I flew home more divided in my thoughts than when I left. I had always secretly thought that my father’s supreme gentleness was a cloak protecting him from the ugliness in life. Who would want to harm such a tender soul who gave no offense? But the cloak offered no protection whatsoever. His death was violent, premature, unnecessary, and unfair.
Greg tried, in his way, to support me during this difficult time, but he lacked the sensitivity of my father. And that difference only made me miss my father more. As Greg lay sleeping with head cocked against the plane’s window, I was reminded of how he had pressured me about Chaco—something my father would never have done. And I resolved that Chaco would live a full life under my care.
Chaco was fine. He had stopped going over the bridge when he had misjudged the edge and fallen into the creek. Now he was refusing to ford the creek. The flickering light reflecting from the water made him unsure of his footing, so he stood by the bridge, alone, waiting for Mora to return in the evening. There was graze on this side of the creek and he was making his adjustments.
Eventually he refused to leave the paddock. He would search a spot in the sun and just stand there. Alone. All day. At night, we kept a light on in his stall so he wouldn’t hurt himself.
Jack had observed Chaco and offered his assistance. Knowing Chaco was my horse, he was tactful enough to suggest it to Greg. He knew horses were more pets than livestock and for that reason it was easier for a third party to offer a merciful end. Jack possessed a pistol and he knew where he could borrow a backhoe. The whole thing could be over in an hour. He left his information with Greg and Greg had the unhappy task of conveying it to me. I saw it for what it was. Two men trying to bend the world to their singular, utilitarian needs. Not on my watch. I would continue to keep a place for caring in the world. And I cared for Chaco.
The call came again in the dark of night, rousing me from deep sleep. Except, there was no call. Had I dreamt the ringing phone? I sat up and listened. There was only silence interrupted by my husband’s ragged breathing. Then I heard it, a slight flutter of wings. The cat leapt off the bed and began to stalk in the direction of the noise. In a dark corner I caught the outline of a bird. It had been a warm night and we had left a window open.
I rose to investigate and found a small owl with a round face and yellow eyes. To my utter amazement, it allowed me to cup it in my hands. It remained quiet in my grasp, staring at me with a beautiful, calm look. I carried it to the window and released it. It took flight on silent wings, disappearing into the night.
Back in bed, I rationalized it must have been a juvenile, too inexperienced to be afraid. Maybe. But another part of me was convinced that I had just been visited by my father. There was no protest or conflict with this owl, only a calm acceptance. I had been carrying the feeling that I had let my father down in those last days. There was something more that should have been done. Irrational, yes, but feelings have their own reality. The owl reminded me of my father’s unwavering acceptance of me. He was accepting in all things, but especially of me, and this bird’s visit carried that message.
I began to see how unaccepting I had become. My guilt over being helpless had made me unable to see my father’s need for liberation from a terrible encasement in a painful body. The visit released me from my guilt, replacing it with a serene feeling of acceptance. I was able to see that perhaps setting down my sense of control allowed for nature to take over. I was able to forgive myself for not taking better care of my father—for letting him die. It never was in my power to make him live, no matter how much I loved him.
It took a few more days but I could feel the ice around my heart breaking up and melting. There was Chaco, alone in the paddock. There was Greg doing chores, trying not to notice Chaco alone in the paddock. And standing there all along was the truth, waiting for me to accept it.
I went down to where Greg was working and asked him to call Jack. He looked at me to take the full measure of my meaning and then just nodded. I was thankful he didn’t belabor it—but Greg was sensitive that way. I had been too busy stepping around that truth as well. Those who love us often get splashed with the emotions we’re using, at that moment, to paint the world. I had made Greg insensitive so I could avoid the loss of Chaco.
For Chaco, it was another normal day. He ate grass. He was brushed and fed treats. His mane and tail were combed. Then we walked him across the creek to the far field where Jack had dug a hole. I said my goodbye and headed back to the barn. It is a hard thing to take a life, and Greg felt it was a duty that should not be foisted onto Jack. But Jack insisted, knowing it was harder for Greg. So Greg agreed to hold Chaco’s halter. Jack squeezed the trigger but nothing happened. He said it had jammed, so Greg was sent to the house to fetch his pistol. As soon as Greg was out of sight, Jack released the safety.
