Old Friends

Old Friends

GRAYCE

Each morning I see grace.  The kids named the cat Grace, really Grayce. 

It's comforting to know that grace is on our farm on this frigid day when I come out too late and the roosters are complaining. There is Grayce circling the corner of the barn rubbing out her desires like furry Morse code.  "Feed me," she demands.  

That grace would be a color, I wonder.  It is fitting, the color gray. We certainly wouldn't need grace in a black and white world.  Grace in the muddy mixes where right and wrong, wise and unwise are all so mingled like hairs, matted, now that's where grace lives.

TIGER

I feed Grayce and Tiger, our faithful mousers.  They are the "barn cats," part wild, part pet.  Really they are only pets for the 5 minute meals in the morning, and then again, for 5 minutes at dusk.  These are the moments I am forced to be still.  If someone doesn't stand here guarding them as they eat, a chicken, or rooster will flap and peck and demand cat food , chasing off the                                                                    skittish scaredy cats.

So I stand guard, a little impatiently, and tidy up the perimeter that I guard, smooth out the hay, look for pretty feathers, and shiny things- yes, too much time spent with chickens!   Then a breeze, and I smell chicken, oil really, the smell of injury and discontent.  Hmm, the dogs haven't chased the flock this morning, but I wonder what might have gotten into the holey barn last night.  The cats finish, finally, and skitter out like the wild creatures they are.

I follow the oily scent over dusty half-walls, under hay mangers, through piled up feed sacks, and finally see him propped up, claws curled in the dark corner of the barn.  Oh my. You are not long for this life, I think, but tell him instead, "You're going to be just fine.  Let's warm you up old man. Let's find the sunshine Longbeak.  You are going to feel better soon."

I didn't plan to spend the morning with a rooster, didn't think I'd be sitting with him while he suffered and shivered, didn't suppose that I would get to see what I saw. The crooked neck rooster choosing to preen Longbeak’s feathers gently as he lay shivering on my lap, no pecking his eyes out, only

lovingly preening him. This affection shortly after I admonished the relatively healthy rooster, "It was not that long ago that you lay here like this on the edge of death. Remember how you suffered?  Don't you dare peck at him." The tenderness between friends, old friends, reflected in chickens.  How is this?  Oh, I cannot ignore this glimpse, pretend it didn’t happen, suppose that my flock is not connected more deeply than I imagined.

Our social Mr. Crooked Neck

 I cared for Crooked Neck too, warm water, syringes of yogurt fed drop by drop into his unwilling beak. Yet, he refused to die.  Now here is Longbeak on the edge, and so much older.  Just let go, I think.  Move on and stop the madness.  He had struggled with a non-compliant crooked beak that grew longer than it should, and the use of only one eye.  As I was lobbying for death and thinking of all of the liabilities, what was Crooked Neck saying to him?

Some mornings, before this injury and after the weather turned bitter, Longbeak would search me out once the flock had run roadrunner style to the bushes to scrounge up grub. He would walk as if on his tip toes towards me politely asking, "Sorry to bother you, but I'm starving. Spare some cat food? " I would fill cupped hands and offer it to his good eye. He pecked gingerly as if afraid to insult me with his greed. A gentle soul, patient and unassuming. Yes, all this in a rooster.

Poor Frozen Boy

We call him Longbeak which makes us all laugh since a friend pointed out that it sounded like a pirate name. This name funnier still, when you figure in the one eye. Wonder if he'd keep a patch on? He already looked like he was wearing a puffy white shirt. 

Poor, sweet creature, his wattles frozen. They hang purple-black and swollen.  The once crimson and delicate wattles now torn like tissue paper and weighted like water balloons.  I rub salve on every surface and finally leave him in a spare wire cage underneath a heat lamp.  He can barely stand and it seems the cold had damaged his equilibrium as well.  I walk away not hoping for life, but instead a merciful death.

Why can’t I extend mercy?  Is this the time to end his suffering and perform the tailpipe maneuver?  The tailpipe maneuver is when you place a near death creature in a feed sack, bind the end of the feed sack to the tailpipe of your car and run the engine for about 5 minutes.  They go to sleep.  There is no neck wringing or room for missed gunshots, there is simply sleep for a soul that just cannot suffer another minute.  And why not mercy now for Longbeak?  He is at least 8 years old.  We raised him from a chick.  He has survived and survived.  Why not help him to a peace that he                                                                                                 deserves?  

