I went to the party. On the subway. Partially accompanied by my grandson who still lives in an apartment in the building where I raised my children. The friends whose party I attended were a family I had met at the County Fair several years ago. I was standing by the goat pens and saw a family clustered around a sheep pen. The mother had her hands on a stroller. The father was kneeling down looking at the sheep, a big smile on his face. “Look children,” he was saying. The children bounced around as children do, all in delight at the proximity of the little white sheep. I wanted to go over to them and hesitated. “I have a farm with sheep and want to invite you to come and see how they live outside of a pen,” I longed to say. But I was loath to intrude. What if they became annoyed with a stranger walking over to them and interrupting their experience? I’ve always believed it is a sin to not give when you see an opportunity to share of yourself. And so I walked over to the family and invited them to the farm. The father looked a little disconcerted. The mother smiled as she always seems to be doing. And two days later their van pulled into my driveway and the visits began. Later I learned the father was doubtful about coming. The mother was not. The family has grown. Another family was added to the visits. Summer people, who have a camp for young people. Now the entire camp pays a visit once or twice a summer as well. Boys from the Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Chicago, London, Iran, the Basque country in Spain, all come to see my sheep, my goats, my donkey, my geese, ducks, and chickens. I love every minute of having them here.
I was invited to a party in New York City. And went.
AS ERNEST LAY DYING
I SAW THE tree a day or two ago, for the very first time, willow green it was. Just beginning to leaf out. Startling in its gravity against the alizarin crimson of the maple wood, the wood so familiar to me for all the spring-times I have farmed here. It is on a hill which prevents the sunrise in its total splendor from entering my valley. Only a slim golden gleam in the morning enters my windows, rich and astonishing in its intensity. And that appears in slivers of gold, lighting the bright yellow walls of the winter bedroom. It is a surprise, each day, the slightly varying shapes, bars of gold, marked by distinct shadows: the mullions of the window sash, the shade of a lamp on a table, and the geometry of the mirrors I’ve placed to catch the light. It is why, in part, I chose that room in which to sleep winters. I lie in bed, mornings, watching the sun’s performance. A few brilliant moments and it is over. The sun moves. Or is it the world that moves? I’ve heard it was the world. But, early mornings, it would seem to be, most certainly, the sun.
The summer bedroom has its loveliness as well. But that lies later in the day, when the sun has moved, or is it the world which has moved, around the house, and heralds late afternoon as it enters the windows. No slivers of light here, but a warm and gentle glow fills the room and broad bands of golden light fill the squares of the window panes. In its final gesture, it passes through the thick old-ivory–colored linen drapes, making them gleam in light and shadow, and then, onto the old ceramic stove, its tiles in shades of salmon and peach and gold on the petals of the dogwood blossoms with which it is embossed. The stove glows in the last rays of the sun as it drops behind another hill to the west.
One window frames the pine trees, huge dark triangles summer and winter, that themselves form another triangle, created by a cherry tree, pale green leaves and ivory-colored flowers in spring, dark green leaves in summer, and shafts of gold in fall. A second window includes a wood itself, of no particular distinction, but it is through that that I see the sky. These windows frame a view that has never tired me, even though it changes less than any of the others in this house of many windows and many ways of seeing things. The sky itself provides the variations, as one by one the evening stars appear against the deepening blue. I have watched them move across one pane of glass to the next and then disappear from sight. Until the next evening. They, too, vary their position ever so slightly each night. Modestly, but enough to notice. For there is a moment when they, one by one, do not reappear again.
I remember a mirror in my mother’s house when I was a child. It had a beveled glass edge. It was gold. “Ornate,” my mother would say with disdain. “Too ornate.” I loved it. One September afternoon, it cast a rainbow on an adjacent wall. The rainbow appeared, afternoons, about the time I came home from school. It lingered for only a few minutes. Never longer. Each day it moved its position ever so slightly. By the end of September, it was gone. It returned the next year. In a slightly different place. The following September was the last time it appeared. Lacking its original clarity. But it was enchanting to me nonetheless. As is the tree I saw a day or two ago for the first time. The bright, pale willow-green color I love so. It has not moved, of course. It remains in its place. To be noticed from my front lawn. A surprise of color against the spring’s favorite alizarin crimson of the maple trees and their faint, indistinct blooms. Spring. But today its color has changed.