The shot echoed, spooking Mora. She took off, running, the sound of hoofbeats trailing the echo into the distance. The sheep lifted their heads in unison and, not seeing a threat, returned to grazing. One moment there is a beating heart and the next, there is silence. The tractor’s diesel engine turned over. The hole was filled and the field returned to its bucolic, green roll. If not for the smell of fresh dirt, I could have closed my eyes and thought I imagined it all.
A week later, Greg asked me to walk with him into the woods. Deep in the woods is a magnificent maple that dominates the landscape. We call it the Grandfather Tree because its longevity calls us to contemplate our nameless ancestors. Hanging from one of its branches was a small figure of a horse woven from cedar bark. A gift left by Laura.
On another branch, hung an owl. I was dumb-founded. It was not possible for Laura to know of my visit from the owl. Chaco she could have witnessed, but not the owl. Greg nodded in understanding. “I found the horse several days ago and told Jack. I think he made the owl. Laura’s not the only bark weaver in these woods.”
So it’s not all silence and emptiness. There is a grandfather tree bearing witness to all things past and present. And from its branches, memories of those I still love dance in the wind.
That night, by my window, I listened to the croak of frogs and the scratch of crickets. I was reminded that with friends and family, life is made rich. I strained my ears to hear the distant hoot of an owl … but what I heard, when I closed my eyes, were all those beating hearts. I heard them all.
OF TATERS AND KINGS
The heavy rumbling of a diesel engine brought me running from the far field, but I arrived too late. A woman, near my age, was jumping back into her truck. I began waving my arms to call her back. She gunned the engine and sped away. Odd, I thought, that she didn’t stay long enough to identify herself. Odder still, when I turned and saw a large bay tethered to the hitching post of our barn. Someone had delivered a horse to the wrong address.
He was something. Sixteen hands high, with big shoulders and bigger rump. The kind of power quarter horse that cowboys have been known to sacrifice marriages, and even pick-up trucks, to own. He had a kind eye and social disposition. In fact, from first look, I couldn’t find much wrong with him. Someone was going to be upset when he didn’t show up wherever he was supposed to be.
Greg popped out from behind the barn, a little late as usual, “What’s this?”
“Someone needs a new GPS. Wrong delivery, I guess.”
Greg held him by his halter and inspected him, “Don’t suppose we can claim ‘finder’s keepers,’ huh?”
“Wouldn’t that be nice? He’s a good-looking horse.”
Greg turned to me and asked directly, “You like him?”
“Yeah … wait what?”
Greg had that smug little half-cocked smile he smiles whenever he is feeling clever and self-satisfied. The smile was announcing the true author of the botched delivery. I decided to slap that smile off his face with a grateful kiss, before returning to inspect the horse.
“He’s got to be expensive. We can’t afford him.”
“Probably not as expensive as you
think. He’s a bit green and needs work. And the sellers were motivated, so I got a good price. Saddle up. We’ve got ’til tomorrow to take him back.”
“What’s his name?”
“Tater.”
“What?”
“Well, Tater-Tots, which rhymes with Potts, which is the family’s name.”
I looked at this magnificent horse with the big, brown eyes. Never was there a greater mismatch between matter and moniker.
“Well, we’ll have to change that.” I gave him a pat on the neck and went for my saddle.
He proved responsive to my commands and we settled into a lovely ride—for the first hundred yards. Then he stopped, dropped, and rolled. No warning, just an elevator drop to the basement. I got off on the first floor. Obviously, this little trick had kept riders off his back in the past. I registered my disapproval and we continued with the ride. I began to wonder about the sellers’ “motivation” and the rapid exit they made. Almost as if they couldn’t get away fast enough. But who names a horse Tater? Novices! Just the kind of people who let horses acquire bad habits. Well, a little work and I’d have him slicked out, smooth as frog fur.
