Barnheart

by Jenna Woginrich

  To make myself feel better, I tried to line up some plan-B housing. I found a guesthouse I could rent in nearby Sunderland, Vermont. I heard word of possible foster homes for my flock until I found a place where we could all live together again. I didn’t allow the idea of living without my dogs enter my head. That was the deal breaker. If I had to find homes for the farm animals, I would. But I would not give up Jazz and Annie under any circumstances. We had lived together since my first postcollege job in Knoxville and had traveled across the country together twice. We wouldn’t be separated now.

  At some point, though, I realized I’d already made the decision in my heart that I would be buying a farm. That’s all there was to it. This was no longer something that I wanted to happen: It was something that was going to happen. Years of homesteading on rented land were starting to wear me down and were causing more anxiety than peace. I needed to be in a place of my own, a place where I didn’t have to worry about violating my landlord’s rules by hatching goslings or about whether or not I could expand the garden to accommodate more pumpkins. I was living a life of increasing self-sufficiency on a small homestead, but it was on someone else’s land. The irony was becoming heavy. I realized that I could not waver. I couldn’t give even the slightest consideration to the notion that the farm would not come through. I was in the last two months of waiting and planning. My official day to be out of the cabin was May 1, and March was halfway over. There were a real-estate agent, a mortgage broker, home sellers, a frustrated landlord, and a crazy neighbor all banking on me.

  I decided that if the mortgage didn’t go through, I would find some other way to buy this house. Already the broker and I were discussing options. The USDA standards were a bit higher than those of the Federal Housing Authority, and there were many hoops to jump through. The standard government-backed loan was administered by the FHA. It was a little more flexible with credit scores, locations, and projected limitations. The USDA’s program had a lot more restrictions but was worth it for the cash I would save. If I needed to take that route, I would. I was also ready to talk to credit unions, other banks, private lenders, or donors or consider possible rent-to-own or note-holding scenarios. The bit was so tight in my mouth, I was grinding away at my own teeth. As the weeks fell into the longest part of winter, the idea of owning a farm became a certainty. My mind was made up. It was that simple.

  Then one afternoon I sat down with a hot cup of coffee and wrote on a sheet of paper everything I wanted, sketching between the words. I wrote about a little hillside and a strong farmhouse. Behind the words were drawings of sheep dotted along a steep pasture. I wrote about a day on the farm in October, smelling the apples in the trees, as we watched the now fleeced-out spring lambs gamboling toward us for evening grain. I say “we” and “us” because I drew myself with a dog on the hillside. This dog and I were partners, watching the flock. I kept writing about the Jackson farm and what it would be to me, how I would turn it into a proper sheep farm and raise lamb and wool and work beside my dogs. I was getting obsessed with the spell I was casting at my kitchen table, and the coffee I had set out to sip was now cold. Mentally exhausted and emotionally excited, I set down the paper and pencil and leaned back in my chair. I let out a sigh and looked at my scribbling.

  Hmm.

  I recognized that farm; it was the one I wanted to buy. I recognized my truck, the sheep, the topography of the land, but I did not know that black dog. If a working border collie was integral to the manifestation of this life, where was he?

  I knew the answer to that. He wasn’t here because of how awful my experience with Sarah had been. Also, I knew I couldn’t raise a third dog on my property without the crazy neighbor telling my landlord. I had stayed a member of NEBCA since the first sheepdog trial I’d gone to, summers before, but I figured that having my own working pup was a life away. Well, was that not what I was crafting this very morning? Was I not in the process of talking to banks, moving, buying a farm? Had I not made up my mind that this would happen?

  I would be a shepherd. It was time to get a sheepdog.

  I started looking for a pup that same day. I knew what I wanted: a rough-coated, large, male working dog. A classic black-and-white, blocky sheepdog with dark eyes and strong instincts. Around New England, this dog seemed rare. So many of the serious trainers and breeders had smaller working dogs or ones with smooth coats, like the ones Highland shepherds in Scotland seemed to win big trials with. I contacted every local breeder in the NEBCA directory, but all of them had pups spoken for, or no litters planned, or not the kind of dog I was looking for. There was a rumor that two dogs I had drooled over at trials — a dog named Tot and a bitch named Song — had had a litter, but all of them had homes by now.

