Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm Girl

by Susan McCorkindale

  Sometime later that day we took the kids on a hay ride. Sure, you can do that in suburbia. But once your charges are bored and tired of bouncing up and down and being stuck in the butt and the back of the legs with hay stalks, all you suburbanites can do is send them pumpkin picking. Here in the sticks, we hand them BB guns and send them pigeon popping.

  “Casey, you use Dad’s four-hundred-dollar Panther Air Rifle, and let Noelle use your less expensive, but equally effective, Walther Air Pistol.” We were standing in the Butler building, home to more pigeons than Central Park’s ever seen. The kids were tricked out like terrorists in masks, pads, all kinds of protective gear. And of course guns. “Cuyler, if I catch you, or any of you, without your goggles it’s ‘Game over,’ got it?” They looked at me and nodded. “Now, remember: aim for the rafters, and the kid with the most confirmed kills wins. You hear me?” Three goggled, eye-blacked, helmeted heads nod in unison. “You’ve got twenty minutes. Bring back dinner.”

  Of course I’m kidding about dinner. We don’t eat pigeon. But the groundhogs Grundy brings home are another matter entirely. . . .

  In addition to busting a cap on the birds, we also flew kites, hiked, and navigated massive mounds of cow poop. We barbecued, collected eggs, played with the dogs, and played the piano. The only thing we didn’t do is sing, which is a shame, as we let a perfectly good noise-volume waiver go to waste. Oh, well. There’s always next time.

  One of the more entertaining ways we spent our time was coming up with alternate uses for the farm. The fact that we can sunbathe naked in our own backyard prompted plans for turning the place into a nudist colony. Lots of trees, bushes, and strategically placed cows for shy nudies who’d like a little natural coverage make this a viable option. Then we tossed around the idea of going condo with the old grain silo, the Butler building, and the barn, but I nixed it in favor of making the whole thing a mall or maybe just a mammoth DSW. And finally it was decided that with a little effort, and some folks dressed in Colonial garb who don’t mind spending the day dipping candles, shoeing horses, and churning butter, we could kick Colonial Williamsburg’s butt with our very own Stuburg.132 For some reason, maybe it was the beer, we all liked this idea best.

  Just goes to show you: Drinking and marketing don’t mix.133

  One thing we didn’t consider doing to the farm was burning it to the ground. No, that we left to Mother Nature, who appeared to have it in mind a few days after our friends’ departure when lightning zapped several round hay bales and set them ablaze. I quickly jumped into Suzy, the Fabulous Farm Wife, mode and dialed 911, only to have Hemingway grab the phone from my hand, slam it down, and say, “Sue, we put out field fires ourselves.”

  To which I replied, “But muck boots look lousy with these jeans.” Obviously I didn’t help fight the fire, but I was intrigued to see the cattle munching the burned hay bales the next day.

  Hmmm. Maybe cows are whom I should be cooking for.

  Of course there’s no question about what I should be cooking. If that meaty Cuckoo Maran doesn’t knock off the pre-dawn cock-a-doodle-doing he’s going to find himself deep fried and served with a side of slaw. Unless there’s a better recipe in L. Ron Hubbard’s Scientologists Serve It Up Home Style Cookbook. As you’d expect, Hubbard’s a big fan of eating in silence. But since I’m an even bigger fan of eating the silenced, we should be able to work something out.134

  Have You Heard the Moos?

  TO: Friends & Family

  FR: Your Favorite Fake Farm Chick

  Date: Wednesday, 2:15 p.m.

  Subject: Starbucks is coming to the sticks!

  Hold on to your hay bales, friends and loved ones; there’s a Starbucks coming to the country.

  According to today’s Fauquier Times-Democrat, the Arby’s in Warrenton (aka civilization, compared to where we live), decided not to renew its lease. While I do feel bad for all the honest, hard-working country folk that’ll have to forgo their curly fries and Big Montana Roast Beef sandwiches, I’m thrilled Starbucks swooped in to keep the community caffeinated.

