Emotive Acres Blogspot

The Lord Giveth, the Lord Taketh Away

2010-05-08T09:01:00.000-07:00

Last February, Cookies and Cream, our Flemish Giant Rabbit doe, gave birth to a litter of kittens. We knew she had, because we'd watched her carefully craft her nest for a week-or-so beforehand. When the babies came, we were terribly impressed with what a good mama she was. She protected them with loud thumps of her giant feet, and cuddled gingerly into the nest so that they could nurse. One day, however, the children came to me with great concern. CC's nest had collapsed, and she seemed to be walking mindlessly over where her kittens used to rest. I dug through the hay as deep as I could, but found no trace of the baby rabbits. It seemed as though the entire litter had just disappeared, like it had never been.

I did a quick Google search, and learned a startling reality: sometimes adult rabbits will eat their young. I realized that this winter had been a pretty severe one, and though CC's hutch was in the barn, it wasn't beyond reason to think that she might have devoured her kits for self-preservation, and to protect them from the cold (a kitten-Kevorkian, if you will). However it happened, several lives were lost.

How was I supposed to explain this to the children? How could I have it make sense for them, spiritually, without making them worry that I might have already sized them up for the crock pot? Luckily, I didn't have to explain anything. It just so happened that the concern over the disappearing rabbit kittens was swept away by excitement over newly-expected cat kittens. The same day that CC's babies disappeared, Sweetie Pie, one of our barn cats, came waddling home to us with a belly swollen full of babies, and several lives were gained.

We put CC's modest proposal out of our minds as we watched Sweetie Pie grow wider with little ones. After about four and a half weeks, the children found a little pink kitten covered in blood on the floor of the barn. "We think Sweetie Pie is having her babies!" they cheered, but were quick to realize that the one they'd found hadn't moved; a life had been lost. They laid the underdeveloped little creature in a basket full of hay, and let it be until another animal carried it off. Later that afternoon, we noticed movement under the hay of CC's hutch. Buried down deep by their mama, the baby rabbits had survived, and were ready come to the light and be loved. Six lives were gained.

Sweetie Pie had three babies about two weeks later. She hid them in a nest of hay. Still very much a kitten herself, Sweetie Pie didn't understand how to nurse her babies, so a little white kitten starved to death after a few days. We brought Sweetie Pie and her remaining two into the house with us and trained her to be a mama, and are now rewarded by two of the most precious baby cats we've ever seen.

In the meantime, our last pregnant nanny seemed to be holding onto her babies for an unusually long time. We'd watched her udder drop and grow heavy with milk, while her belly kicked and twitched. When the shape of her belly changed from looking like she'd swallowed a grocery cart to looking like she'd swallowed a canoe, we were on the edge of our seats. Surely it was time! But Annie stayed this way for the next four-or-so weeks. It baffled us. Her belly didn't seem to be twitching any more. She seemed less aware of her load. If it hadn't been for the canoe in her gut, she wouldn't have seemed pregnant at all. We were very worried, and watched her like hawks.

At home we had a baby pygmy goat named Billie*, whom we'd hand-raised from the day he was born. Do you remember when our beloved filly, Milly, was euthanized? It just so happens that the Sunday of Milly's death was also the day of Billie's birth. One life was lost, and one life was gained. Because Billie was bottle raised from birth, he really considered himself a part of our family. All six of us participated in regular feedings, cuddling and play time. He was more expressive in his love than our dogs. We loved him like one of our own.

Shortly after Billie was old enough to leave our garage and sleep in the barn, he began to develop a nasty cough. John found him one afternoon asleep on a lawn chair, covered with flies. Alarmed, John brought the baby goat inside and treated him with electrolytes and sugar. The little goat seemed to recover quickly; he was walking around again and his eyes had recovered their clarity. He still had a slight cough, but seemed to be no worse for ware.

This morning, I called out to him as I usually do when I walked outside to cut some chives for our breakfast. Billie cried back to me with urgency. "Ma!" he was screaming, as if calling my name, "Ma!!" Hearing the desperation in his voice, I rushed into the barn to find him flat on his side under the door of the chicken coop. He was determined in his cry for me, but he couldn't bring himself to rise. I lifted Billie into my arms and cradled him into a basket. John and I tried to get him to take down some juice, but he refused. When he began to fall into seizures, we knew that he was dying.

Billie lingered for a few hours more, but gave up his final breath as I wrote the words of this blog. He died to the sound of my husband consoling me, while I tearfully reassured the baby goat in his final throws. "Don't ever let anybody tell you that was just a goat," John insisted.

It is unusual for me to abandon a piece of my writing before it's completed, but I decided to clear my head with some good, hard farm work. As I made my way out to the barn, there was a sound that made my heart leap. I could have sworn I heard Billie's cry. I heard it again, and was now sure that it was his voice. Then I heard the cry doubled, as if the voice had been split in two. As I peered over the gate of the goat pen, I was amazed to see a very slender Annie laying proudly beside two awake, alive, and completely engaged baby pygmies. I fell to my knees and buried my face in the soft fur of the newborn kid, and let my tears flow openly. One life was lost, and two lives were gained.

I don't know why life comes and goes with such unpredictability, and I don't know how we mortals continue to walk strong despite the awareness of our fragility. But there we go. Ready to love again immediately after loss; ready to laugh again immediately after tears. This is why there is salvation in hardship; this is why there is joy in pain. God has an awesome system working here on earth. We must only pray that we are always working with it!

*"Billie Goat Gruff" was the first born kid of Billy Idol.

It's Freaking COLD Out Here!

2010-02-18T09:13:00.000-08:00

I knew when I moved to the mountains that it would be cold. I tried, really tried, to prepare myself for it. Before I knew that I'd become a mountain woman, I spent a good twenty-or-so years of my life getting my blood used to the warm ocean breezes of the east coast. New Jersey rarely would provide more than an aggravating chill and inconvenient slush during the heart of the winter. Following New Jersey, my Miami, Florida residency got me used to Christmas shopping in 80 degree weather; I sang "Jingle Bells" to the hum of my car's blasting air conditioner. But this season, oh this season, is like nothing I've ever felt before.

The season seemed to start out subtle enough. As the weather began to turn, I did not fool myself into thinking I'd be strong enough to take even the slightest whisper of frozen air. I kept ahead of the dropping thermometer by layering clothes. I visited Walgreens and bought myself the ugliest set of long, thermal underwear I could find - in several different colors. Over my underwear went a pair of sweat pants, two pair of jeans, a bib and snow pants. On top, my extravagantly-priced Victoria's Secret knit sweaters, the warmest I owned, were layered in threes over my thermal undershirt, a dance skin, and a thoroughly padded bra. I wore four pairs of socks under rubber work boots, and two pairs of work gloves. My heavy brown Stetson served as a shield to block the wind from my face, while my thick hair hung down to protect my ears. I quickly learned that, especially in the winter, barn clothes can expect to see the laundry no more than once per month.

The layering happened in stages, of course, increasing in fabric as the weather decreased in temperature. But when the true cold set in, when winter really showed us her teeth, I could have worn a suit of baked potatoes and still not have found warmth. The temperature got so cold that I honestly wondered if I would begin to lose appendages. My toes hurt so badly that I thought one bad stub would send them shattering into pieces. My fingers could not get warm - in fits of freezing, I'd often remove my gloves, cover my fingers in the dust of horse treats, and stick my whole hand into the hot mouth of our mare. I was more prepared to feed her a finger than to lose one to the frigid air. My nose, cheek bones, and the tips of my ears felt as though someone were holding blue flame to them, and I couldn't smile for fear my gums would freeze and drop all my teeth. I checked the weather during one such night, and saw that though the temperature was in the high single digits, the wind chill made it "feel like 0." Feel like zero? Like nothing? Like we're so cold that numbness overtakes us and we can't feel a thing? Hardly! This felt more like one of the deeper circles of Hell, and I was desperate to find a Beatrice who would lead me out.

