Animal News: The Chronicles of Newman and other Stories
So, you want to be a farmer?
I vaguely remmeber an old X-files episode that explores some bizarre happenings where a multiple chain of events always led to giving this certain guy good luck. He could fall off a building and bounce back onto the pavement, unharmed. I think I may be on the opposite side of the spectrum of this cause and effect business.
Take, for example, tonight. I had just arrived home from a long commute on the beltway, hot and sticky from lack of unfixable air conditioning in my truck (reference Haitian curse, below). As I entered the house, the inevitable cortege of Those Who Are Prohibited from Entering The House followed closely behind me: Derry the Maremma, and the two lambs, who just by the way have been having some problems with runny diarrhea, primarily choosing to deposit it on the front steps. It seems that Derry had just trapsed through a pool of paint, created two days before when a 5 gallon paint bucket, left outside and not properly sealed, had tipped over. As I tried to shoo the poop-laden lambs and Derry, who was happily making huge white paw marks all over the wooden floors, back outside, Derry suddenly decided it was a really good time to throw up.
Falling trees have become such a frequent occurrence around here, I'm wondering if there are chain saw support groups. As if there aren't enough trees collapsing of their own accord, yesterday, a farmer doing some work on my land ripped out two trees hovering over the driveway, and left them dying in my front pasture. I'm really not a plant person, but I just hate having to see tree carcasses lying around. This morning, not long before a staff meeting conference call was due to begin (for the job that actually pays me), I realized with horror that one of these trees was wild cherry. Terribly toxic during the 48-72 hour period of leaf wilting, when cyanide is emitted. Panic. Deathly poisonous to all my animals who, like herbivorous vultures, love to feast on dead trees. I hyperventilated until the farmer arrived with his Big Equipment (gotta love farmers with big equipment) and he said, NO PROBLEM, he'll remove that bad old tree for me. Except when he turned on his tractor something blew up. Do you suppose my coworkers grasped that the interference they heard from my cell phone was actually me chopping and dragging big limbs of dying wild cherry tree out the driveway while desperately wrestling Mr. Newman Goat away from the deadly leaves, and calmly discussing mail server migration strategies? And they wonder why I have bad hair days.
Maybe it's the moon - I think there's been a full moon recently. Some say in hushed voices that it's that old Haitian curse that started when I had just returned from Port-au-Prince and my sweet little car (in perfect running condition) simply wouldn't start anymore and no mechanic could figure out why, and then half the electricity shorted out in my apartment. I've heard people call me Calamity Anne, and some say poor girl, she just can't walk in a straight line, and then others seem to think that Boyds, itself, is a vortex of natural catastrophes.
I'm not sure what voodoo was at work Wednesday morning (yes folks, it's been a full week) when the dogs woke me at an unusually early hour and I stumbled out of my bedroom to let them out, but slipped on something, flying 180 degrees around, down, and slamming my head against the door jamb. Hard. Bad enough to make me lie semi-unconscious for the rest of the day in the hammock outside, semi-unconsciously savoring that really beautiful weather we had. (and yes, Mom, I'm fine now). I discovered later on that the culprit was a small gift my cat Rico had left me in honor of a dinner he hadn't cared for. The problem with concussions is that they're so undramatic - they're invisible, so no one can see them and feel sorry for you, unlike the black eye I got on Sunday from the piece of furniture that unloaded itself off the truck and into my face.
That's the problem with farm life. The obvious stuff is trivial; it's the cause and effect of all those hidden piles that will get you every time.
Till next time,
Farmer Anne
Star Gazing Farm
http://www.stargazingfarm.org
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