveal a lot about human connection and behavior. They look like fun from afar, but there is a lot at stake. If a car or truck hits your animal, it is an awful thing to see and an almost certain lawsuit.

Some people rush to help, some run away. There is usually – always – at least one or two good people who pull over, put their blinkers on, grab their cell phones and try and help. A woman pulled her truck over yesterday and walked up and down the road, waving to cars to slow down, spreading her arms to keep the pigs off of the highway. She did a great job, I am sure the pigs would have been hit if not for her. It was no big deal to her, it was what you do.  More help arrived – me, Maria, Red, a trucker and then the farmer appeared.

In my experience, these escapes have always worked out.  I remember seeing my steer Elvis, all 3,000 pounds of him, strolling down the road, and my horror at imagining the collision between him and a truck or car. Several times, the donkeys escaped and made it across the road to the meadow. Most of these breakouts end happily.  It is important to stay calm and focused.  If you panic the animal, they will sure take off and run farther.

We always call the sheriff, he never comes for animal escapes, they really don’t know what to do about them either.  Police officers are not equipped to move pigs around, and there are very few animal control officers around here.

I’ve found that most animals tire of their sprint into the world, once they taste some fresh grass and run around a bit, they are happy, usually eager to get back to their own flocks and pastures. You have to anticipate where they are going, head them off, stay with them without stampeding them. Pigs, like donkeys, are intelligent, they can give you a pretty good ride, they have a good time out there.

There is a warm side to this. Neighbors come running. Somebody always appears to help with traffic. And we find out things about ourselves. Maria is a natural at helping animals get home.  There is something calming about her, most animals respond to her. I have absolutely no hesitation about tapping a pig with my foot to get them moving, stopping traffic, trusting my dog. I was quite surprised by Red’s ease and instincts yesterday, he has never seen a pig, but he looked at me, heard the familiar commands and went to work. There is a definitely a telepathic side to Red. The sheep didn’t understand being herded, but they did keep moving and off the road when he got behind them and pushed them towards home.

In retrospect, this was risky. Pigs, when they are excited, can be dangerous and Red has no experience working with them. Looking at the pigs, they didn’t seem aggressive to me. I was right, but I was also lucky. And how nice, my new lens arrived just minutes before the pigs.

I have to add one other thing. I love this unpredictability about life up here. Where else would you look out your study window and see pigs heading across the front lawn. And in rural life, community still lives. Somebody always comes to help.