But no matter what happens, you get up the next day and do the best you can with what you have all over again. I loved farm life even with all its hardships, and I loved my job writing about the farm, too. It was limitless and filled with new challenges of its own every day.
I wrote “children’s stories” with talking animals. I wrote sentimental essays about life in rural Appalachia or memoir-type pieces about my family history in West Virginia. I created recipes and wrote about food. I designed craft ideas or tried out old-time skills. I was working if I was making bread. I was working if I was putting hats on Clover or giving Poky a licorice treat or trying to find where my hens were hiding their eggs. I was working if I was taking a drive, looking for a new old outhouse to see if it had two seats or three. I was working if I was learning to knit or dye wool. I was working if I was cutting wildflowers on the creek bank. When I was finished, I would write about it all.
And I enjoyed it so much, it never felt like work. I was following my passion, for writing, and for life on a farm, and there was a deep sense of rightness to it. I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing.
Readers responded. Traffic doubled and tripled, then doubled and tripled again. People left comments, sent e-mails and letters, letting me know how I was changing their lives, inspiring them to follow their dreams, try new things, or at least bake a loaf of bread. They told me that my daily posts were the highlight of their day and that my writing made them happy.
In the darkest days at Stringtown Rising, it was my readers who inspired me and kept me going. Making up recipes and stories for them took me away from my own life, at least in my mind. Hidden behind all the funny or informative or poetic posts I wrote on my website about life on the farm, I was hiding the terrible secret of my deepening unhappiness. I was afraid that 52 and I were not going to make it, and if I didn’t figure out how to make it without him, I was going to lose not just my farm and my dream but my business, because it was directly tied to the land.
I was trapped in a web of my own design, and I couldn’t see any way out.
Chapter 15
I kept a secret list.
It was the list of things I needed to operate the farm on my own. It included things like a push-button start generator so I could manage power outages, insulated hoses so I wouldn’t have to carry heavy buckets of water from inside the house to the animals when it was freezing, a proper milking parlor so I could quit milking in the mud, and some kind of massive feed and hay storage so I could stock up for the animals before winter. I knew that to take care of the farm by myself, I had to streamline chores and make things easier. I was going to kill myself with physical labor otherwise because the farm was so poorly laid out.
It was a squeeze to keep a hundred bales of hay at the house. Because of the way the main floor of the house had been raised to the second floor during construction, there was covered storage space under the wraparound porch. We kept hay there, and 52 kept a lot of junk there, but if I was going to keep more hay, a building would have to be constructed to hold it. I knew myself well enough to know that I would never get hay up to the fields around the house, where most of the animals wintered, unless it was brought up before bad weather hit and the driveway turned to ice and sludge.
But where would such a building go, and how much would it cost? What about feed? Feed tended to go moldy if it was kept too long, even in dry storage. 52 brought fresh feed every week. I could possibly hire someone to deliver feed, a man who would drive up the driveway with it when it was icy and not be terrified, but that would cost money, too.
Every issue relating to managing the farm by myself involved money in one way or another. The one thing I couldn’t change about the farm was the difficult geography. Overcoming the difficult geography required money or physical labor or both.
Even once the hay was stored up at the house, it wasn’t easy to get it to the animals. The land was a narrow strip, with the house taking up a good deal of the space. The house backed up to a hillside. In front of the house was the fenced goat yard. Wooded pasture had been fenced for Beulah Petunia on the far side of the house so that I wouldn’t have to milk her in the meadow bottom anymore. There was no way I was going to get milk up and down the driveway in the winter. To get hay to her, I had to throw it over the fence into a small pen that had been fenced under the porch. The gates to the pen were made from pallets and had long since stopped operating because of hay and poop buildup. After I tossed the hay bale over the fence into the pen, I had to go around and back through the goat yard to get to the pen. Then I tossed the bale over the other (nonworking) pen gate into the side yard. Once I got back around there, I would roll the bale end over end to get it to Beulah Petunia.
Hay bales are heavy, weighing fifty to seventy-five pounds.
I did this every morning. A cow eats a bale of hay per day in the winter. I wanted to hire someone to dig out—with the tractor—the pen and repair the pen gates, but 52 was opposed to hiring anyone to do anything. We were supposed to do everything ourselves. I couldn’t do this myself, though, and he never did it, either. I was afraid of how mad he’d be if I hired someone over his objections, so I tried to call moving the hay by hand over gates good exercise. I called 52 something else, but only in my mind.
If I had the farm on my own, I was going to hire someone to fix it. Immediately. 52 had suggested repeatedly that it was what I was planning to do after I got rid of him, hire a man to do the farm labor. Often I wondered if he just wanted out and was trying to give me instructions.
I transferred all the household bills into my name and set up online accounts to pay them so it could all be done online. 52 didn’t question this reorganization since I was paying all the bills anyway. I needed to solve the problem of getting to the post office in the winter, since mail was not picked up or delivered on our road. I still couldn’t figure out how to solve the hay and feed problem, though.