Tater took the next week to get adjusted to the farm. First was the introduction to Mora, our mare. After the requisite sniffing, nickering, squealing, biting, bucking, racing, and neck jousting, Tater established his dominance, and life in the paddock settled down. Next came the sheep. There were several days of herding and cutting in random directions until it was clear to Tater he was dominant. The sheep never doubted it. Finally came the tractor. Several days of racing to cut the tractor off and block its passage until finally, it was clear. Tater was king. God save the king. And for good measure, God save us all.
The chaos of a farm can make one forgetful … as can turning fifty, if I’m truth telling. And, as noted, one of my bad habits is to occasionally leave the water running in the horse trough. One hundred feet of pipe can fill with air in about the time it takes to bring in sheep and horses; feed and secure them; collect chicken eggs; lock the hen house; start dinner cooking; and then … oh damn, I left the water on. Down I trudge to the pump house in the cold and dark. Crouching in the mud, face pressed against the water tank, staring at weird bugs caught in the beam of my flashlight, while I bleed air from the pipes. You’d think that the consequence would be enough to ensure that I’d remember, but apparently not.
So I was not surprised when I found Tater and Mora one morning, in the center of the barn, happily munching a bale of hay. The stalls were wide open. Obviously the old woman who ran the farm forgot to bolt the gates. When it happened a few days later, I became suspicious. Was I going crazy or was someone driving me crazy? Greg was automatically eliminated, since he had no appetite for running the farm alone.
My suspicions turned toward the new arrival. Was it coincidence that the gates fell open only after his appearance on the farm? And then there was the dubious delivery by the previous owners. Did they know more than they had disclosed? And here we were, one week beyond the return date. I shot Tater an accusatory look. He returned my gaze with an expression as innocent as it was dumb. Yes, dumb as a bag of taters.
I inspected the latch, which required dexterous fingers to slide the bolt over the buckle and out of its housing to gain release. No way could a horse open this latch with the bolt down. I looked at Tater. Especially not this horse.
That only left one other possibility. I was losing my mind. And the consequences were serious. The horses could get into the grain bins and colic.
I decided to double latch. I put a spring clip through the buckle making it impossible to slide the bolt out. That eliminated the horse theory for gate failure. The extra step of clipping the latch would force me to pay more attention. That eliminated the crazy old lady theory for gate failure. And it worked. I began to sleep through the night.
One morning I approached an eerily quiet barnyard. There were no horses in the paddock. Worse, there were no sheep in the loafing shed. Where there should be animals, impatient and demanding, there was emptiness and silence—until I opened the barn door. Over the beat of house music, horses and sheep scrambled like flappers fleeing a police raid. Bales of hay were strewn across the floor. Shovels and rakes and halter and ropes lay scattered about. Everywhere I looked there were large deposits of steaming party poop, announcing a good time was had by all. Fortunately the grain bins were still secured, but the teeth etchings on the lids suggested I had arrived just in time.
After getting all the animals separated and secured, the forensic investigation began in earnest. The spring clips had been flattened into pliable sheet metal by an animal with a jaw like a vice. The bolt had been lifted and slid out by an animal possessing an opposable tongue. Further inspection of Tater’s stall revealed all manner of wood and metal objects, including live electric wire, had been chewed in frustration—proving, where there’s a will there’s a way. And apparently, Tater had been up all night “willing” the gates open. The “dumb as a tater” thing was just an act. Houdini would be a better name.
I upgraded to clips with teeth-breaking brass casing. Pricey, yes, but worth a good night’s sleep. The next morning, as I sipped my coffee, I watched fluffy white balls munching their way across the front lawn. I had a moment of deja-vu, a feeling of our first days when a bright-eyed couple had just bought a farm, before the laws of causality caught up to us. Tater. He had to be behind it.
