Bee Tree Farm

Last night I leaned over the pasture fence at 10pm to check on Boss and the new buckling one last time before finally saying goodnight to Sunday.  Lately the breeze has been strong which is a welcome respite from the two-weeks of swamp stillness we had here.  Now it blows constantly with radiator heat.  It’s still preferable.  But the air was (almost) cool last night – lukewarm at least- and the super moon hung behind a gauze of clouds, so close its craters gaped down at my form hanging onto the gate that swung with the breeze.  I had finally left the two bucks alone, Boss and the new baby Octavian.  They had a rough introduction.  10 minutes after meeting, Boss slammed Octavian into the side of the lean-to, and the baby’s hoof cracked against a board.  He blinked up at me warily holding his hoof off the ground as blood poured from the crack.  Mom was on hand to help with the goat, and she made a hay compress as I sprinted into the barn for blood stop powder and towels.  Followed by a tetanus shot.  Followed by a shaking goat and blood down my mom’s arms.  Hours later, I put the two together again.  Goats, like most livestock, canNOT be alone under any circumstance.  It terrifies and depresses them.  In the time since Atlas died, Boss has attached himself firmly to the cows’ sides either out of loneliness or fear – it doesn’t matter which.  He can’t be a singleton, and Octavian couldn’t be alone either.  And so into the pen Boss went.  I was risking another injury but with the moon high and whippoorwills out singing, they knew it was night and quiet time.  I leaned on the gate listening for sounds of fighting or distress.  Instead it was just the low bleats of two goats unsure of their status or company.

It’s been a month since Atlas was killed.  In the week following his death I went through a range of panicked emotions and made a lot of rather final, big decisions.  The kind of decisions you’re not supposed to make when operating under the influence of emotion and stress, although I’m pretty sure I do some of my clearest thinking in those moments.  By the end of that week I decided that yes we would replace Atlas with another buck and that the large pasture does in fact require guardian dogs despite being occupied by cows and donkeys (Not predator control! Don’t believe the hype!  Nothing beats a good guardian dog!  You’ve been warned!).  I should have gotten new guardian dogs when I moved the bucks to the big pasture in December.  But I didn’t.  I lost an animal because we have a coyote problem, and I’ll be smarter next time.  The learning curve here is so steep you crawl up its side.

Woodrow and Augustus, the new guardian pups, have been here since the beginning of June and are living with Bruce and the goats for training.  Right now they mostly roll around in a big fluffy pile of puppy joy, eating goat turds, licking goat legs, and thoroughly enjoying life.  They’re not ready to work – yet.  It was difficult to locate a young pair of Pyrenees pups this late in the season, but it was simple to find my next buck.  I just called Fran at Youngs Prairie Dairy, who grows the most docile and beautiful Nubians a person has the pleasure to meet.  I picked Octavian out of the group of boys immediately.  He is stocky and apple red with fawn eyes and tried to lick my nose repeatedly through the fencing.  It was an easy sell.  Adding animals is never simple, and I dreaded yesterday’s addition all week.  Each transition here takes its toll on me in the way it chisels into an ever-expanding to do list.  With the new buck, I’ve signed up for locking up goats at night and unlocking them in the morning, feedings in a new pasture, training a new set of dogs, eventually moving them into the big pasture and fighting their inevitable desire to escape and go back to Bruce.  So I literally look at the calendar year and decide when these transitions will be easiest.  That time fell right now.  Before work becomes a dizzying mess of state-wide travel and meetings and conferences.  Before another kidding season (oh Lord help me).

Friday night we returned from a very rare dinner out.  It was evident once our headlights lit up the pet dogs that something was horribly amiss.   All three ran in excited circles through the yard, tails wagged vigorously, a contrast to how we normally find them; like sedated lumps strewn along the porch.  In our brief absence the dogs – namely HUGO (tiny Hugo!) – had committed a chicken massacre, the 2 month old chicks suddenly too tempting to resist.  He played with them until they died, and then he moved to another.  Instead of falling into bed or watching TV or reading a book like normal people, we wandered the yard with a bag, collected bodies and scolded dogs.  I tripped three times over rocks in the darkness and gathered at least 20 new fire ant bites.  I locked up the remaining chicks, washed my hands.  We started again on Saturday.

I’m writing all this now because – well – it just happened.  But also because a friend who visited our website commented that one thing came through for her when she first browsed the pages.  There’s a lot of love here, she said.  That’s a simple sentence, obviously, but she knocked me down without meaning too.  I sniffled slightly when I read her email.  Today I’m 10% more bruised than yesterday, my insect bites have nearly doubled, the skin on my right hand has started to crack and bleed from constant washing.  We woke up with a start at 2am when the Pyrenees barked violently, and Jeremy sat in sniper position at the window with his night vision binoculars, a rifle pointed at the big pasture for one hour in the wee-est hours of morning.  Lately I feel that we are foot soldiers here, trying to protect what we’re building.  Every death is a setback and sadness but also a reminder of the circles that spin, spin constantly.  Before we went to dinner Friday, before the chicken massacre, a hen I hadn’t seen in weeks suddenly appeared beneath the milking stand where I was perched with Pearl for evening milking.  Six brand new baby chickens tumbled along behind her, just hatched.  I let out a small yell.  A victory call?  A battle cry?  I had nothing to do with this particular miracle, but it reminded me that everything here is constantly whizzing around those circles, moving away from birth, through life, towards death, starting over again, around and around.  There is so much love here, she’s right.  It is impossible to articulate what nudges us from bed in the morning, what forces push against my back when I stumble out the door towards the barn.  I marvel still at the little engine inside Jeremy that propels him outside in this heat, with a body slightly broken, to grab a shovel and plant peach trees instead of spending a (much justified) afternoon on the couch.  Maybe it’s this place, just the spirit of vigilance and basic tenets of survival that make us do this, but I think it’s something more mystical.  Something poets try to capture, painters attempt to frame, writers try to force into linear composition – a big, big love swirling around that you must grab hard with both hands, fight the fear of the unknown, trust where it will take you.