Since I’d taken over the bills, the only money I gave 52 anymore was for the weekly feed. I wrote him a check once a month for the feed, and he picked it up weekly at the little store in town on his way home from work, sometimes more often if I ran out. I e-mailed him at work one day to let him know that Beulah Petunia was almost out of sweet feed. I needed him to stop for feed that evening.
He e-mailed me back and told me he didn’t have any money for feed.
I said, “I just gave you a check for feed two days ago!”
He told me the money was gone.
I had already filled up Beulah Petunia’s feed bucket, getting ready to milk her. She was standing by the gate, waiting expectantly. I didn’t know where the feed money had gone, and 52 wasn’t explaining other than to say he’d spent it on a personal bill of his own. No matter how much I took over, paying for more and more of the costs of running the farm, his money troubles never seemed to improve. The more I paid for, the more he complained about having no money.
Beulah Petunia mooed angrily at the gate to her pasture.
I walked outside, leaving the bucket of feed behind. I had no idea when I would be able to get more feed. I’d given 52 all the money for feed for the month, and it was gone. There was snow on the ground under a crisp, cold sky. I told my cow I was sorry. I stared up at that deep blue winter sky, my face wet, tears freezing on my skin, urgency burning inside me. I had to figure out a way to run this farm by myself. I couldn’t trust 52.
Several days later, 52 showed up with some feed. He told me he’d sold some of his father’s gold. Occasionally if he needed money, he would sell gold he’d inherited from his father’s clock and jewelry shop. I was unsympathetic to his plight of having to sell gold for cow feed.
I opened an account at the little store in town. 52 could pick up feed as needed, and I could pay the feed bill all at once by phone at the end of each month. I never gave money to 52 for anything ever again, but I was reminded constantly by the farm itself that I couldn’t manage it on my own.
I couldn’t even manage
a calf.
There are all sorts of reasons to put a halter on a calf, particularly if it’s a future milk cow. You want a cow that is tame and friendly, and you need to be able to move her around if and when necessary. You also want to be able to handle a calf as needed for vaccinations or other treatment. Glory Bee started out pretty friendly, and she would still frolic around me and come up to my hand, but she grew skittish when I tried to touch her, which is common with a mama-raised baby. It’s the same thing with lambs or baby goats. If they’re separated from their mothers and bottle-fed, they’re more friendly than if they’re left with their mothers. Getting a halter on Glory Bee, and using a lead on her at times, would make me able to handle her more and socialize her to my handling.
I spent hours one day haplessly flinging myself at the calf while she darted away from me.
WOMAN BEATEN BY BABY COW
A woman, reportedly beaten by a baby cow on a farm in the boonies, declined to comment on the incident, which occurred late Tuesday. Officers arrived at the scene after chickens in the area filed a disturbance call. A goat identified only as “Clover” stated to officers that the woman had been harassing the baby cow before the beating and that she was known for her inability to control animals. “It’s embarrassing, really,” Clover said. “But at least she makes good cookies.”
Officers attempted to question the woman about the reported harassment, but she fled the scene in chore boots. A calf halter was taken into evidence. The case remains under investigation.
I couldn’t even catch her, much less put a halter on her. The field where we kept Beulah Petunia was fenced with electric—which did nothing to contain the calf.
I’d tried to catch Glory Bee off and on for weeks when I decided it was time for 52 to take a turn. He got a rope to lasso her like a cowboy.
However, cowboys have horses so they can run as fast as calves, and we didn’t have any horses. We also had steep hills and rough terrain, and I don’t even think a cowboy on a horse could have caught this calf, though I would have liked to see a cowboy ride circles around the milk stand with Glory Bee, then up the hill and down the hill and under the electric fence.
So many different directions to go. Uphill. Downhill. The hinterlands. She needed to be herded into a pen from a smaller world. The only fencing that would keep her in would be the woven wire in the goat yard. But we’d moved the donkeys up for the winter, so Jack, Poky, and a whole passel of goats stood in the way.
The only thing 52 really had on me with the animals was brute strength, but he was very sensitive to being questioned about one of his plans. Generally, I waited until his plan finished not working before suggesting mine. My plans were often convoluted and nigh upon ridiculous, but they usually worked. I spent a lot of time with the animals, and since I had no brute strength, I relied on my instincts for animal behavior. 52 resented following my plans, but he lacked the instincts I had developed. I tried to manage by myself whenever possible, but in this case, I needed help pulling off the plan because at the end of it, somebody with brute strength was going to have to take control of the wild calf.
Step 1. Put everybody (goats and donkeys both) in the goat house and lock the door.
Step 2. Get Beulah Petunia.
Step 3. Tie her up inside the goat yard and leave the goat yard gate standing wide open.
Step 4. Wait for the baby to go looking for mommy.
Step 5. Slam the gate shut.
Step 6. Run the calf across the yard, away from the gate.
Step 7. Take mommy back out the gate and back to her field.
Step 8. Run back and forth and all over the goat yard until the baby accidentally runs into the confined space of the goat pen.
Step 9. Slam the goat pen gate on her. Corner the wild calf and get a rope on her!
Step 10. Struggle with ill-fitting halter. Give up on halter and lovingly convince angry, bucking calf to walk from the goat yard to the milk stand pen on a rope.