The city girl in me entertained thoughts of abandoning my chores, of pushing them off until the weather became more accommodating. I work hard, I deserve it! It's too cold, I'm entitled! These are the days when you let your dog pee ten feet from your back steps, so that you can hold his leash in the warmth of your doorway. But when you live on a farm, there are so many little lives depending on you, that abandoning chores is not a possibility. Horses need water. Rabbits need feed. Goats need to be milked. There is something divine about the practice of being human on a farm; little lives depend on us for regulation, little tummies depend on us for sustenance, little creatures live and die by our hand. The responsibility of orchestrating a working hobby farm is empowering, but it also requires dedication and sacrifice. When the choice is taken away from us, when "pushing it off" or "waiting it out" is not an option, it is amazing to learn what we are capable of.

I remember reading a story in Daniel Quinn's Tales of Adam, in which Adam, the first man, is teaching his son Able to hunt rabbit. Able shivers and whimpers and complains about the cold. Adam chastises Able, telling him to take off his heavy clothes, because it is the clothes that are making him cold. Sure enough, as Able removes his clothes, he learns that his human body was equipped to take the weather's punishment. Once he quit seeing the cold as his enemy, and saw it instead as an entity to be worked with and through, his shivering ceased. I took that lesson to heart, working through the bitter mountain air not with the thought that it was too cold, but with the acceptance that cold is good. We need the cold to make our farm work. We want the cold to strengthen our resolve.

We came to Emotive Acres in early November, only breaths before the frigid winter would move in. What a time to start a farm! How we had to encourage ourselves to remember that warmer days are ahead! Now that the weather is beginning to break, the snow is turning to water and the water survives the night without freezing, it is as if our steadfast determination is being rewarded. When the Spring comes home again, it will be greeted on Emotive Acres with chickens, and bees, and fish and fruit. But for now, we've learned to love the cold. During chores the other night, I found myself overheating under my layers. I peeled off jackets and sweaters, overalls and gloves. I pushed up my sleeves and wiped sweat from my brow. I checked the weather that night, and saw that the temperature had been recorded at 32 degrees - the temperature I used to call "freezing." We've survived the shortest days and the coldest nights this year would throw at us, and we came out more joyful and productive than when we went in. I will never see cold as the enemy again.

To Cry with a Horse

2010-02-12T09:25:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday afternoons, I teach a class that lasts until 2:35. This means that Violette, whose school lets out at 2:15pm, is usually stuck doing homework in the library until I'm able to sift through the stampede of students and make my way out to pick her up. This particular Tuesday afternoon, John was in the city for a business meeting, and took it upon himself to bring our girl home and rescue her from longer hours closed in by educational walls. The two had a ball together; Violette is a Daddy's girl in every sense of the term. Violette is also, however, a prepubescent girl. Anyone who has ever been a prepubescent girl, or who has ever been in the vicinity of a prepubescent girl, understands that the delicate time between eleven and twelve years old hides massive landmines for parents. We never can guess when we'll step on one and cause our sweet little angel to blow up. Call it our own parents' retribution. Violette has always been a well mannered pre-adolescent, to be sure. But as parents, we can tell when the switch goes off, and we're suddenly on her "list." On this Tuesday, in the midst of their farm-play, John offered Violette some deer sausage, a freebie gift he'd gotten from our local meat processor. He didn't, of course, tell Violette that she was eating venison. Not until she asked for another, and a third, and possibly a fourth. Then he dropped the bomb. They'd been eating Bambi's mother.

Violette was horrified. Her demeanor went cold. Her smile disappeared, and volume of her silent treatment was a torment to her poor dad. John was cool about it, recognizing his faux pas, and offering Violette the chance to go inside and shake it off. Violette refused, and threw her energy into mucking out the stalls of her horses. When the stalls were clean, she put her foot down and told her father that she would be fetching the horses today - alone.

And so she did. Violette made her way out into the pasture, where the first face she met was that of our sweet, freckled Appaloosa yearling, Milly. Violette was still wrestling with her anger toward her father and the new hormones that were firing up and exacerbating the bad feelings when she reached out to touch the nose of the filly. Milly stretched toward the girl's hand and flared her nostrils. It was Violette's cue to let down the barricade and wash the emotions out. She cried, she wailed, she yelled, she stomped. Milly watched her, patiently, attentively. Every so often, Milly would nod her head in agreement with the little girl, giving Violette a sense of honest validation. Milly stayed with Violette until her tirade was complete. Then, as they both breathed a heavy sigh, they turned together and walked side-by-side to the barn. Violette was healed, and returned to her joyful, creative self.

The following weekend, my husband found Milly stretched out on the floor of her stall. The poor filly had contracted a tape worm infestation that was ready to claim her life. She'd dropped an enormous amount of weight, and there was no regiment of hay or grain that would replenish the nutrition she had lost. We'd tried so very hard over our three months with her to bring her back to health, but it was impossible to save her. The vet visited her that day, and reluctantly told us that euthanasia was her only option.

I was crushed. I laid my head on her cheek and sobbed until I was out of breath. I cried until my eyes burned and my nose throbbed. I told her how much I loved her. I told her how sorry I was for letting this happen to her. I thanked her, most of all, for saving our daughter.

Then the time came to tell Violette what had happened. The news hit our girl like a punch to the gut. She chose to retreat into the barn and invest her energy into her chores, but the sight of Milly's empty stall registered like an icy hole in her heart. It was freezing outside. We were up to our calves in snow, and the bitter wind chill dropped temperatures well below zero. In spite of the weather, I asked Violette to walk with me, and she did. We made our way out to Sunshine's shelter, a memorial for the horse we'd lost during our first night. The wind whipped at our faces, and bit with fiery teeth into our noses and ears. Violette was unfazed. She had no Milly to vent her feelings to, so she vented them into the wind.

Violette screamed things I never thought I'd hear my daughter say. Her words were dark, they were painful, they were real. The wind caught the words and muted her voice before they could reach beyond our shelter, but I was there to hear. Hearing her cry out made me remember what it is to be an eleven year old girl. It's the first time we encounter the dark side of our psyche. It's the first time we entertain thoughts of death, of devastation, of betrayal and of hatred. It's the first time things seem so dark, so unmanageable, that we consider what this world would be like without us. It's the first time we weigh the severity of our pain against the significance of our life.

Having let it out, and having frozen ourselves into numbness, Violette and I returned to the house - she to her room, I to the kitchen. The purgation she'd endured in Sunshine's shelter left her exhausted, but began her healing. As the family trickled back to the home and settled in, Violette emerged from her room, smiling silently, to give us each a loving hug. Before night fell, she had written a letter to Milly and enclosed it in a box with hay, a horse treat, and an old bridle.

Milly was a wonderful presence on our farm. She was sweet and docile, gentle and unassuming. She will be missed forever. But even in her death, she healed my daughter. And she healed me a little, too. I could finally let the eleven-year-old girl inside of me rest, because my daughter had just vented all of our pain into the wind of Emotive Acres. I was able to put that pain in its place. Violette, unfortunately, sill has many big moments like this to go. I can't be more grateful, however, that so early in her life she learned to cry with a horse.

The Honor of the Acres

2009-12-30T07:54:00.000-08:00

Our oldest boy, Honor, has always had a unique relationship to the natural world. As a preschooler, his eyes would light up every time his dad would offer a handful of wriggling worms for the coy pond. Honor's lips would curl into a grinchy smile as he'd cackle, "It's chow time!" In later years, I would watch Honor peer out of our sliding glass door at cocky suburban deer, would wander fearlessly into our backyard and help themselves to my herbs. Under his breath, Honor would mutter "Oh, Mama... if only we had a gun... we'd eat for weeks." Now, Honor isn't a violent fellow, by any means. He is gentle as a dove. We housed a baby squirrel for a few months once, and Honor tended to it like its bushy tailed mama. But Honor has a remarkable ability to look into the sweet, adoring eyes of one of God's furry little creatures, and see his lunch. I believe that, given permission, Honor would walk right up to a grazing heifer and stick his knife and fork into her rump, and he'd call it barbecue.

