Maria gave me the kind of gift she knows I love the most, something she made. She and Heather from Over The Moon have been conspiring to make me a heart necklace made out of beads, which was trickier. Maria supplied the artistry and the sewing – it took a long time – Heather supplied the glue and the beads.
I love it and will wear it over my heart. I gave Maria and scarf and a necklace, she didn’t even yell at me for buying her a present.
Sixth Anniversary, My Love, My Heart.
It was, in many ways the perfect Bedlam kind of anniversary, our sixth.
It began just after sunrise, Maria got up to let the animals in the pasture and take the dogs out. When she went into the bathroom downstairs, she found a dead mouse in a trap – he had been eating our soap – and he and trap were sprawled in the middle of the floor.
I have been stalking this mouse for days with traps baited with cheese, which he ate, and then peanut butter, his undoing. I have danced this dance many times with mice.
Maria then went outside and saw that the Red Hen was walking oddly, and when she looked closer, she saw a gaping wound in her rear infested with maggots. She tried to catch the hen, and clean the wound, but couldn’t. It was too late. She said she wanted to spare me having to kill a hen first thing on our anniversary – a very beautiful day – but it didn’t work out. (In turn, I wanted to spare her the rest of it.)
She came upstairs and walked into the bedroom, I was still in bedroom, reading a novel on my Iphone, waiting for her to return. Maria is equal parts touch and sweet, killing an animal is a big hurt for her, she has no qualms doing it when necessary.
“We have a situation on the farm,” she said gravely. I know Maria well, if it was something critical – a dying pony, dog or donkey, she would have yelled from downstairs for me to come running. This was something in the middle. “It’s the Red Hen,” she said, “she has a wound in her rear and it is infested with maggots.”
That is not really what you want to see first thing in the morning, but this is a farm, our teacher, and she always and often reminds us that life and death are not different things, but equal parts of the same thing.
There was no doubt about what to do. I’m the gun person in our house, Maria wants some lessons.
In my other life, only the bad guys had guns, up here, all of the good guys have guns, and they are necessary on a farm. I’ve shot vicious roosters, rabid skunks and raccoons, dying lambs and a number of stricken hens. I am grateful to have my rifle. I have to say, I am pretty good at shooting. I am unfailingly safety-conscious, I took some classes when I got the rifle. I know where to shoot animals so they die instantly.
Shooting a lamb is the hardest thing for me, shooting a chicken is part of life.
We both knew the drill.
Maria said she would come with me, but I asked her to stay inside, her anniversary dawn was bumpy enough, she didn’t need to see the Red Hen get shot. When we got the Red Hen from the Gulley’s, the nation was in a panic about the Syrian refugees, Donald Trump was exploiting the first of his many xenophobic and ugly panics.
The Red Hen, at first rejected by the others, became a symbol to us of the agony of the refugees, suffering one horror after another, turned away by the country that invented safe haven and open hearts.
I loaded the gun carefully, checked to make sure the safety was on, made sure never to point it at anything I didn’t want to shoot, kept the clip in my pocket until I was ready to shoot the hen. I found her out by the garbage can, looking disoriented, she was a bloody mess.
I thanked her for her eggs and her presence her, as Maria has taught me to do.
I pointed the gun, turned the safety off and fired four shots in rapid order into her heart, she flopped right to the ground, twitched for a few seconds and was still. I carried her to the outer pasture and tossed her out into the woods, a gift to the animals of the forest. Back to nature.
Then Maria and I sat out by the apple tree, had tea, exchanged gifts. We just had to laugh.
I gave her a necklace and a scarf (above) and she gave me a necklace made out of a beaded heart, which I love dearly. We sat quietly and talked happily, and are getting start again, we’ll plant some trees and flowers, go out for brunch. This afternoon, I’m taking her to dinner at the new Japanese/Thai restaurant in Bennington. More later.
So far, the perfect and very fitting Bedlam anniversary, the sixth year marking the happiest and most fulfilled days of my life. In a sense, wonderful reminder of who we both are and where we both are in our amazing lives together.
Love is the point.
Off to shower.
