It seems strange to say but the thing that most sticks in my mind from our recent trip to Disney World – it seems like only a decade ago – was the mole rat habitat that we saw in the Animal Kingdom. I went back to see it several times, these fascinating creatures – burrowing desert rodents – live underground, they have bathrooms, pantry’s, bedrooms, play areas, living rooms. I did not imagine that Maria and I would be living like them in just a few weeks.
On Bedlam Farm, we are beginning to live a mole rat’s existence. We are digging paths and tunnels everywhere – to get to the car, the pasture, the chickens, the hay in the barn. One doctor tells me never to shovel snow, two nurses say I should shovel all I want, I am going with the nurses. And raking the roofs as well. Red has a path, the donkeys and sheep have one, the chickens have a path to their heated water bowl, we have separate paths to our cars, another to the mailbox.
Each day the snow mountains get bigger, there are fewer places to put any of the snow. Still, we manage in our little wonderland, it is worse up North and elsewhere. I think every day of the energetic mole rats, burrowing underground, building what they need, surviving in tiny spaces where they can see nothing, only smell and feel.
I am excited to be a mole rate for awhile, soon enough there will be color and light for me, soon enough we will be expanding our Dahlia garden, sitting in our chairs, going to the Battenkill, herding sheep out in the pasture. The mole rats will never see any of these things, but since they do not know that these things exist, there is no sadness or loss for them. A lesson here, I am not 100 per cent certain what it is.
Each day, I understand better why I was so fascinated by the mole rats, this idea of a cozy, simple, underground existence, all made possible by industry and acceptance. I watched them for hours. I think they were preparing me for life in my upstate town in February in winter. As the bitter cold descends here later this week, we will burrow further and further into the ground, under our heated blanket, warmed by wood stoves and firewood, and by one another, watching eagerly for Spring. There is nothing sweeter than cuddling up underneath a good soft heated blanket in sub-zero weather with some one you love, the animals fed, the fires roaring.
A fireplace was the only thing the mole rats did not have, but in the desert, perhaps a fireplace would be redundant.
The mole rats were telling me something, preparing me for the life of a burrowing desert rodent. I love the lessons and connections of life, crisis and mystery just around the corner.