  Eventually, I found a border collie breeder in Idaho named Patrick Shanahan. His outfit was called Red Top Kennels. I was impressed by his trialing experience, and his dogs looked exactly like the beasts of my dreams. One in particular, a handsome dog named Riggs, was photographed with him at some big trial in Europe and had won top honors. As I clicked through, I saw that the man had litters available a few times a year. His rates for pups were hundreds of dollars below what they cost here. It looked as if a fine pedigree from working lines would cost the equivalent of two car payments. I could do this. Hell, I’d sell my fiddle if I had to. I sent him an e-mail explaining my goals as a beginning sheep farmer and that I was interested in a puppy. He had a litter due in May sired by Riggs out of a bitch named Vangie. Both were rough coats and good workers. If I was looking for a farm dog, he could ship me one. I mailed him a deposit for a black-and-white male, if one happened to be born.

  He e-mailed a few weeks later that three healthy pups were out of Vangie, and two of them were males. He sent a photo of the little Oreo cookie blobs, and I melted. In a few months, one of those boys would be in my arms. In a year, he’d be by my side at herding lessons, learning this life with me. I looked at the pups and told him I was drawn to the boy with the black spot on his back. Patrick kindly reminded me that my pup would be the one he felt would suit my needs as a farm dog, not the one I preferred based on looks.

  But my interest in that pup had nothing to do with the spot; it was in his eyes. Even in the photo, the little four-week-old seemed to be gazing right at me. He was already my dog, twenty-eight hundred miles away. I wanted to name him Gibson, after the guitar company. I’d always dreamed of owning a vintage 1950s J-45 acoustic guitar, but the price and rarity made it seem impossible to think that I’d ever own one. Yet here was this dog, amazing in his own right and part of a dream larger than any old guitar. The Gibson J-45 is deep black with a tobacco sunburst across the top. It has hints of brown and white and the ability to sound gentle and bright or strong and imposing, depending on the situation. I wanted a sheepdog with that same ability, one that could be calm around lambs, tough around rams, and grounded in his work and life.

  His name was set in my heart. Gibson and Jenna: partners. My pup was on his way, and the farm was one step closer to being real fur and soil in my palms.

  After all that stress and worry, everything worked out in the end. I got the call at my office that the mortgage had been approved!

  With backing from the USDA’s Rural Development Program, I would have the money I needed to buy my farm. And the good news didn’t stop there. Thanks to a seller’s concession earlier in the process, I would have enough cash to take care of the closing costs, lawyers, inspections, and movers, with some left over to float me until my next paycheck. It wasn’t ideal, but it was enough. It was more than enough.

  Just hours before the bank application was due, my broker ran my credit score. It wasn’t shining, but the months of paying off bills, scrimping, and saving was enough to get me twenty points above the waterline.

  I collapsed back into my chair and felt such relief, I somehow lost the ability to cry or smile. I was still shocked. People say “shocked” all the time in casual conversation; usually, it means the person was
surprised or rattled in some way. I was actually, physically, in some sort of suspended animation. I sat there in my desk chair, some Photoshop document open on the screen, barely noticing the people working and chatting around me. With one simple phone call, my life had changed forever. I went from being a panicked, tail-tucked renter on the verge of losing everything to an actual farm owner, a genuine freeholder. I would soon hold the deed to six and a half acres of pasture and forest, a little white house, a stream, a barn, a pond, and some scrappy outbuildings.

  The closing would be in two weeks, my broker said. I’d sign the papers, then the previous owners would hand me the keys and leave. This all raced through my mind for several minutes as I sat there. Not working. Not talking. Just staring at my screen in the awed concoction of relief and gratitude. Finally, a smile started to add color to the empty canvas of my expression. I started to grin like an idiot.

  I was going home.