I can’t answer that, except that today is a day try to save and today is not a day to count losses.  Sometimes, you feel deep in your gut that you just have to try.  Sometimes there is frozen black stuff in the muddy and matted, and in your teasing it out you just hope that grace wins…and you really hope that you will know what it looks like when you see it.

The above snippet was written several weeks ago.  Today this is Longbeak.

Our boy Longbeak is a survivor!   He goes to bed each night near the heat lamp (his choice).  He still begs politely for cat food, and once in a while he allows me to pick him up and stroke his feathers- as long as none of the other roosters are watching of course.  He continues to hang out with his friend Crooked Neck.

Not That You Are Asking For My Advice....

Not that you are asking for my advice…

On a routine basis someone will say to me.  “I’ve always want to farm-to dig deep into fertile soil-to grow things.”  I could just break into song, a Dixie Chick classic.  ”I wanna touch the earth, wanna break it in my hands, wanna grow something wild and unruly.  Cowboy ta-aa-ake me away.”  

On days like today-cold, clean, grace-filled days where the dust caked cob webs look like planned art and the barn dust itself glitters gold in the sun-shot crystal air, the beauty exceeds the losses.  These days are “to the brim,” hope-filled! 

The brain cells fairly pop with anticipation. Maybe in the Spring I’ll get a few more sheep, and maybe I’ll try to breed the goats AGAIN just to prove to myself that I believe in miracles.  Perhaps if I change the goats’ names to Elizabeth and Sarah, God will bless them in their old age with kids.  Maybe a few more chickens and ducks.  A burro would be fun right?  I need one just so I can say “ass.”  My kids are cautioned against swearing on this farm, but there is something cleansing about hauling off and calling a stubborn creature an ass! 

“More,” and “new,” look beautiful on a day like this when nobody is sick, or maimed, or looking puny.  But, I know fully that there are too many snapshots of the lost pinned onto this heart.  Tragedy is a constant on this parcel of dirt.  I can’t walk 50 paces without recalling which animal is buried where, or thinking. “Here is where I held that sweet hen, Timon, who died in my arms, or here is where the rusty feathered wing of my favorite rooster, Squarky, lay, or there is where all of the cows lined up to mourn when the baby calf, Mo-Mo, died.

If you were asking for my advice, I might tell you to “Stick with plants. Be happy with their wild and unruly.  Be happy that you don’t have to force yourself to think happy thoughts every time you look into a cow’s face just to keep yourself from bursting into sobs.”   But, if you only contented yourself with plants, you might miss out.

You would never hear the rooster’s low coo and watch his chivalry as he brings choice insects to the hens, never eating first, always giving the hens the first fruits, the juiciest grubs.  You wouldn't notice the two roosters who wrapped their necks together tenderly for warmth just this morning.  You wouldn't feel yourself giggle at the goats running and jumping on an unseasonably warm day looking like Santa’s reindeer attempting flight.  And you wouldn't see those same goats pirouetting to eat the too-tall privet hedge carving it into a tunnel.   You wouldn’t hear the emphatic glee in the duck’s quacks on the cold days-the dreary puddle filled days.  You know, those days where you want to live in sweat pants, curl up in a blanket, and not face the bleak.  Those are the days that ducks live for!  I find myself eager to go out on those days now, just to hear their enthusiasm!  If you stayed safe, only raised greens and flowers and fruit, you would miss it!

So if indeed you are asking for my advice- DO IT!  Buy the farm. Dig in the dirt until your nails won’t come clean again. Raise some chickens.  Name all of the animals.  Rejoice in the first egg and also in the last breath.  Know that we are connected to what we eat and invariable whom we eat (Clucky, or Bessie, or Foghorn Leghorn).  In fact, we are connected by the souls to the creatures in our care. 

If you choose to live risky, then know that the losses will come, and the money will utterly fly from your hands like a game of 52 pick up.  However, the  joys, the joys will change you, soften you, harden you, mold you into a wrinkled and creased being wise to life's unfolding. Wise to behold the sparkle in the hatching of a new life all downy and tissue covered and wise to embrace also the dull marrow-aching departure of a friend. The gains? The losses? No spreadsheet can contain the truth-the truth that being close to the dirt, caring for creatures, succeeding, and even suffering makes you feel whole. 

  

“Cowboy ta-aa-ke me away.  Fly this girl as high as you can into the wild blue.  Set me free-ee.  Oh, I pray.  Closer to Heaven above, and closer to you.” –Dixie Chicks