  Because it has been tough staying hyper around here.

  In fact, up until now the only way I could get my Venti Half-Caffe Soy Mocha with Whip Latte was at the mini Starbucks stand tucked inside the Safeway (also in Warrenton). Sure, it was better than nothing, but the local high school kids running it never could get the big, bad condescending barista act down.And if I don’t get a heaping helping of abuse with my coffee, or at least a really good eye roll and a belittling “You want whip on your soy latte?” crack, it’s just not worth the twelve bucks.

  Speaking of abuse, I made the mistake of visiting the chickens this week. After hearing for days how docile they are, how they like to be petted, and how “they’ll perch on your arm if you hold still!” I let myself be cajoled into paying them a social call. Never again. Those girls came at me with a furor never before seen outside of a designer handbag sale at Saks. Maybe it was the fact that I didn’t come bearing feed—I brought chocolate; I thought all chicks liked chocolate—or that my footwear was more fashionable than the wrinkled, three-pronged, ET-type concoctions they’re cursed with, but they attacked my ankles with the zeal of a vendor at an ear-piercing pavilion. Five cotton balls, eight Band-Aids, and a tube of Neosporin later, I nestled onto the couch with my copy of Family Circle’s All-Time Favorite Family Recipes book. I’m no chef, but I plan to become pretty adept with poultry dishes.

  I vowed from that point forward to limit my visits to human guests only. On Saturday Hemingway and I entertained a ninety-five-year-old gentleman who lived for forty of those years in our house. Spry, and sharp as the beaks of the pullets that’ll soon be chicken Parmesan, Mr. White regaled us with tales of farm life in the good old days of child labor, locusts, and plows pulled by prized oxen (but only when the kids were too busy to do it themselves).

  In the course of conversation we learned lots, including the fact that our house was built in 1890, to replace a house that was home to murder. Sometime in the late 1880s, a farmer murdered his wife and two children on this very spot. He then tried to set fire to the house. It didn’t completely catch, which he or may not have known, as he was off in the woods putting a bullet in his brain.When new owners bought the property, they tore down the original, half-burned house, and built this one.

  In hindsight, maybe I would be better off hanging out with the hens.

  Anyway, I’m awaiting the grand opening of the new Starbucks with bated breath, which, to my way of thinking, is a lot better than bad breath, but not as good as coffee breath. I intend to be first in line, armed with a credit card cleared just for the occasion.

  Of course if I discover more high school girls behind the counter, blowing kisses to their boyfriends over the steamed milk machine, I’m going to urge the management to consider poultry for all future positions. After all, a designer coffee is only as good as the diva who doesn’t want to serve it to you.

  Love,

  Susan

  Chapter Twenty-four

  LIFE IN THE FARM LANE

  So there I was, rushing the kids to day camp, desperate to make the nine o’clock drop-off time lest they miss a prepaid minute of Wide World of Sports (Cuyler) and paintball (Casey), or I miss a precious moment of peace. We were cruising Rectortown Road at a good clip when we zipped past a slow-moving John Deere tractor headed in the other direction and holding up four cars that were bumper-to-bumper behind it when Casey says, “Wow, you don’t see that every day.”

  Huh? Is he kidding? That’s all we do see around here.

  There should be a Starbucks for every tractor I’ve been trapped behind. An Ann Taylor for every pickup truck piled high with hay doing 15 where the speed limit is 50. A Cole Haan for every horse trailer with the horses’ heads hanging out the windows, the breeze flinging their drool directly onto my windshield. And a Neiman Marcus for every equestrian type straddling the middle of the road and flaunting that “horseback riders have the right of way” s
illiness we’ve quite literally saddled ourselves with down here.

  Maybe what he meant to say is, “Wow, you don’t see that every day in Ridgewood,” and he’d be right.

  Not once in all the years we lived in New Jersey did I have to stop my car and wait while a group of men forced an escaped bull back into a field. Nor did I ever see anyone making hay on their property or taking a stroll with their pet alpaca. No, suburbia has its wonders, and frankly I still wonder how I live without them, but the country has its fair share of sights to see, too.