Deeper and less distinct. No longer asking for attention. Soon the deep red of the trees in bloom shall be replaced by green. A bright and darker green than the willow-colored tree. And that tree as well shall become a similar darker color. And I won’t notice it any more. Distinct and separate against the hillside. I won’t see it any more.
THE SICK DAY
SPRING HAS ASTONISHED all of us this year. It has arrived a month early. This day has been reminiscent of late April, early May some years. My custom is to put the sheep on pasture on April 20th. The last year it was on May 10th. Twenty extra days of feeding out hay. About 250 more bales. A small catastrophe. This year the grass is greening up before my eyes. March. The seep, of course, has been green for several weeks. But even the hillside has a breath of green touching it. Several of the sheep have taken to leaping the stone wall around the barnyard. They don’t try the pastures yet. It is the baleage at the upper level of the barn that draws them. Nonetheless, two or three get out. The wild three that are rarely ever inside now have taken semipermanent residence in the relatively empty hay mow.
My horned ewe, a year old this month, is bagging. I want her lamb, and so, rather than taking any chances that it may be born in a pasture next to a stone wall, she and her ewe friends have been tricked into living inside for a while. More work, but I want to be certain this young mother, whose mother was a person, not a sheep, will know how to take care of a baby. If not, I’ll take it right away. Her fleece is so long and thick that a lamb might not be able to locate the udder with any ease. My ancient Horned Dorset ewe may be bagging as well. I certainly hope so. Her last year’s lamb is my choice for a replacement ram. Only for his configuration and rapid growth. His face is the most unhandsome that has ever appeared on my farm; close to ugly, as a matter of fact. There hasn’t been a ram to catch my eye this year, as yet. I do spend time sitting in the creep feed and its anteroom most days to see who will come over to me. Some do every day. I want to braid some collars for them but have been sick for a few days and even that is too much to do. I truly want to mark those who are the most tame to me. There is one very old- fashioned–looking lamb with a classic Friesian head and no fleece near its face that is a throwback to a pure East Friesian. No horns. Probably a ewe.
This year’s lamb sales have been different as well. It is the first year that I have had more requests for starter flocks than meat lambs. As reluctant as I am to sell ewe lambs, I have sold some to four sets of people who want to begin to farm sheep. Always included in the sale is my offer to mentor the new shepherd if they wish. This year I have helped found four such beginning farms. All, possibly, to become my competition. Should they breed ram lambs, those, more likely than not, will be sold for meat. I only hope they don’t charge less than I do. I remember when my lamb prices began to hit $100 apiece and some new people were charging between 60 and 80. I wonder what became of them? The people, not the lambs.
Two of my one-year-old kid goats were covered the other day. They stood for the buck and may have been bred. Were they, it would be
close to ideal for the farm. The timing, that is. To have milk from mid-August for a few months toward winter would be ideal. I’ve always wanted milk at that time of year. And it might mean that they’d always freshen around then. One doe lost her kid recently. A brown goat. A Sable. Twins. Also brown. A disaster for me. It is what I am breeding for. Two other Sables are getting quite wide in girth. And the Saanen, who is white, of course, was sold to me as a Sable because one of her parents is a Sable. Sables are brown Saanens. One person buying a lamb today wants a kid goat for meat. Of the three bred does, there shall be at least one buck. I lost Adelaide Merriman this year to age, and one of her daughters, I think to aggression on the part of other goats. And so, even though three does are coming in, their kids shall not overcrowd the carriage house. Of course there shall be the issue of names. The most fun! It is my little white Verity, by the way, who got bred the other day. It is now the time to braid lead cords for them so they can go outside and clean up the brush in the cow path. Still amazing that I am thinking about that now rather than in May. It is hard to decide what I am sick with. It almost feels imaginary, although women do tend to attribute illness to being psychological rather than real. I can’t really breathe very well. Throwing a few bales of hay makes me want to lie down and I do. Braiding some lamb collars seems to be just too much. And yet 10 minutes after lying down all I can do is think about what needs to be done and I jump up to try to do something and find I can’t. Is this the flu? I managed to bake a couple of Boston brown breads. Molasses, buckwheat flour, corn meal, white flour and whole wheat, with a generous amount of molasses and buttermilk. No kneading. And even that took me upstairs in the middle of making it. I get “better” fast. Expect to. Demand it. And there are too many interesting things to do to stay abed.