The other day, as Lila and I were watching the goats graze in our back yard, Honor approached us from the wooded depths of the pasture. He was bundled up like an Eskimo, and carried a slingshot in one hand and a pocket knife in the other. He looked like a savage warrior, back from the hunt. Not long ago, he'd gone be be hunting with John and Xavier. He had just missed a meaty blackbird, shooting the branch below it and sending it off in a flurry of feathers. Ever since, he'd had a determined look in his eye. This day, he was after rabbit.

I asked Honor if they'd hit anything. He pursed his lips and said, "Nope. Saw it twice. Got away." He was gazing blankly at the goats, and I couldn't tell if he was seeing his pets or his dinner.

Lila and I sat watching him for a moment, unsure as to how to continue the conversation. Lila then gave me a nudge and a nod. Reading her mind, I stood and said, "Well, time to bring the goats back to the pen!"

Goats are not dogs. They do not come when told to. Tugging the leads around their necks only gives them cause to dig their hooves into the ground and play tug-o-war. Eventually, I plan to have these animals so familiar with Emotive Acres that they will be happy to do as we please. But as of yet, the goats go limp when forced to move, and its like transporting a hundred-pound sack of jell-o. I was only able to take one at a time (and I was only barely able to do that), so I did my little muscle-warming dance and bent down to pick up the billy goat.

"I'll carry him," said Honor the warrior.

"Really?" I said. "He's heavy."

"Don't worry about it," Honor said, "I got this."

Then, after cracking his back with a meditative stretch, Honor knelt down and picked up the little billy goat. The goat shifted and squirmed, forcing Honor to toss him up and catch him several times on his chest, but eventually the little goat went limp. "Gotcha," Honor said. The billy goat puckered his lips, stuck out his little pink tongue gingerly to Honor's ear, and said:

"MmmEEEEEEeeHHHHHHHHH!"

Honor was unfazed. We began the trek to the Goat pen, and his mind stayed focused. "Betcha his babies will make a lot of food," Honor said.

"MEEEEEHHHHH!" the billy goat shouted in his ear.

"And his fur is so soft. We could make clothes and stuff out of it."

"MEEEEHHHHHH!!" the billy goat was practically sucking on Honor's earlobe.

"Do you think when he dies, we can eat Billy too?"

"MEEEEEEEHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

If the little goat could have had symbols and a marching band parading in front of Honor with banners of protest, I'm sure he would have. But Honor wasn't concerned. His love for the little goat wasn't in question. When we finally reached the gate, Honor dropped the jelly-filled goat load and let Billy recover. Then Honor looked at the goat and smiled so sweetly. He reassured the little creature with his loving brown eyes, and all of our hears were pacified. The billy goat remained by Honor's side, in complete trust. Honor loved the goat in a way that he could understand, and all that mattered to the Billy was that at this moment, he was being cared for.

All animals have their responsibility to Emotive Acres, whether their lives are long and they give us milk and clothing, or their lives are short and they feed us with their meat. There is no cause for us to feel guilty, when we've given each creature so full of a life. It doesn't matter when their lives end or for what reason; the fact that we've loved that creature throughout its time on earth is what is important. Honor, I think, has always understood this in a way that most adults do not. Honor appreciates life in the moment, he appreciates love in the now. An attitude like that is truly what it means to be "honorable."

Goats go to Hell?

2009-12-23T05:42:00.000-08:00

Goats have never been on my radar. I know that they are a farm staple, but I'd never thought I'd have much use for them. In all my culinary experimentation, I'd never acquired a taste for goat milk and cheese, so I couldn't foresee getting much use of their dairy. And though I've never eaten goat babies, I imagine they taste like lamb, and I'd given up on lamb long ago when my grandma surprised me with it at a tender young age. But as we get to know the people of Owensville, my mind is forced to open up to all possibilities of stewardship. Each time I mentioned my desire to raise a cow for dairy and for beef, I was met with uproarious laughter at my suburban naivete. I was told many times to start with goats, and work my way up to cows. It is cheaper, creates less waste, and consumes less time. So, Emotive Acres adopted two little brown goats this week, completely on blind faith.

We brought home Billy Idol, our billy goat, first. We hadn't yet secured the goat pen, so he spent his first Emotive Acres night in the barn with the horses and the cats. At first I wasn't terribly disturbed by his appearance. He scurried around like a little hoofed dog wearing a helmet. But when I found myself alone with him after the sun had set, I was sure that he'd haunt my nightmares. His head looked like that of a battle-ready Klingon, and I'd seen demons and devils prancing around on those little cleft hoofs in far too many illustrations. He could dematerialize and slide in and out of secure horse pens, and in the midst of the stillest silence he would appear, airborne, from the dark shadows of the barn and land with all four feet on the loudest object in the area. It was like a Japanese horror film. What had I done?

Then I thought of something my husband had taught me. A prey animal like our goat needs to be dominated. Its job is to be afraid, to run, to look out. Prey animals look for some good domination so that, in their submission, they may feel secure. At the time I couldn't have been sure whether this advice were true, or whether it was just more of Farmer John's sexy talk. But I decided to give it a try. I shook some goat treats in my hand to catch Billy's interest. Once I knew that his curiosity was peaked, I took a running leap across the barn floor, and clasped both hands around his curved horns. I'd forgotten to pull my knees underneath me, so he wiggled and kicked and gave me belly burn over the concrete. I pulled myself to my feet, covered head to toe in horse dust, but managed to maintain my grip. Billy kicked and bucked, but I held tight. Eventually I got my hooks under his haunches, tucked his head under my arm, and landed my butt on a wooden box that rested against our filly's stall. Exhausted, sweating, and gasping for air, I told him to sleep.

Billy struggled and fussed for a few moments, then, like a child who has cried himself to sleep, he rested and sighed. He seemed to trust me, miraculously, the creature who had just wrestled him into submission. My predatory curiosity was now peaked. I ran my hands over his body, feeling for the pockets of meat and imagining what that meat would look like served to my family. Fearing the goat could read my mind and the prodding of my fingers, I reassured him that he was one of the lucky ones who would likely not end up as our meal. But in that moment, it didn't seem to matter. Billy didn't care whether or not I was going to kill him. He just cared that in that moment I was strong, I was calm, and I was loving.

I remember an old Cake song I'd sung along with in high school, which alluded to the Biblical verse of Matthew 25:31-41. In this verse, God separates the world's nations as a shepherd separates goats and sheep. Thus, as Cake stated so plainly, "sheep go to heaven, goats go to hell." Given their sinister appearance, I can't say that I blame the early theologians for painting goats as the demon-sheep. But as I shared my quiet time with my own little goat, I was amazed at how Christlike his behavior was. Goats seem to have an uncanny acceptance for their fate as prey animals. Though they use what God gave them for protection, once they have surrendered to the power of their predator, the vibration they give off is breathtaking. It is an aura of transcendence; no longer does the goat wish to run, buck and fight. He understands that at any moment, his life may end at the hands of someone stronger. The peace that comes along with such absolute surrender is enviable, especially to the hearts of us complex humans. We move around our crowded society in suspicion of one another, constantly guarded against pain in all its forms. When we meet that pain, it is not a simple disruption of our normal, satisfied state. When we meet that pain, it is cataclysmic. It exacerbated with layers of I should have protected myself... and I can't believe I let that happen to me again!

Humanity would do well to adopt the quality of the goat. Love and death happen simultaneously for the goat, as a goat surrenders its fight not out of fear, but in love. If we accept that we are prey to God only, that only He chooses when our life's journey is to end, then we have nothing to fear of one another. That is not to say that we shouldn't have common sense about the dangers that humans can pose to one another. I didn't learn to shoot a gun for nothing. But when the crazy arises, when we're feeling suffocated by stress, attacked by others, or abused by our imagination, we must feel God's hands around our horns. When we feel the most panicked, the most out of control, we must rest, and sigh, and surrender to the stronger being. If we do so in love, we will see that the causes of our concerns were gifts. They were opportunities for to feel closer to God through His domination, so that we may feel owned, we may feel loved, and we may feel safe.