  Like the six-foot-long black snakes that surround our springhouse and dine alfresco on the frogs and fish in the stream. Occasionally they attempt to slither their way into our cellar, and sometimes they even come creeping up on the chicken coop in search of eggs when a seafood diet no longer satisfies their forked-tongue taste buds.

  This happened recently, in an event that will forever be known as the Day of the Great Reptilian Attack, and it was Casey who came to the rescue. While Cuyler and I locked ourselves on the mud porch to watch out the windows, and Hemingway tried in vain to call in an air strike on his cell, our gentle giant calmly grabbed a shovel and killed two of the king-size kielbasas with more passion and force than he ever exhibited on the football field.135

  Of course the wildlife we live with isn’t the only thing that keeps me feeling like a fish out of water. For that refreshing, “Boy, Sue, you’re really lost at sea” sensation, I simply need to attend a local social event.

  Take, for example, the annual Upperville Colt and Horse Show. We attended this last year with Doug and Nancy, and I thoroughly enjoyed strutting my stuff in my cute “horse race” straw hat and doggie-bedecked skirt. I guess I thought I was so Jackie O., but looking back I’m sure Jackie Oh No! was more like it. Well, we went again this year, and while it was a hoot hanging out with all the movers, shakers, and big money makers, I finally saw the event for what it really is: Halloween for the horsey set.

  The women wore more makeup than I’ve ever seen this side of a Clinique counter136 and their preferred costume was anything Lilly Pulitzer, a line that, let’s be honest, looks a whole lot better on fourth-graders than forty-year-olds.

  Maybe it’s because I’m a big man fan, but the guys looked much more normal, not to mention age appropriate, in their blue blazers and khaki pants. There was, however, a rather rowdy contingent in pastel sweaters and coordinating plaid trousers that had me worried, as they appeared poised to grab the women’s oversize Prada purses and take off trick-or-treating from tent to tent.

  As if watching my fellow spectators wasn’t enough to make me feel like I’d suddenly been plunked down on another planet, there was the little matter of the show itself. And I’m not talking about the jockeys and the jumping competition.

  I’m talking about the pre-show entertainment. This consisted of the hound pups from the Piedmont Hunt scampering around the ring to more oohs and aahs than any human baby has ever heard, followed by a nineteenth-century horse-drawn carriage parade led by the Master of the Hunt, whom I can only hope handles his horse a whole lot better than he controlled that coach.137

  As he careened around the ring with his top hat ready to fly off and his tails flapping in the wind, I was positive he’d flip the contraption and kill himself, along with several members of the horsey set who were sitting inside the coach, alternately waving and trying desperately not to spill their Bloody Marys and mimosas. Had he done so, it would have been quite the tragedy, not only in the number of human lives lost but in the destruction of what looked to be the remainder of the wardrobe from Gone with the Wind.

  Of course there aren’t always social events to attend and poke fun at, so often I amuse myself by perusing the local paper.

  Not unlike the local newspaper in NJ, my new paper typically contains a full complement of features about suspicious fires and traffic accidents, store openings, and chamber of commerce meetings. There’s even an entire section dedicated to school sports, and a pull-out that’s primarily real estate ads, just like in my paper back home.

  But that’s where the similarities cease.

  Down here, any feature on education will most likely revisit the ongoing debate on where to locate the new high school and whether building it next to a firing range, which happens to be the case with one of the locations under serious consideration, is a minus or a plus.138

  And while the business section bursts with stories on cattle auctions, livestock sales, and tips on how to buy the right brush cutter, the home section offers ideas for decorating with ladybugs and new ways to prevent snake infestation. More House Practical than House Beautiful, but believe me, I cut it out.

