Day: February 15, 2015

The people in New York, you know the ones who believe the carriage horses and all other animals should live in the wild, should be up here this weekend, it is pretty wild in the real world of real animals. The toughest thing about having animals like horses, donkeys and sheep is understanding the limits of what you can and can’t do for them.

This is hard time for animals who live in the wild – birds, deer, horses – many  suffer and perish in this kind of weather without human help. Anything edible is covered in ice and snow, there is much competition for little available food, little natural shelter, no way of getting warm. The wind chills may be – 50 tonight, the coldest in memory.

In our barn, we are able to grain the animals for energy, provide fresh heated water for warmth, a barn and stalls for shelter from the wind. As cold and unpleasant at it may get today and tonight, all of our animals will be alive and well in the morning, we have seen to it, it is a gift that people can give animals, who give so much back to us.

I pity the poor carriage horses if the mayor and his supporters in the animal rights movement get their way and the horses are taken from their warm, dry, clean stables and thrown out into the whirlwind that life in the wild often is. How very sad for animals that so many people have forgotten, or perhaps did not ever know, what safety really is for domesticated animals.

It is work, shelter, human care and connection. I can’t help but think of the carriage horses in this fierce cold and wind, they are not in the park today, but in their stables. They have everything an animal needs to survive in a cruel and unpredictable world, and the very people who should be protecting them – elected officials and people who claim to speak for animal rights – are seeking to take all of those protections away in the name of being humane. Can any rational person buy this?

Today, the carriage horses are, by custom and regulation, warm and dry in their stables, safe and comfortable,  better off even than my sheep and donkeys, who are not in a heated barn with four walls and three bales a day of fresh hay. Beyond the farm, deer and raccoons and birds are starving and dropping to their ground, their carcasses are everywhere. My animals are very well treated and cared for, but I can’t offer them what the carriage trade offers the horses.

When you think of the carriage horses, and of their future and their fate, look outside of your window today or talk a walk and ask yourself if this gentle and domesticated creatures – they have never lived in the wild – ought to be outside. I’d love to ask the mayor if the horses would really be better off in the wild today. Except he would not speak to me, or to the owners and drivers in the carriage trade.

I do think a bit about the Apocalypse this morning. It is brutishly cold, the howling wind shrouds the farm in a white-out, the paths we have been digging for weeks have all been obliterated by the wind and the drifts and the wind chill temperatures may reach into the -50’s today and, especially tonight. It snowed almost all night, the poor animals are jammed into the Pole Barn, they seem fine, have good appetites, are dry and out of the wind. That is about all you can do for real animals in the real world, barns provide shelter, not warmth.

The power is holding so far, but will be tested further by the heavy winds this afternoon.

Maria and I are prepared. We have declared today “Anne Tyler” day, we are both (unusual for us) reading the same book at the same time, Tyler’s new novel “A Spool Of Blue Thread.” Tyler is one of my favorite authors, Maria loves  her writing as well.

I call this “storming,” you can freak out over storms or see them as a challenging and often quite beautiful respite from the frantic world. Some places have been hit much harder than we have, and I am mindful of them, there will perhaps be little rest for them over the next few days.

Our storm is big and hard and mean, but the light tells me Spring is muscling her way in. I guess I have come to see these storms as messages from Mother Earth, she is speaking to me, and to others, and I am talking to her. Increasingly, I will devote myself to healing and nurturing her, as she has always healed and nurtured me. She is, I think, calling for help, asking for our concern and protection.

Some people have prepared for the Apocalypse by storing dried foods, guns and batteries, radios, we are going with the writer Anne Tyler, lots of tea and popcorn, two roaring wood stoves.  The ravaging hordes can come and get us anytime they want.

We are not exactly warm, but we are not freezing either. I imagine we will have to sleep downstairs tonight, our unheated bedroom turns to ice in heavy winds and cold, I don’t want to go up there, even with our new and wonderful heated blankets. I think the power is secure for now, at least. This is the coldest and fiercest weather I can recall seeing in my life, we are funneling food out to the poor birds and grain to the sheep and donkeys. We will survive.

The animals  do seem calm. Even though we insist on treating them that way, animals are not people, they do not feel what we feel, do not need what we need. For the first time, Red’s feet could not handle the snow and ice. He was hopping around on his rear feet. I brought him inside. I am wearing a ski mask go out, we are keeping the water in the barn warm.

I can’t think of a better way to spend the day than with two gifted and creative women, Maria and Anne Tyler. The extreme weather alerts are posted to go through noon Monday, and then some more until Tuesday morning. If I finish Anne Tyler, I have a couple of other books next in line, some in paper, some on my Kindle. We are prepared.