  As the closing date on the house grew near, I realized I was starting to feel off. Something was wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I started to lose my appetite; sleep was harder to come by. Thinking it was the nerves of a first-time homebuyer, I wrote it off. What else could it be? For years I had been slowly crawling uphill. I had fallen in love with farming, and fallen hard. I had a romance with homesteading in Idaho, my honeymoon in Vermont, and now I was less than a week away from sleeping under the roof of my own farmhouse, a place where my bedroom view would include my own barn and land. There was a puppy waiting for me in Idaho. I had more money saved, more bills paid, and the highest credit scored I’d ever had. And yet, as the day came to signing that mortgage and getting my title, I felt drained.

  I didn’t let myself linger on it much. I pushed aside the odd feelings because they confused me. I couldn’t piece it together. What had happened in my mind to take the joy out of this adventure? Then the confusion over the thoughts in my head started to make me feel guilty. How dare I feel anything but happiness? And so I went about the business of packing up the cabin, making arrangements with the local moving company, returning items I’d borrowed from neighbors, and planning how I was going to move the farm animals. I started jogging to take my mind off the turbulence in my head. I didn’t feel like eating. I lost five pounds in a week, although I didn’t notice until someone complimented me. I was running on fumes.

  I realized, slowly, and in many shallow cuts, what was bothering me. There was no orchestral revelation, no falling to my knees in tears. But I was slowly coming to understand the heaviness I’d been carrying around. I was about to turn the key on everything I’d ever dreamed of … and I had no one to share it with. I was moving into my first house and starting my own farm, alone. It crushed me.

  It wasn’t that I thought I needed to have a man in my life to feel complete. Nor did I believe that I needed a partner to start the farm (well, at least one that wasn’t a sheepdog). But while I found such joy in making the farm happen and watching the process unfold, I still wanted to hug someone when I got the call about the mortgage. I still wanted someone to kiss me on the forehead and tell me he was proud of me. And I still wanted him to grab a pitchfork and his own dog’s lead and walk out to the barn with me for morning chores. I missed someone I’d never even met.

  The funny thing is, I never thought about loneliness when I was renting. I think there’s something naturally impermanent about a lease. I had signed many of them, in four states now, and not once did I get the sense that it was a long-term decision. No, to me signing a lease was like making a contract with myself that I wasn’t yet dedicated to anything. As soon as the lease was up, I would be free: free to move back to Pennsylvania with my family, or to Boulder or Austin, or to God knows where.

  But signing a mortgage was a serious commitment. It was a marriage with a place, and it said to the world that I would be staying put. I’d be living permanently in one place, following one sacred goal, far away from the place where I grew up; going back would be harder than ever. A lot of people do this, and some are lucky to do it with a spouse. I wasn’t willing to wait for him to show up to start lambing on my own pasture, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t heartsick at the thought of going it alone. After all, soon I would be giving this farm all of myself. I’d be watching over and caring for dozens of animals, gardens, and bees. Who was going to watch over me? Suddenly, Washington County became a very scary place.

  People often told me they thought it was so brave of me to move to Tennessee, or Idaho, or Vermont by myself. I would listen to this and say “Thank you,” but the entire time they were praising me, I wanted to shake them and tell them, “Don’t you see the real story here? I’m not brave at all. I’m just terrified of regret.” I started a new life three times in five years, but I was never smiling as the planes took off. It was always with fear deep inside me that if I stayed put, I would be missing out on whatever lay ahead in that foreign world. This was true about Tennessee, the place that changed me into the person I am today. And it was also true of Idaho, where I dipped my toes into homesteading and fell in love with it. And it was certainly the case with Vermont: a place I had come to see as home for the first time since I was in my parents’ house. Now I was moving once again to a new state (my fifth in five years), and even though it was only nine miles from the Sandgate cabin, it was an entirely new place with a completely different vibe. I prayed it would be kind to me.