Step 11. Shut the angry, bucking baby in the milk stand pen and finally get the halter on her. (Don’t forget to go back and shut the goat yard up again and let everybody out of the goat house.)
Step 12. Start crying when the calf escapes.
Further secure the pen, then repeat steps 1 through 11 above. Do not, under any circumstances, repeat step 12.
52, of course, was the one holding on to the rope with an angry, bucking baby at the other end. I was afraid she’d get away from me, though someone had to start working to tame her, and I knew that was largely going to fall on me.
Once we had the halter on her, trying to work with her on a lead was like walking a Tasmanian devil, but at least she was under some modicum of control. I started out milk sharing half days with Beulah Petunia. I’d let Glory Bee milk her in the morning, then I’d get mine in the evening. As Glory Bee continued to grow and didn’t need the milk, eventually we traded days. I’d get Beulah Petunia one day, and Glory Bee would get her the next. (This gave me every other day off, which I liked.) Glory Bee remained a giant brat, but I continued to work on my “relationship” with her while keeping her contained in the goat yard, separated from her mama when it wasn’t her turn. She was very curious about me, following me everywhere, running along the fence to “follow” me even when I was outside the goat yard. When I went into the goat yard, she’d tag along behind me like a toddler holding on to an invisible apron string.
She was a gorgeous creature, and I was as besotted with her as I was with her mother. Cows sucked me in like no other farm animals I’d experienced. They were an incredible amount of work, but they gave back a hundredfold in so many ways—not just milk, but in honing my confidence and perseverance and patience.
Cows made the farm for me. It wasn’t just about the butter, though it was delicious. Cows fed those questions deep inside, questions about myself, that had led me to West Virginia. Milking a cow made me prove myself every single day.
Yet as satisfying as that experience was, I never seemed to arrive at my destination. The cows were part of the journey, but they weren’t the answer.
I was living a crazy life, fulfilling in so many ways, but empty at the same time. The best part about it was that it was too busy to let me contemplate for long.
Three of the goats popped out four babies that winter. The last one to give birth, Sprite, one of my Fainters, had been behaving normally all day when 52 and I spotted her standing in the middle of the goat yard making “I’m in pain” noises. We moved her quickly to the goat house, which was blocked off then as the maternity ward. She went to the corner and stood and cried a little bit. She finally sat down, and 52 and I watched as the baby came out.
But then—
Sprite walked away.
The baby flopped and mewled for its mother.
Sprite went to the opposite corner and wouldn’t even look upon what had sprung from her flowered loins. Whatever it was, she didn’t want it. I took hold of her and turned her around. She turned back. I turned her back around and pushed her a little toward the flopping, crying thing. She climbed up onto a little table in the goat house to get away.
The baby struggled to its feet, still covered in goop. Sprite wouldn’t clean it.
I thought—maybe she’s having another baby. Maybe she’s busy.
We’d discovered Fanta, another of the Fainters, the night before, just as she’d had her second baby. It was still covered in goop and she was cleaning it. The first baby was already on its feet, cleaned off and fluffy. Fanta didn’t wait till she had the second one to clean off the first one.
Sprite wouldn’t even look at her baby, much less go near it. I made her move down off the table. The baby half walked, half flopped toward her, crying. Sprite climbed back up on the table.
Afraid the baby would get chilled as the minutes ticked by, we got a towel and dried the baby off as best we could without, you know, licking it. The other babies came around, nuzzled it, and talked to it. Sprite drank some water and ate some hay. And wo
uldn’t look at her baby. She ran away every time it wobbled up to her.
It was one of the strangest, most unnatural things I’d ever seen, and I had no idea what to do.
We put the baby under Fanta, who was still only twenty-four hours from delivering her twins and would still have colostrum in her milk, and let it suck on her. She was busy eating hay and she had two babies so she wasn’t paying attention to who was sucking on her. And that baby wanted a mommy so badly.
When Sprite never showed any sign of delivering a second one, I went inside and found the little goat milk pail from back when I was milking Clover. 52 held Sprite down for me and I milked some colostrum out of her, thinking to put it in a bottle. Then I thought—why not try the baby? I put the baby under her. We had to hold her. She didn’t want the baby anywhere near her. We let the baby nurse a good long time to get colostrum. I took the colostrum I’d milked out of her into the pail inside the house to store. We stayed with the baby in the goat house for a long time before leaving it for the night to snuggle in with the other goat mommies and their babies inside the goat house.
The next day, I went down to the goat house alone, backed Sprite into a corner, held on to her with all my might to stop her from running away, and let the baby suck. A baby needs all the colostrum it can get within the first twenty-four hours of birth, and especially within the first twelve. Sprite continued to run away unless she was held in place.
I was sure I’d end up bottle-feeding that baby, but after a week of consistently going down to the goat house multiple times throughout the day and holding Sprite down against her will to nurse, she started nursing her baby voluntarily. While I was still struggling with Glory Bee, convincing Sprite to be a mother was an accomplishment that felt especially good.
Chickens in the Road Page 17