Beyond my envy of Thirkell’s interlocking society is an even deeper envy of the education that is possessed by seemingly everyone in her novels. They quote Browning and Virgil, Dickens and Shakespeare. I can’t quote my favorite Georgics by Virgil, even though I love it so, and it is all about farming. Perhaps it is simply Thirkell’s education I envy. It is from Thirkell that many of the names of my sheep and goats come.
ROSES
THERE IS ONE white rose bush among the rugosas planted in the buffer zone several years ago. The rest are cerise. There had been another that got killed by beavers. Or deer. Or. It has been gone for quite some time. The new one disclosed itself a day or two ago for the first time. It made me wish I were rich. Or at least had middle-class money. Were I not tied irrevocably to being a farmer, and all the money I get one way or another going into paying for the needs of the farm, I’d hire someone to at least keep the area around the rugosas trimmed so they would proliferate the way they long to. I do, some years, give them a shot of rose fertilizer. Watering has been to date impossible, although a new solution may have presented itself after I had planted the five much longed-for pear trees in a nicely fenced in area next to said buffer zone. In an effort to repair what has been injured in my heart, I, every day, do something to affect that. Which is why, at 7:30 in the evening, I found myself wading through the blackberries and the about-to-take-over goldenrod, trug and knife in hand, wearing gloves, to my amazement, to cut some rugosas for the kitchen table. There at the end of the fence I found it. The white one. One bloom. The remaining in bud. I brought it in with the others. Placed it in its own jar. Away from the cerise ones. Eye level for me as I washed dishes. And moved it from room to room as I did my chores. It is enchantingly beautiful. I’ve often sketched a flower, on envelopes, or on the border of pages on which I write. It was only now, looking at that lovely thing, that I realized it was a rugosa rose that I have been drawing all of these years.
My principal task, of late, is to get ready for the next stage. For which both repair and progress are demanded. I know that stage has begun. Although I don’t know anything about what it means or what it shall be. Gradually I see improvements. Often to my surprise, some things are not remotely as bad as I thought. Take the foot of the stairs and its entrance to the mudroom as an example. There was a moment when it made sense to leave things there needing to be brought upstairs. Or to the carriage house. The pile became formidable and disconcerting. Throwing a beautiful quilt over it didn’t help. Clean laundry went on top of the quilt, and then, failing to go upstairs with the rest of what was in my hands, only added to the height of the pile. It only took a half an hour to dismantle it all and put everything in its proper place. A lot of clean sheets.
I love sheets. White ones. Cotton. If I had spare money I’d send them out to be starched and ironed. I buy any that I come across in the Salvation Army. The beds here vary in size dramatically so I buy them indiscriminate of dimension. There must be 30 or so sheets here. They become curtains and bed spreads in summer. Drapes in winter. An occasional tablecloth. I love the look of them.
There were a few surprises upon dismantling the pile. One was a very nice pair of chocolate brown desert boots I’d never worn and quite forgot I had bought a couple of years ago. No real junk to toss out. And nothing horrible. To my gratification.