Farmers' Knowledge

2009-11-30T04:27:00.001-08:00

I screened a Frontline documentary this morning that I intend to show to my composition class. The documentary was an expose' on the internet culture, called "Growing Up Online." I've had internet connection since I was in early middle school; I can still remember waiting for hours to the sound of the screeching modem, praying that AOL would hook me up with the rest of the world before the overcrowding would boot me off. I guess I've grown up with the internet. It has given me a Matrix-like sense of being an instant expert at anything and everything. I have confidence to take on new tasks because, even if I don't know the proper protocol, I know that Google does. And for the most part, Google is an extremely willing teacher. But I'm learning that internet knowledge is actually far behind that of your average, hard working farmer. And I'm not just talking about spiritual knowledge, though such a topic would be worthy of a blog all its own. Farmers tend to know things that are far too bizarre for any of us internet junkies to even think about searching - there are more things, I suppose, in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our cyber philosophy.

When we bought our gelding, Junior, he was an all-pasture-all-the-time horse. As a result, he came to us with a severe case of rain rot over his back and hind quarters. Rain rot is a nasty bacteria that latches onto a horse's skin if he's been out in the rain for too long. In extreme cases like Juniors', it will form a hard, wart-like shell over the infected area. Though the rot doesn't hurt or itch the poor guy, a quick Google search told me that it could lead to nastier infections that would require a vet's attention. We certainly didn't want this for our gelding, so I searched, "How do I get rid of rain rot on a horse?" The search turned up pages upon pages of warnings and advertisements, all of which seemed to insist that my animal cruelty will be a mark against my soul if I did not buy any one of the expensive, anti-bacterial, anti-microbial horse shampoos that the websites were promoting.

It just so happened that our dog, led by Spirit, escaped Emotive Acres one day to visit with our neighbors, who were out for some riding lessons. During our retrieval of Sampson, John and I struck up a conversation, and managed to share Junior's plight with our newfound friends. "Listerine!" our neighbor cheered, throwing his arms up so that we could read The Church Has Left the Building painted boldly across his chest. "Listerine will make the rain rot go away just like that!" Listerine? Such a remedy was nowhere on the internet. Nowhere connected to my search terms, anyway. I asked his wife where she'd heard of such a remedy, and she shrugged. "Don't know where I heard it," she said. "I just took out a bottle, poured it on my horse one day, and the rot just came right out."

Some years ago, while leaning over my husband's motorcycle to fix my make up in his rear view, I got too close to his pipes and seared a grapefruit-sized third degree burn onto the outside of my shin. The pain was excruciating - it just wouldn't quit. As we stopped for a beer at a secluded bar, an older lady approached me and winced at my boo boo. She was already three sheets to the wind; I think my blood alcohol level was raised when she exhaled on me to shout, "Mustard!" Sure enough, we lathered my wound in mustard and the pain went away instantly.

This kind of advice can only be given human to human; it has no place on the web. Certainly, when I search "mustard" with "burns" or "Listerine" with "rain rot," I stumble upon thousands of netgoers who have discovered the same gems. Yet I'm afraid my creativity is limited - I would no sooner think to type "Listerine" and "rain rot," than I would to search "Coca-cola" and "car engines." An internet search is only as good as the imagination of the searcher. Google has no excitement in its advice; it exhibits no eagerness to share useful information, or to guarantee that the information is both accessible and intriguing. A farmer, on the other hand, goes beyond the simple sharing of information, and adds thrill of discovery to his advice. A farmer will give no advice unless he's tried it out on his own land, animals or body first. In sharing his discovery, therefore, he is able to relive the excitement of success that he'd experienced when he first came upon the solution.

If the intellectual prowess of the internet is derived from the combined intellectual prowess of all its contributors, then certainly the breadth of knowledge it provides surpasses that of any individual. But breadth is not always best. A farmer's knowledge is a condensation of family teachings and first-hand experimentation. God has provided all that we need, a farmer knows this. Because small farmers generally operate on limited funds, they have a unique appreciation for the things they already have. Putting together the right patterns, discovering the simple household items or natural elements that can remedy a given problem, is like uncovering another of God's mysteries. It's a childish game; It's why farmers are never bored.

The very day of our neighborly conversation, John and I rushed out to pick up a bottle of Listerine. We poured the bottle over Junior's rot and, sure enough, it began to flake right off with the aid of a mane comb. He still has more treatments to go, but he is doing much better and seems to be much happier. Thanks to the unique qualities of farmers' knowledge, our bank account is safe, our horse is healthier, and our barn now wafts with the delightful scent of vanilla mint.

No, I Don't Mind the Commute

2009-11-22T04:48:00.000-08:00

Breaking the news that we've moved our family into the Ozark mountains and away from the city is like announcing that we've decided to become monks and nuns. "Why would you do that?" our suburbanite friends ask, not out of impoliteness, but out of genuine concern. "That's so far away - doesn't the commute kill you?" Monday through Friday, I drive an hour and a half into the city to teach literature and composition courses at the university. Some days are a breeze, and I'll arrive at my destination in an hour fifteen, giving me time to run to the ladies' room and dispose of the two cups of coffee I'd just sipped down from my enormous travel mug. Other days, if it's raining, if there's an accident or construction, or if it's rush hour, I'll make it there by the skin of my teeth. That's an adrenalin rush, let me tell you. But I've never been late.

I understand my dear suburbanites' concern. Commuting from home to the grocery store is a traumatic experience in the suburbs. Before we leave our houses, we check every door and window to make sure they're sealed tight, and then we head out, defenseless, into the world from which we've just protected all our most precious things. Out there in the world, we encounter road rage and gridlock, awkward social exchanges and the constant possibility that something we are doing could at any point be found offensive by somebody in our vicinity. It's why we speed; it's why we double park with our flashers on. We want to get in and out as fast as we can, and return from our thirty-minute adventure to the secluded safety of our den. My commute, however, is not a minor part of my day. Driving is not about transporting my body from one block to the next to pick up a gallon of milk. Three to five hours of my day are spent in the driver's seat of my CRV. The road has become an extension of my consciousness.

Wayne Dyer tells us that before we speak in public, we should take some time for quiet meditation. At the university, I'm on my feet speaking to more than a hundred students for more than six hours per day. My commute has made me a better teacher. Because most of my ride is through the open, rolling Ozarks, I am not bombarded by the overstimulation of towering glass buildings and flashy billboard advertisements. All is quiet, except for my thoughts. It is autumn now, so the land is covered with a patchwork of orange and red, yellow and brown. As I ride up and over, down and through the hills, it appears as though the earth is breathing, dreaming, occasionally adjusting herself to find a more comfortable way to lay. I transcend loneliness on that road, and I succumb to aloneness. It's the kind of aloneness I knew as a child without siblings; my mind bubbles with imagination and creativity, inspiring me to write with wild abandon, the way I did before I was seduced by the constraints of literary criticism.

Often I find myself wishing that my hands were free to do some knitting or writing, but I've found that forcing my hands to stay quiet has also opened the door to some lovely inspiration. With my hands and my eyes occupied by the drive, I've only my ears to entertain me. My commute has made me a better listener. My darling husband has burned CDs of audiobooks for me, catering to my love of stories. The other day, I brought down Professor Moriarty with Orson Wells (who, that day, was the voice of the great Sherlock Holmes) and I was later attacked by an army of little green men courtesy of Stephen King. Today I get to share some time with Garrison Keillor, a gift from a student of mine, and I'm sure that by the time I arrive home I will have laughed, cried, and cringed at the nostalgic stories of Lake Wobegon.

My commute reminds me of the long hours spent on the road with my father during cross country trips, and the seemingly endless rides on the Garden State Parkway when he and my mother would have their custody exchanges. I'm often reminded of my Pop pop, who at the dawning of his Alzheimers' could comment on how the trees in the parks made it look like we lived in a forest, and how every telephone pole was Christ's own cross. It is good for me to consult with the ghosts of my past during my ride. No matter how fast I go, no matter how windy the road, I can't outrun them. I'm forced to sit and talk with them, straightening out any residual confusion of my childhood, and reclaiming the optimism that confusion threatened to snuff out.