  Even the “Things to Do” calendar features, to my way of thinking, some pretty questionable things to do. An “Appreciating Venomous Snakes” seminar? I’d appreciate not knowing such an event is even taking place. An evening “Bat Walk” to be “properly introduced to these flying mammals as they wake and begin their nightly bug hunt”? How’s about an evening trunk show to be properly introduced to a new designer whose fashions I’d be happy to go batty about?

  Yes, despite my eldest son’s latent observation, for things you don’t see every day, there’s no place like the country. In fact on Friday, Casey discovered a big box turtle relaxing on our front porch. It had been pouring frogs and hogs for days, and maybe Mr. Turtle got lost looking for a little cover. But there he was, minding his own business, when Casey, the family snake smasher, ever so gently picked him up and carried him all the way to the pond in the corner of our property. Then he put him down in the grass and watched as he took off into the water—all without the background accompaniment of an iPod or PSP soundtrack to punctuate the moment.

  Now, that’s something you don’t see every day. And the box turtle’s pretty rare too.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  URINE MY HOUSE NOW

  If I wanted to spend my life surrounded by the scent of urine, I would have erected a tent in the bowels of the New York City subway system.

  But no. I chose to move to Nate’s Place to (among other things) escape the spectacularly acrid aroma of the Big Apple’s mass transit system. To be free of the animals that relieved themselves in the cars, behind the ticket counters, next to the magazine stands, inside the little stand-alone security booths (which, trust me, stood alone, as no police officer could stand the pungent scent), and onto the tracks in full view of all of us commuters, because they knew they could. (I mean, who was going to stop them? Certainly not me in my four-hundred-dollar Prada pumps, that’s for sure.)

  Well, the pee may not have been on me, but the joke sure is. True, I’m free of the sight and smell of the pigs that whizzed wherever they pleased during my morning and evening commutes, but they’ve been replaced by bulls. And cows.139 And deer. And dogs. And groundhogs. And foxes. And horses. And hens.

  At any given moment I can look out my living room window and catch some member of the animal kingdom piddling in my front pasture. I can’t tell you how this pisses me off (pardon the pun). Why can’t they find a nice private spot, like by a tree, behind the springhouse, or near the side of the barn, to do their business? Why do they need to treat me to it? Do they think I’m some sort of weird fan of wildlife bodily functions?

  And if that’s not bad enough, my sons have gotten the impression that they too can tinkle wherever they please. Where did they get this great “act like a guy” idea? From their dear old dad, Hemingway, who now has them using the farm like a mall-size men’s room.

  He thinks I should be happy about this, and maybe he has a point. After all, it’s nearly impossible to get them to pee into the toilet bowl.

  As I see it, it’s a three-step, failsafe formula. One, stand in front of the toilet. Two, aim. And three, fire—pee, urinate, tinkle, twinkle, whiz—into the water. It’s step three that my kids skip, and I’m almost positive it’s on purpose.

  I think Cuyler fancies himself a little “pee-pee Picasso.” 140 For starters,
he takes forever in the john. Then when he comes out he leaves the light on, knowing I’ll go in to turn it off and discover the intricate tinkle designs that bedeck the rim of the bowl. What’s a mother to do? Well, this one’s been known to drag her little guy by the ear back to his “easel,” hand him some paper towels and a bottle of Fantastik, and say, “Scrub!” Sound harsh? Try heartbreaking, particularly when my mischievous Monet wails, “But, Mom, it looks so pretty, and I made it just for you!” You made more work for me, you little bugger. But OK, you win. Let’s grab the camera, capture this precious moment, and do what all good moms do for their budding artists, no matter what their preferred medium: find a spot on the fridge for their work.

  Casey skips step three also. OK, I’ll be honest. He doesn’t even remember there is a step three. His adolescent brain is everywhere but the bathroom. While he’s standing over the toilet, he’s intent only on his image in the full-length mirror in front of him.

  This might be a good time to tell you that, in Nate’s Place, the toilet faces away from a mirror that runs the length of the wall in the bathroom. So if you’re standing and you’ve got the toilet seat up141 you’ve got an excellent view of your upper body and ninety percent of your lower body.142