  The first thing I thought of when I woke up on closing day was crows. I have a personal superstition that spotting crows in pairs is an auspicious sign. For me, two birds — side by side in flight, perched in a tree, or hopping along the side of the road — is an omen of hope. I have no logical explanation for this; it simply feels correct. When I tried to figure it out, I found in my research that crows are seen in groups only when they’re young. So what I had been smiling at was actually an interdependence I didn’t understand but deeply appreciated. A pair of crows is a sign of necessity, teamwork, survival, and, thus, hope. It’s how the young animals find their footing in the world. The gypsy in me needed to see those birds before closing on the Jackson farm — a mandatory blessing. As I rolled deeper into the quilts to try to gain a few more minutes of sleep, I silently prayed that a pair would find me before pen touched paper. I took a deep breath and got up.

  I put the coffee on the stove and placed the leftover quiche in the oven. As the percolator rocked and the cabin filled with the smells of the warming breakfast, I invited Jazz to join me on the couch. He leapt up and buried his head in my chest. His tail thumped as I held his face and kissed his forehead. It was far too early and too dark to do chores, so while we waited for daylight to catch up with us, I petted my dog, then grabbed my old guitar and played a song with breakfast.

  By the time we’d had our fill (I ate a little, too nervous to enjoy the food) and I had enough coffee to scare normal people into caffeine celibacy, it was time to get outside. The last day of chores as a Vermonter.

  It was the swan song for that incarnation of Cold Antler. In a few weeks the cabin would be empty, the yard quiet. Not a single rooster would break into morning yodels here. I didn’t know if the neighbors would be heartsick or relieved at the change. Truthfully, I tried not to think about it. While I went about the morning rounds of sheep, chicken, and rabbit care, I listened to soft music through my headphones and let myself lose focus. Soon, though, I discovered just how hard it is to meditate when you realize you’ve acquired thirteen more new animals overnight.

  The big speckled doe had given birth to a giant litter of kits. Inside the nest box were a baker’s dozen of wriggling little babes — some pink, some spotted, some near-black. They were all alive and well, and their mother was doing fine. This marked the first litter of meat rabbits at the farm, and the fact that it was on the day I closed on my new home seemed almost worthy of a script. I reached into the furry nest box and pulled out a tiny kit. I held the newborn in my palm, warm and close. I watched the tendrils of steam come off its fragile, chubby body
in my hand, then quickly returned it to its family. I smiled at the small success. Even if crows didn’t come, kits had.

  With the blessing of the new litter, I headed inside to prepare for the big day. I had originally planned to bring Jazz with me, but when I realized how much driving was involved — and how long the day might be for an elderly animal — I decided to let him and Annie rest at the cabin. But the idea of closing alone was depressing. I wanted someone or something with me to share in the sublime moment. I grabbed my beat-up guitar and set it by the front door: That would do.

  The old guitar had become a good friend. If a dog could not join me on this fine day, this scrappy guitar would be a fine second choice. I loaded her in the truck and turned on the music, and we drove down the mountain toward the rest of the day.

  It was all starting now.

  On the way, I pulled into the Wayside to grab a cup of coffee. I also wanted to pick up something small to walk into the new house with. The store had been my home-away-from-home since I moved from Idaho, and I wanted a piece of it to join me. I found a glass case near the magazines with a pile of tiny, jadelike Buddhas in every shape and size. I found a small Japanese Buddha (not the fat, happy one holding coins) and bought it for a few dollars. As I climbed back into the truck, I set the little green statue on the passenger seat. Together, the Buddha, the guitar, and I drove to the bank. We had not seen a single crow since leaving the cabin half an hour ago. I gripped the steering wheel tighter.

  After the cashier’s check was made and my obligations met, I headed over to Chem Clean to service the truck. I pulled up next to the air nozzle, and Chris, a neighbor and the attendant, noticed the case in the front seat. Chris is a fine guitarist, so he helped himself to a few tunes while I checked the tire pressure. As I pressed air, I could hear “Black Bird” playing from the other side of the Ford. It was beautiful. I stuck around for a while to talk with Allan and Suzanne (who run the shop) and got to meet their two new Siberian husky puppies. I held the little girl pup in my arms while her brother ran around in circles on his blue lead. Not many gas stations in America offer a concert and puppies.