Animal News: The Chronicles of Newman and other Stories
Newman is the dude, and other touching stories
Star Gazing Farm recently embarked on a wonderful collaboration with an organization called "Our House" ( http://www.our-house.org/). This small non profit in Brookeville, MD provides housing, job training, GED courses, and guidance to "youth at risk" in the community. Every Saturday they have a community service program where the youth go out and perform volunteer work for people and organizations in the community.
The last two Saturdays 13 teenage boys from this program came out to work on the farm. They cleaned the barn and the duck pen, helped me trim all the sheep and goats' hooves, stacked hundreds of pounds of firewood, cleared away a great deal of brush and twigs, cleared the land of paper and other trash that had blown about, and helped fill in the ditches in the No Goat Zone from days of ditch-witch-trauma. Can anyone hear a sigh of relief! (this work would have taken weeks - and I expressed my gratitude to them several times!)
STORY 1: Need I even say that Newman was the overall center of their attention with Bello coming in on his hooves as a very close second. Good friend and volunteer Rita was here helping to supervise yesterday - at one point she realized she hadn't seen two of the boys for a few minutes. She went looking for them and found one playing with Newman in the barn (his favorite sport is "push", since he always wins); the other boy was quietly brushing Bello.
STORY 2: In the hoof trimming exercise (which I had all the boys participate in, as I do think it's an essential part of every young person's education to know how to trim hooves), Newman was of course the first one selected. It took no fewer than 3 of these tall, strong youths to keep him still so that I could trim and treat his hooves. I don't think they had realized before that just how strong he was, and they were impressed. When I was trimming WC's (sheep) hooves, he made little grunting noises like he
was upset. One of the boys stroked his head and made comforting sounds.
STORY 3: The first Saturday the boys were cleaning the barn and dumping the dirty shavings in the compost pile on the other side of the fence -- at one point Bello the horse dashed through the gate and started running through the woods. I saw at least 3 boys worriedly going after him. I followed them, and was amazed to see one youth holding out his hand gently to Bello, and coaxing him back up to the pasture. Later this youth told me, shaking his head in amazement, that this was the first time he had ever been with large animals. Yesterday, he brought two apples for Bello.
COMMENTARY: Not all the boys have the desire to work or even a good attitude, but most of them do - and all of them appear to be genuinely touched by the friendliness of the animals. More than once I saw boys leaning on the fence just watching Bello running around, the ducks foraging for bugs, the sheep grazing. These are peaceful moments for anyone; I suspect that for these youth who have been through hard times, they are more peaceful than many of us can imagine.
LAST STORY: Peaceful or not, I do believe the highlight of their day was when they discovered Newman's carjacking trick. He opened the truck door, and debated about what to do next. The boys closed the door to see if he'd do it again (of course he obliged). They repeated this two or three times with great delight. When he finally jumped into the truck and all that could be seen was his little brushy tail sticking out the door, there were whoops and howls.
OPPORTUNITY FOR YOU! We're still working on a final schedule with the supervisors at Our House, but we hope that these boys will come to Star Gazing Farm approximately once a month during 2005, always on a Saturday between 9 and 12. Although 2-3 supervisors attend the work day, it is very helpful to have additional help from SGF volunteers in ensuring that the boys' day is productive, safe, and enjoyable. Please contact me if you might be interested in assisting with supervising on these occasions; I think you will be surprised at how rewarding it is!
Until next time,
Farmer Anne
Star Gazing Farm
http://www.stargazingfarm.org
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