I am forced to confront the stress, worry and concern that all adults deal with during our hectic days. That stress is compounded by the fact that I can watch the miles tick down on Highway 44, knowing that there is nothing I can do to control my situation until the commute has had its way with me. I must sit with my obsessions, become nearly maddened by them, and then watch as the anxiety melts away on its own. Had I not taken that time with my stress, it would have been bottled up, occasionally coming out in minor explosions throughout my home and work times. I still act inappropriately, of course. I'm human, after all. But because I've been centered by the commute, my recovery time is much faster, and that recovery is more meaningful.

John's 42nd Birthday

2009-11-18T08:47:00.000-08:00

In mid-October, I blew all the cash I'd saved up for my husband's birthday on a black Resistol and oilskin duster. Though the cowboy attire was a much appreciated surprise gift for John at the time of its giving, I was quite distraught to see November 14th roll around without any funds for the celebration of his forty-second year. Yet the day came. And while money, it seems, may make the world go round, it has no power to stay the procession of the calendar. Nothing about the day had been planned, nothing had gone as expected, and everything was perfect.

The morning began with a brilliant pink sunrise over the Ozarks, a daily perk of life on Emotive Acres. John rose early, and happily accepted his steaming cup of coffee (one sweet 'n low, with a splash of milk) as the only gift I'd be able to offer him that morning. (I'd given him kisses, too, but those were all for me.) We ate a tummy-warming breakfast in our mid-renovation country kitchen, and suited up to turn out the horses. One by one, we lunged and turned out our stallion, our gelding, and our filly. Since this was John's special day, we decided it was time to get him on the back of our four-year-old mare for his very first ride around Emotive Acres.

A few days earlier, we'd made an unspoken agreement with our chihuahua that, as long as he stayed within Emotive Acres's property, we'd allow him to run free along with us as we worked the pasture. Chico had been adhering to our agreement, perhaps too closely. As soon as John slipped onto Bubbles's back, the chihuahua was at her heels, sniffing at her hooves. The sensation startled the mare, who managed to land a swift kick into the ribs of the little dog. Chico hollered as he flew through the air and slammed against the bars of the round pen. The chaos of the little dog caused Bubbles to rear and buck, just as John had stuck his hands in his pockets to retrieve some apple-flavored treats. John was airborne for a moment, bounced along Bubbles's wide frame, and managed to get a foot underneath him before breaking his fall with his rear end. This was to be Emotive Acres's first rodeo event. Chico, displeased, walked away with his tail between his legs, muttering under his breath. John, I am proud to say, managed to keep his hat on the whole time.

We did get a ride out of Bubbles that day, and John was very pleased. With the homestead in working order, we voyaged into town to pick up some bread and milk. As we arrived at the meat market, the most amazing smell of barbecued bratwurst wafted over to us. The brats were being cooked by a grinning fellow in a camouflage shirt, jeans, and a neon orange cap with tiny deer antlers protruding from the forehead. From under his mustache, he offered us some free samples. It was the best brat I'd ever tasted. Inside the market, however, was the real treat. Four local wineries had sent over their best bottles, and were offering free tastings to the people of Owensville. We ended up hanging there for nearly an hour, getting tipsy on little plastic cups of heaven and lunching on gourmet cheeses and free sausage. We celebrated with preachers and sinners, connecting with our fellow countrymen, loudly and jovially quoting Bible verses and country music songs. It was a joyous occasion.

That afternoon, our buddy Bull arrived at our doorstep with an arsenal of firearms. Seeing the unmistakable light in my husband's eyes, I politely ducked out and let the men play. Bull and John took the guns outside, strapped up some targets, and began to fire. The cracks of the gunfire split through the crisp mountain air, and held all living creatures at attention. After a while, the men invited me out to try my hand at the trigger. I was pretty good with the 22 rifle and the 22 pistol. Nearly hit the bulls eye each time. But then they put a heavy black beast in my hand. I hadn't expected much of the gun, and I suppose I'd gotten cocky from my first two experiences with firearms. But this time, as I pulled the trigger of the 38 special, the explosion in my hand sent me flying backward, and the noise was like a cold icepick to both eardrums. Not thinking, I flinched and covered my ears with my arms. The men hollered and dove for the gun, which was now flailing about as I tried to escape the ringing in my head. Bull managed to pry the gun from my fingers, and John sympathetically encouraged me to return to the safety of home for my recovery. "But you did really great!" he insisted. He's so sweet.

The night rounded out with a delicious homemade steak dinner, and our nightly barn ritual. I've planned a few birthday parties for John, always topping the last occasion with grander festivities and elaborate surprises. This birthday didn't cost a smidge of time or money, yet John insists that it was his best. Such is the life we've created on Emotive Acres. We've learned to surround ourselves with simple delights that supersede any urban need for pomp and circumstance. Every day is a celebration of life and birth. Each new sunrise commemorates our existence here on earth. We are truly blessed to have stumbled upon the amazing rewards of stewardship, and we look forward to sharing those rewards with any who visit these Emotive Acres.

Xavier's Barrel Fire

2009-11-09T12:07:00.000-08:00

It was midday on our farm. I was washing dishes, when over the noise of the faucet I heard the unmistakable sobs of my seven-year-old, Xavier. He came rushing into the house, buried his face in my apron, then fell with his tush on the floor to expose a few deep red cuts that had opened up on his knees.

“What happened?” I asked, dropping to a knee and sympathetically sucking air through my teeth. “Oooh, those look deep. Howdja get that?”

“The… the bush…” he said between gulps of air. “It had all these stickers and thorns and they… they got all scraped up in my knees and stuff…”

“Woah,” boomed a deep voice from behind me. I turned my head to see who had cast such a powerful shadow over us. It was my husband, who towered above us in his dark work vest, jeans and boots. His blue eyes were piecing under his black Resistol, and I felt butterflies in my stomach the way I did when we’d first met. “Those look like some pretty nasty farm wounds,” he said.

“Yeah…” Xavier’s voice sounded breathy and was now void of tears. I rested my gaze back on my boy to see that the image of his dad before him had stirred the same adoring butterflies.

“Man oh man,” John said, not taking his attention away from the boy for a moment. “That’s too bad. I was just going to set up the barrel fire. I was going to ask for your help, but maybe you should rest until those heal…”

Xavier looked torn. Would he milk my sympathy or buck up for his dad? The decision was made in an instant.

“No, I’m ok!”

“You sure?” John said, giving me a sideways wink that again sent me aflutter.

“Yeah, I’m sure! What are we gonna burn?”

“Leaves,” said John, “and lots of ‘em.”

“I’ll get the lighter!” Xavier was up on his feet, digging through the junk drawer in a flash.

“No, no lighter,” said John. “We need matches.”

“Oh yeah!” replied Xavier, as if he’d known that all along. He walked into the living room and looked around. He wandered into the garage and looked around. He returned to the kitchen. “Mama,” he said to me. “Where’s the matches?”

I shrugged. “They’re in the barn,” said John.

“Oh yeah!” replied Xavier. He bolted through the screen door.

“Woah, woah, woah!” called John. “Hold the door open for Mama.”

“Oh yeah!” Xavier ran back to the kitchen, his knees bounding up so high as he galloped that I feared they’d knock out what was left of his teeth.

Xavier held the door open as I stepped out and leaned up against the side of the house. He was then by John’s side, entirely inseparable unless given a command.

“Is it time to light the fire?”

“No, we have to put the leaves in the barrel first.”

“Oh yeah! …Can I light the fire now?

“No, we’ll wait until nightfall.”

“Oh yeah. What about this box, can I put this in?”

“Not yet, we’re going to make a paper towel bomb out of that.”

“Oh yeah!”

“Xavier, go get that lighter fluid.”

“Sure! Can I pour it in?”

“Sure. Gently, now.”

“Oh yeah.”

“Nice job. Now go fill that bucket with water, for a safety.”

“A safety?”

“A safety.”

“Oh yeah!”