The new chicks had arrived with a real place to live. A box turned up, a big one that fit perfectly on the newly cleared landing. The young man who sometimes lends a hand here created the perfect way to hang the infrared light that chicks need to keep warm their first few weeks. And so, now that they moved to their own outdoor coop, there is a slightly horrible task to deal with on the landing. However, it will only take a few minutes. And all will be as it once was, some time ago. I had stenciled a vine on the wall that was from a drawing I had made in the Pope’s bedroom in the Palace of the Pope in Avignon, a long time ago. It is still nice. “Make something better. Nothing worse,” was an old motto. Not the motto for today. I don’t know what that is yet. The baby chicks seemed to fall in love with the outdoors. They immediately began to nibble on grass. Twenty-one out of 25 made it. Chicks to become chickens. Hope does reign here sometimes. Farm life. Somehow the farm manages to endure and grow. As do I.
Sometimes life here seems straightforward. Put one foot in front of the other. “Proceed,” said someone once to me. Someone who does know the right thing to say to me. “Proceed.” I’ve often thought to embroider that on a pillow. Haven’t as yet. Don’t know why. I guess I am waiting for Stewart’s Department Store to carry DMC embroidery floss. I even think I know which chair the pillow shall go on. The shepherd’s chair in the dining room. It stares at me. I moved its pillows off because the annual starling visitation, read building a nest in the top of the wainscoted wall leaving memories of their visit on my carefully painted chair. The chair now looks ready to be scrubbed and for me to think of a new pillow. Goldenrod yellow embroidery on a cream ground, perhaps. Corn, as are embroidered some of Marie Antoinette’s chairs.
Sometimes life doesn’t seem straightforward at all. Today it isn’t. I’ve started working on some things. The library upstairs on the third floor landing. Sorting books by author, and then by topic. Now there are piles on the floor. They say you can tell a lot about someone by the books they own. Mine, I think, would confuse someone terribly. Twentieth century. English mysteries by the score. All of Marsh, Allingham, and Innis. Wherever are my Sayers? Only one has come to the forefront. Then there is a taste for “mediaeval” mysteries. Sharon Newman, Margaret Frazer. And English history. A biography of Sir Walter Raleigh, Rural Economy in the Medieval West; Women and Work in the Middle Ages; Treatise on Human Nature, by David Hume. Well, perhaps that is a thread there. Tying it all together with a book on the invention of clock escapements in the thirteenth century. Of course there are 87 cookbooks in the kitchen cupboard and probably a dozen or two more scattered throughout the house. Elizabeth David’s French Country Cooking surfaced the other day reminding me of who I was when I first came here, and who I may not be anymore. She influenced my life more than any other writer, and a writer she was. Her recipes were prose in its most pure form for me. And her principles certainly affec
ted the life here in the deepest sense.
The roses in the long neglected perennial border are in bloom. Lush, thickly petaled, pink Bourbons. At a friend’s they grow in an abundance that is outrageous. Here they hide among the phlox and sweet cicely and monkshood. When I go to visit them, evenings, I always promise myself tomorrow evening I shall work on the border again like I used to. Perennials are an enormous amount of work. The daffodils beg to be divided. They were too crowded to bloom at their fullest this year. I had planted “The Works” about 30 years ago, in units of three. Little triangles. They have multiplied so prolifically that they are now merely lumps of green stems. No flowers at all. I put bunches of green leaves from the quince bushes by the driveway around the house, in five or six rooms. They cool the rooms off so nicely in summer. Of course they then die and begin to drop leaves. I take them from their cases, jars, and mustard pots, strewing leaves everywhere, of course, and try to stuff them in the wood stove where I burn egg shells and the like on summer mornings. Obviously the debris is everywhere, demanding the broom. So be it. I can’t help being myself. Nor can I not be annoyed at myself. Which is it? Am I a joyous housekeeper putting green and wine quince leaves everywhere, choosing carefully which to pick for which vase, no less than four in the dining room? Or am I an absolute slob, strewing dead leaves everywhere throughout this enormous house? When I used to polish my copper pots more frequently the thought ran through my mind: I think I am a Russian princess. Thirty or 40 copper pots to polish! Some with catsup and salt. Some with the latest commercial polish. My son sends me, often, a carton of six cans of spray starch for Christmas. They are all used up by the end of June. Today I plan as a gift to myself, to iron a group of shirts so should the opportunity ever arise to leave the farm for a little while, I’ll have something to wear.
The Improbable Shepherd Page 15