Sure enough, having been denied access to the barn, Tater, the freedom fighter, released all the livestock into the fields. I had not expected Tater to expend the great effort it takes to open a latch to a field he was released to every morning. Wrong. Not only would he expend the energy to open one latch, he opened all the latches. For Tater, the only good side of a fence is the outside.
Now all the latches on our farm would have to be double latched with heavy brass clips. While that would provide security from Tater’s midnight raves, it came at a price. Not only were the brass clips expensive, they were cumbersome—especially for one-handed Farmer Jones. Initially this resulted in quite a bit of grumbling, until I reminded my spouse that he was the architect of our current discontent. It was he who had brought Tater the Terrible into our lives.
Truth be told, we both secretly admired the cleverness of this horse. Tater was a presence on the farm that could not be ignored.
Greg stopped grumbling and instead took the Tater challenge: design a latch that people could release but Tater could not. Ideally, a latch that could be opened one-handed since most farmers had something in the other hand when opening gates. After some head scratching, he hit upon a chain that would drop into a V slot to latch. Tater’s tongue could push a rigid bolt up and out, but he couldn’t push a limp chain down and up again. The latch was simple to use and easy to make. And it had a second slot for double latching. It was both simple and elegant in its application. Tater the Terrible had been tamed. He soon gave up his drive to drive me crazy.
And if it worked on Tater, it would work on other Houdini horses.
Viola! There it was, the invention that could save our farm. Simple design, easy to use, and if we could produce it for a good price, other farmers would want it. This is where Greg handed it off to me to do the detail work of getting a patent, a fabricator, and a distributor. In other words, the hard work. That’s okay, hard work is what farming is all about and if it can both secure our livestock and secure our financial future, I’ll do it. You bet I will. After all, this is farming. Born in optimism, deflated by hardship, resurrected through innovation. This episode started with a gift that turned into a problem that morphed into a challenge that produced a completely unexpected outcome. I guess the lesson is to stay with it long enough to see it through to the other side.
But I wondered, can you stay suspended in frustration too long while awaiting a solution that may not come? Is there a point where tenacity just becomes stubbornness? And how would you know the difference?
For the moment, I had a la
tch to sell that was Tater tested. A good latch, and a good chance to turn this farm around. And I had a clever horse that was secure in his stall. And I had a husband who thought to ease my season of loss with a little gift of redemption.
AWAY, YOU WAYFARING BROTHERS
The Wayfaring Brothers seemed to possess all the necessary ingredients to be successful entrepreneurs: tools, a reliable truck, and an impressive skill set that filled a need in the community. They were both self-reliant, requiring no oversight to get the job done, and dependable. Most importantly, with Jack in the lead, relations with customers could be managed and, when necessary, massaged.
The only snag in their path to financial success was capital. They lacked money. Well, that and they lacked the motivation to acquire money beyond their daily needs. Both the boys were practiced at the art of essential living and nearly immune to the lure of money. Especially when it came with conditions, as it so often did.
This was readily apparent in their living arrangements. Luther lived in a bunkhouse behind his mother’s place. Jack rented a corner in his daughter’s barn. Amid the hay bales, he had cleared a space for his cot, a table, and a trunk for his duffle. His only companion was a feral tomcat who recognized in Jack a kindred soul.
Like his companion, Jack accepted handouts from a number of women in town who secretly hoped to domesticate him. And like his companion, domestication was not in his nature. In the morning he was always gone. And though many were left disappointed, none was surprised, and most left a bowl of milk and a key on the back porch. Just in case either of those ramblers changed their minds.
It was easy to understand why women liked Jack. After all, Jack liked women. He loved the feminine wherever it presented itself, which was probably why he chose willow as his favorite medium in his craft. He planted willows all over his daughter’s farm and harvested them for weaving baskets, bending into widgets, and building deck chairs. In the willow he found the supple strength and curved contours that reflected the beauty of nature. Of course, Jack saw it in simpler terms. He loved willows and he loved women. He didn’t know why women loved him, but he was grateful whenever they did.
Country Grit: A Farmoir of Finding Purpose and Love Page 12