I watched my men build the most brilliant barrel fire I’d ever seen. The children and I gathered around and warmed our hands and faces as John watched reverently over us. Silently, we all acknowledged how lucky we were to be under the care of somebody so attentive and capable, and I was especially grateful to have seen him impart that power and generosity to my boy.

Lila, Xavier’s little sister, noticed the scratches on his knee by the light of the fire. “What are those?” she asked.

Xavier shrugged. “Just some farm wounds.”

“Bet they hurt,” said Lila.

“Nah, they don’t.”

“Because you’re a big, strong farmer, right?”

Xavier smiled and let his gaze fall on his dad.

“Oh yeah.”

The Kids' First Day

2009-11-09T08:25:00.000-08:00

Don't ask me how, but John and I managed to keep Emotive Acres a secret from our children for a month and a half as we were setting it up. For a month and a half we'd adopted horses, suffered loss, painted a house, added seven cats to our household, tended to sixteen acres and a lake, and never once let the kids suspect a thing. And finally, the big day came. In a swoop, we changed the direction of our brood's childhood forever.

John picked the kids up Saturday morning, while I bustled around the house and barn, preparing for their arrival. They burst through the door with excitement, ready to show me the toys they'd gotten in the happy meals their dad had bought them, his generous offer to me for more prep time. As soon as they came through the door, they forgot all about the little plastic ponies in their hands. All their stuff was in a brand new place, and they weren't quite sure how to react. "Welcome home!" I cheered. "Go find your rooms!" And so they did, unsure how to feel about the sudden and sweeping change. The boys were thrilled to see their very own computer and video game stations set up in their rooms, and the girls hopped right on their beds to cuddle stuffed animals and muse over their gorgeous Ozark views. Though they showed us happiness, it was clear to see that their hearts were heavy with the thought of being so far away from their friends. So we took them outside.

"We have a barn!" our oldest daughter, the horse whisperer of our family, cried. John and I encouraged them to go inside, where they were amazed to see three stunning Appaloosas and a powerful chestnut gelding chewing hay in their direction. "This is your herd," we told the kids. They thought we were kidding. Then they heard the meows. Honor, our oldest boy, found the kittens first. "WOAH!" he shouted, his ears turning red with the excitement, "So cute! You won't believe how cute!!" Before I knew it, he and Lila, our youngest, were squeezed into the kennel with all five kittens. Xavier immediately spotted the ATV, and was at the seat, gripping the handlebars, making motor noises as if he was a sports driver. Violette, overcome with emotion, let her little nose turn pink and washed it over with tears of joy.

The entire weekend vibrated as high as that initial introduction. Our house had no TV, no internet hooked up yet, but our children were as blissful as we'd ever seen them. They spent hours upon hours climbing hay bales and playing with kittens. All the kittens were named that day - we now have Mischief, Sweetie Pie, Killer, Alicia and Treasure (though Treasure's name still might change; Lila is uncertain). Violette spent her time chasing Fancy Pants around the pasture. It warmed my heart to see our girl running beside a galloping stallion with a great big smile and confident posture, making him rear and dance, then move in to nuzzle her for some spot on affection. John commented that if she can work her relationship out with him, then we have no worries about her teenage years.

We were given a beautiful weekend, thank goodness. In early November, after two weeks of constant rain, the skies gave way to brilliant sun and seventy degree days. When there was a lull in the day's activity, we walked the kids down to our lake and let them strip down to their underwear for an afternoon dip. They covered themselves in mud, laughing like seagulls, and instantly overcame all suburban decorum to live like natives. I thought I was watching Lord of the Flies come to life. We washed them off, picnicked for lunch, then let them each ride Junior twice around the round pen. Cowboy Daddy, as my beloved husband is now known, then rode us all on the ATV to a remote area where he'd prepared a brilliant bonfire. We snacked on s'mores and fell asleep under a stunning canopy of stars that we hadn't shared since our last trip to the planetarium.

Driving the kids to school Monday morning was a surreal experience for all of us. How do we face a "normal" world, after all our biggest dreams have come true? How do we interact with those who are still searching, still wishing, when all of our wishes have been granted? I can't wait to see what the children do with this new level of emotional security. Their perceptions have changed - no longer are video games, TVs and IPods the defining items for our children's existence. Materialism has given way to stewardship, now that they have little animals and a piece of land to care for. It took until my twenty-sixth year to learn the true value of things. I can't wait to see what this early learning will do for our little spiritual powerhouses.

The Arrival of our Barn Cats

2009-11-02T13:12:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, I brought six cats to Emotive Acres. Following up on a classified ad in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, I’d found a lovely young tortiseshell kitty who came with five nursing kittens in tow. The mama had been a stray in the suburban village of Troy, Illinois. Despite growing skinny as she fattened up her five little furballs, she was extremely healthy and happy, thanks to her generous rescuers. Our barn needed barn cats; we’ve taken to stabling up our horses each night for their “bedtime ritual,” so it was more imperative than ever that we employ a force of working felines to keep the area bug and rodent free. Sweetie’s resume in the Post Dispatch was perfect. As a stray, we could trust that she was already a trained and successful hunter. As a mom, she had an army of five behind her, learning from her, ready to divide, conquer, and protect our sixteen acres from any vermin unfortunate enough to cross a kitty’s path. And, secretly, I’ve always wanted a tortiseshell.

Our first night didn’t exactly go as I’d hoped. It took almost two hours to get the kitties home, and by that time Sweetie’s anxiety had gone through the roof. She had squished herself between my truck’s window and the box that held her kittens, and she was panting like she’d just run a marathon. Though we tried to be guarded as we transported the wee ones into their deluxe new hayloft apartment, Sweetie managed to escape in a burst of freedom that only a frightened stray could muster. No sooner had I placed the first fluffy black bundle in the kennel, than Sweetie had disappeared into the rolling hills of the Ozarks. My stomach sank. Mama cat was gone, and now I had five fuzzy faces, ten tiny blue eyes, looking up at me in expectation of full nipples and sweet milk. I couldn’t believe Sweetie had left her babies. I’d rather she’d stayed and hissed and fought me for them. I wasn’t expecting to take on five orphans while the paint was still drying on Emotive Acres’s office walls.

But this is a farm. More often than we encounter death on our property, we encounter birth and life. Each new baby is our new baby. The kittens are as much mine as they are Sweetie’s. They are also my husband’s and my children’s, my dogs’ and my horses’. Each new foal belongs to the land; each new calf belongs to the land’s inhabitants. In turn, I must recognize that my children belong to the land, too. They are no longer just mine and my husband’s; they belong to our horses, our fish, our cows and our cats. On Emotive Acres, each living creature, each blade of grass, exists to serve others. Some creatures will live longer than others, some will require more training than others. On this land, there is no deflection of responsibility. All responsibility is joy, and so we tend to each other in peace and happiness. So when a mama leaves her young for any reason on this land, she can do so with the confidence that they will be cared for as she would care for them.

Thank God for Google. I managed to make it through the night on some all-species milk from the feed store and some moistened cat food. I was forced to lock the kittens in their kennel that night, to ensure that no sneaky creature would slip in and help itself to a tasty tabby treat. I left a bowl of cat food out for Sweetie, hoping that she would return. And she did. The next day, we found her moaning at Sampson from behind the kennel, dismayed that she could not find her way in. It took some coaxing (and a lot of chin scratching) for Sweetie to get her bearings in her new home, but now she is as residential as any who have ever called or will ever call Emotive Acres home. I was overjoyed to see Sweetie return. We’d operated on faith, she and I, and we both arrived at the same place: we refused to be forced, coerced or tied down. We chose Emotive Acres, and Emotive Acres chose us.

We Are Brave Enough to Love

2009-10-27T10:24:00.000-07:00

I received the below article by Bryan Welch entitled "Are We Brave Enough to Love?" the day Emotive Acres suffered its first tragedy. This October had been Missouri's wettest, and two weeks of nearly endless precipitation had made certain patches of our land thick with soupy mud. Our herd hadn't had much problem with the conditions, though the girls seemed especially grossed out by the feeling of nasty wetness on their skin. It just so happened that this night, as John and I were making our six o'clock rounds to check on the horses, that our dog found one of our fillies separated from the herd and swaying gently by the shelter. Following Sampson's alarm, we rushed over to the baby. What we saw horrified us. It was like something out of a ghastly nightmare. Her leg was broken, and a huge chunk of flesh had been ripped away from the bone between her ankle and knee. She had a deep gash on her cheek, and probably more injuries to her side that could not be seen by the dim light of the cloudy evening. A monster must have done this to her, I thought in my panic, imagining wolves the size of Clydesdales descending upon my little girl. What are we going to do? How could we have let this happen?

Our phone had not even been hooked up yet, and my prepaid cellular only picked up spotty service, but I managed to get a call in to the emergency vet and relay enough information for him to know where we were and who needed help. "Something attacked my horse!" I tried shouting into the phone, though all he could hear was my last word. "Is she going to live?" the vet asked, and I was floored. How could I make that call? I couldn't bring myself to commit to an answer. It took the vet an hour and a half to get to us, forcing the residue of my suburban immediacy to dissolve into rural patience. We covered the filly up with a blanket and placed a halter around her head. In the rain, my husband and I waited. We cried, we held each other, we let her lean on us, and we got to work bringing her warm water and comforting her concerned comrades. When the vet arrived, he confirmed our fears. The break was nasty, and there was nothing that could be done for her. With so much flesh missing, there wasn’t a cast in the world that could keep her from contracting a fatal infection. The kindest thing we could do for her was let her go to sleep that night, and to let her stay that way.

This was our first night at Emotive Acres. The responsibility was crushing. Silently, John and I blamed ourselves for the filly’s fate, while the vet expressed outwardly how he wished he could have done more. Three humans surrounded the gentle beast, and three human hearts broke for her. I asked the vet what could have done this, and he replied that she must have gotten caught on something, probably due to the mud, and when she tried to pull herself out, she caused the majority of the damage. But he encouraged us not to blame the land; he knew this property well, and had served its previous owner under much better circumstances. “We’ve never had rain like this,” he explained. “It’s just one of those things…”

The vet gave us the number to Ronnie’s Stump Removal, offering that he’d be willing to bring his truck out to help us bury her on the property. I had to swallow down the lack of decorum of a funeral by stump removal service, and remember that in the country it is the spirit of Ronnie, not his service, that was meant to preside over the burial. Having suffered this tragedy, John and I committed ourselves to rectifying the problem, clearing out the mud, and never allowing it to build up again. But this was our first night on Emotive Acres. There was nothing we could have done.

Had John and I allowed ourselves to react to this situation as victims, we would have drowned in our guilt and self-punishment. We may even have blamed each other, or any of the other humans who had dedicated so much concern for her wellbeing during her life. Had I not read Bryan Welsh’s article not half a day before saying goodbye to my first farm fatality, I would still be torturing myself over my perceived impotence as a farmer. But as Welsh explains, it is our job as farmers to learn to love “unsentimentally.” We’ve taken on the world’s hardest role; it is a role that defies emotional logic and promises to be heart-wrenching if it is done right. Welsh explains: “We believe that the lifestyle we provide for our livestock is humane. Their well-being is a personal concern for us, day in and day out. We really care. And that’s what hurts.” I believe that the spirits of animals are not unlike the spirits of humans, though their communication is limited and their time on earth is far briefer. They teach us lessons and care for our spirits, as we care for them during their allotted time on earth. Our filly took on a powerful role that first night; she took it upon herself to teach us the most difficult lesson of stewardship – the lesson of loss, and of companionship over self-pity. Having started this way on Emotive Acres, our spiritual learning has been accelerated. My appreciation for our filly’s sacrifice is immeasurable.

In the comfort of our suburban homes, we surround ourselves with predatory animals – cats and dogs – and then deny them their predatory instincts. Similarly, we deny ourselves our predatory instincts by allowing the grocery store to close our hearts and minds to the wellbeing of the creatures who end up on our plates every night. We’ve labeled predators as antagonists, usually rooting for the gazelle over the lion during Discovery Channel documentaries. But God had a reason for making man a predator, and then giving man the responsibility of stewardship over his land and prey. It is not for us to preserve life at all costs. It is our job to learn companionship through loss, and spiritual connectivity through death. Welsh remarks of other neighboring predators, “Coyotes kill one animal at a time and eat them immediately [sic]. Coyotes are all business.” There is no evil in the coyote, just survival and stewardship. We too, must live as predators – not killing unnecessarily, but being present for death, and then making that sacrifice worthwhile. It is a heavy responsibility. Though I still wrestle with the apparent unfairness of having lost a companion rather than a livestock, I understand that her loss is not unlike any other loss we will experience on these acres. Horses and humans are forever separated as prey and predator, though we've learned to trust, to love, and to live together. As farmers, we see our animals die, often at our own hand, sometimes through accident and tragedy, so that we can experience the loss of loved ones before having to experience it through our own kind. When we see the mortality of our prey, we have reverence for our power and respect for our own fragility. When we let our prey lean on us for support, when we offer our strength for her comfort during her final moments of life, we've truly learned the lesson of companionship.

Are We Brave Enough to Love?

2009-10-26T09:47:00.000-07:00

10/19/2009 4:56:57 PM
By Bryan Welch

I came home one day to find five sheep dead, piled in a corner of their shed. It took me a couple of hours to dig a hole big enough to hold the carcasses. Two days later I found six more in the same spot. Five were dead, one moved when I touched her. I pulled her out of the pile and she staggered away to recover.

This was my worst moment in farming.

I stayed home for a day to watch for the cause of the carnage. I was pretty sure I knew the culprits. Sure enough, mid-morning, about an hour after I would normally have left for work, our three border collies crawled under a fence, rounded up the sheep and brought them into the pen, crowding them into a corner of the shed. We discourage the dogs from working sheep by themselves, but a certain amount of self-study is good for a sheepdog. They teach themselves by practicing. In moderation, it is a productive exercise.

If a border collie is not fascinated by livestock, they don’t make good stock dogs. They learn to move the herds and flocks because they love to move them.

The two older dogs mostly stayed back, moving this way and that to watch the way the clump of sheep moved in response to them. The youngest dog, Chico, was a pup, about five months old, and he was much more aggressive than his parents. He darted into the flock and nipped the sheep. He barked and ran at them. I went out and called the dogs off. Then I brought Chico inside and started looking for someone who wanted a free border collie.

Sheep dread physical contact with a predator. To the sheep, almost nothing is more upsetting. As Chico goaded and harassed the ewes, they would have packed themselves more and more tightly into the corner of the shed until they knocked each other down and climbed over the fallen. Eventually those on the bottom died of suffocation or panic.

We were pretty sure the dead sheep were the victims of dogs because so many were killed and none of them had been eaten. Coyotes kill one animal at a time and eat them immediately. Coyotes are all business. And they almost never hunt in the daytime. We guessed our dogs were to blame because the sheep had no wounds. Border collies are bred to herd sheep without touching them.

Mop had been our primary sheepdog and a fine farming partner for four years. Pitch, her mate, had been around for about two years and was a dependable ally as well. Chico was their pup. The other four pups from the litter had been sold and we were thinking about keeping him.

Was it Chico’s aggressive personality that caused the deaths of all those sheep? Was it the chemistry of three dogs together, a dog-pack chemistry, that tipped the balance?

We don’t know. But when Chico went away to live with a new family — a family without livestock — our problem was solved.

That was the worst catastrophe was seen on our farm. However, there have been others. A visiting dog — a friendly dog — killed about 30 chickens one day. A neighbor’s pit bull terriers killed a mother and two baby goats one evening just after sunset. They maimed and nearly killed a third goat, “Mr. Big,” an ancient angora wether who somehow recovered.

I failed to notice a heifer calving in a distant pasture once. The calf died in the birth canal and the mother became septic. She died soon after in the veterinarian’s corral.

The chickens died because we left the visiting dog unattended. The goats were killed because I had separated them, temporarily, from the mule who normally watched out for them. We keep mules and donkeys with our goats and sheep because they naturally become members of the flocks and, by instinct, protect them from predators.

The heifer and her calf died because I accidentally let her breed too young and then wasn’t attentive enough when she went into labor.

And there have been other fatalities over the years. Chickens and turkeys, mostly. Poultry has a genius for suicide-by-predator. Or, rather, every predator on Earth recognizes poultry as the easiest, most delicious meal on the farm. Every dog has to be trained to ignore the chickens and turkeys. In fact, our dogs had to be trained to ignore the chickens and then, when we expanded into turkeys, they had to be taught that turkeys were also not on the canine menu, all over again. Hope springs eternal. On the other hand, the dogs help keep the raccoons, possums and skunks out of the chicken house. The cat had to be taught not to eat the baby chickens. Once we had assisted the hens in teaching him that lesson, he provided another line of defense against the possums and skunks.

Each and every time one of my mistakes has caused a creature to die, I’ve considered selling all the animals and pulling out the fences. I care about each of the animals personally. I can’t help it.

I’m not emotionally detached when it comes to the livestock. I name nearly every animal. Some people — even in my own family — consider this ghoulish. After all, we’re going to eat some of them and sell most of the others to people who will eat them.

But I relish their presence. The names help me keep track of them and I enjoy socializing with them. I chat with them while I’m working around the farm. They are, in a very real sense, my companions. They might even be called friends.

Of course this makes the process of taking them to slaughter both painful and poignant. But that’s nature. All prey animals die, in nature, in the jaws of predators. And our methods are, generally, more humane than the ways other predators kill.

It is much more painful, to me, when one of my constant companions is killed as the result of my bad judgment, my lack of attentiveness or my laziness.

Our animals are raised in their natural families in a nutritious environment where they can enjoy good health, companionship, clean air, fresh water and generally as much space as they desire. When our animals accidentally get out of their fenced pastures, they usually hang around until we show up to put them back in. They have family, friends, health and a sense of home here.

Every living thing should be so lucky.

Industrial agriculture cannot spare the time or the space to provide many amenities. So the animals we raise are sparing some other creatures whose lives would mostly be crowded, lonely, chaotic and often unhealthy.

We believe that the lifestyle we provide for our livestock is humane. Their well-being is a personal concern for us, day in and day out. We really care.

And that’s what hurts.

Raising animals for food forces us to confront nature’s own tough logic. Raising healthy creatures on a specific amount of property while allowing them to reproduce more or less naturally, we need to harvest more animals than we keep each year. If we fail to harvest enough of our annual crop of babies, pastures are soon damaged and animals become sick from malnutrition. If any of our animal-care systems fails, animals die.

So we live with this burden, day in and day out. At its worst, it can make you feel like quitting. Sometimes I feel like letting someone else raise my food for me. Maybe I could pretend that the rice, broccoli and salmon on my plate are the products of some immaculate conception in which nothing had to suffer.

But of course that would be sentimental nonsense. The salmon were captured and killed. Cultivation of crops destroyed some creature’s habitat. When we don’t consume, some other creature quickly takes advantage of the extra resources. Some campers drove across one of our empty pastures one late summer day. It was a big summer for grass and too set to cut hay, so the grass had been left alone all summer. In one round trip the car mashed three prairie voles. One car circled through a 10-acre pasture once and managed to cross paths, fatally, with three voles. The implications for how many rodents had made their home in that pasture during that summer are staggering.

Every creature that draws a breath or burns a single calorie has, to some degree or another, displaced another. That’s one level of responsibility.

When we engage in the active management of our environment as farmers or loggers, gardeners or city managers, we exercise another level of responsibility.

If we commit ourselves to truly exercising our responsibility, if we choose to be true stewards of the land, then we cannot afford sentimentality. To be good stewards of nature, we have to respect and acknowledge nature’s laws. If we love nature we will care for it more successfully. But only if we love nature for what it is. Undoubtedly a thousand small tragedies were acted out in our lower pasture that summer we left it alone. Voles are monogamous. They take only 30 days to grow from birth to adulthood. Across our pastures tiny mommies and daddies can raise several big families in a long summer. When a coyote or a raccoon digs up a vole nest, well, you can imagine the drama. It is never accurately depicted in what we would call a “family” movie.

So nature challenges us: Can we love the world around us unsentimentally? Our enormous achievements have brought most of the planet more or less under our control. Now that we have this powerful role in the world, are we capable of accepting our responsibility?

Ref: http://www.motherearthnews.com/Rancho-Cappuccino/Raising-Food-Animals-Human-Responsibility.aspx?utm_content=10.26.09+HE&utm_campaign=HE&utm_source=iPost&utm_medium=email#

It Started With A Worm

2009-10-24T14:53:00.000-07:00

I seem to recall from my high school English classes that Inherit the Wind, a powerful drama about the Scopes Monkey Trial, began with a worm. A child, I believe, taunts the defiant teacher of evolution with an earthworm, remarking how silly it was that Mr. Scopes believed all humans have come from that slimy little creature. Though the child is little more than a literary personification of ignorance, there is significance to the power of worms and their role as creators. My family’s dreams, all of them, have come true. And they all began with worms.

There is nothing out of the ordinary about our family, apart from our exceptional ability to imagine great things and then turn those imaginary things into reality. My oldest daughter wanted horses, my youngest daughter wanted kittens. My oldest boy wanted a farm, my youngest boy wanted an ATV. My husband and I wanted all these spoils for them. So, collectively, our unit began to work. No, we didn’t have horses or kittens or ATVs yet, but we did have worms. One thousand worms to be exact, all happily nestled in a large can with thick, lush dirt. We declared ourselves “Worm Farmers,” the only such family on our suburban block. We took pride in scraping our table waste into the dirt, fattening up our worms for the production of rich soil and good fishing. It didn’t take much to keep the worms happy. They were, after all, just worms. But our family knew that these were baby steps; just one rung on the ladder to bigger animals, greater production, and more efficient sustainability.

Shortly after our excursion into the profession of worm farming, the miracles began to happen. An ad on the seemingly pedestrian website of Craigslist led us to sixteen acres of prelapsarian paradise. That paradise consisted of rolling pastureland, thick-wooded hills, an acre-wide lake, and a view of the Milky Way that would have a nonbeliever swearing he sees angels. We named that paradise Emotive Acres, a tribute of land’s ability to stir us to our very core. Craigslist also led us to a beautiful sorrel filly for one hundred fifty dollars, and a gelding, a mare, a stallion and another filly were soon to follow. Immediately thereafter another Craigslist ad for an ATV fell into our laps, and kittens, cows, sheep and more are soon to come.

We found our Emotive Acres in the midst of an economic recession, during which old ways of thinking were being forced into revision as jobs were lost, homes were seized, and simple comforts like food and heat were becoming unaffordable. Our pockets felt same blow that everyone else’s did, and our family clung together in a community fear of the unknown. As a kid, I watched my post-Depression grandparents hide cans of food in every nook and cranny of their household, terrified of another national economic disaster. My generation endured a similar disaster, but could no longer afford the cans of food. But we could afford seeds, and we could afford worms. We were willing to get our hands dirty, to do what we had to for the security of our children.

This is the true “grass roots movement,” for which I believe our generation will be remembered. City people and suburbanites like my family are moving outward, returning to our divinely-declared role as stewards of the earth. In doing so, we bring new green – the green of the city dollar – to those who need it most. We have been humbled; our ironclad capitalism has exposed its chinks. It is now the people, those who make things with their hands and provide services with their skill, who are stepping back from the brink of economic disaster. The entrepreneurs, the altruists, the hard workin’ men and women are reaching out to one another and creating a community safety net. We don’t recover from disaster by having a fortune showered upon us; we do it dollar by dollar, classified ad by classified ad. Anything else would allow us to avoid the lesson the disaster was meant to teach. Because my family dedicated our energy to the nurturing of worms, we created a reality of delicious fish dinners and juicy organic produce. Having secured our endless supply of loaves and fishes, we opened ourselves up to the miracles that were bestowed upon us. The human race may not have evolved from the earthworm, but the earthworm may indeed be what saves us.