Fate was circling the sheep out in the back pasture, and suddenly turned around – it was hot – and abandoned her post, plunging into the pond and splashing around joyously. “Hey,” I said, “what about the sheep?” This is not good border collie protocol, many noses would turn upward at this. But she had great fun and when she was cool, she returned to duty. The sheep hadn’t move. We all have to work at our own pace.
Maria has created a hanging piece that is so interesting to me, I call it “Victorian Lady Meets The Goddesses,” she got some fabric with a Victorian lady and child, and then she pored through her giant Goddess books and drew some of the Goddesses that have been worshiped in different cultures for centuries. I thought the juxtaposition of the Victorian Lady – Victorian ladies were notoriously repressed – with the ferociously strong and independent goddess figures was great. Maria is going to put this one up for sale later today, (I’m scooping her again) for $175. It will be posted on her blog.
She is deeply into the Goddess culture.
I want to be clear and honest about this, when I wrote the story about Fate nearly drowning, I understood that I would be soon writing this one as well, I am used to it. I am not angry or coy about it, and I do anticipate it. I do this because we desperately need to understand the real lives of real animals, or there won’t be any. The drama of the New York Carriage Horses and the elephants in the circus and the ponies in the farmer’s markets and the border collies herding sheep is this: because we don’t understand what the lives of animals are like any longer – we are coming to see all animals as pets or abused creatures – they are disappearing from our world.
It is becoming too difficult and fraught or controversial for many people to own animals, there are too many laws, too many secret informers, too many animal lovers paving the road to Hell with good intentions.
So when trouble occurs, I deliberately write about it, and it is almost a ritual to wait for the inevitable messages of alarm, concern or anger that show us how far we have come from farms, the natural world and from understanding the true nature of animals.
Animals like the carriage horses will pay for this with their lives if we do not learn the truth about them. As in this: it is not abuse for them to pull light carriages in Central Park, they are the luckiest horses in the world. Some circus elephants have been mistreated, many have not, and they will all soon perish because they have nowhere to go and no other work to do.
It is not abuse for a cow to stand in the snow, for a horse to lie down and take a nap, for water tanks to freeze in the winter, for a pig to get frostbite in – 27 temperatures, for a child to ride a pony, for a border collie to jump into a water bucket.
It is not possible to create a farm environment where accidents like the one that befell Fate can be completely avoided, that is not the real world of animals. No animal on earth lives a life free of risk, no human does either. We are holding animals and the people who live with them to an impossible standard, and it is too often based on fear, ignorance or hysteria. Animals and people are partners, animals are not superior or inferior to us, they share the joys and travails of the earth. Last month, we hit a deer. Life happens.
Our neuroses and ignorance are driving animals from the earth. If you wish to judge other people and their life with, then you owe it to yourself and them to know what you are talking about. This is why Joshua Rockwood, a young and honest farmer, is facing jail and trial rather than tending to and growing his farm. Because we have lost touch with the reality of living with animals. Fate’s bucket mishap matters. It is not a question of petulance, but of truth and compassion.
The ritual goes like this: I post a story about a mishap or trouble involving an animal, there is a flood of lectures, warnings, snarky or righteous messages. I write about them, and then other people get angry at me for doing so, as if I am picking on poor people who just mean well. After all, I share my life, aren’t I asking for it?
I am not angry, nor am I seeking to punish anyone. And I am not asking for it.
It is my duty not only to post cute photos of animals, but to try and educate people as to what they are like. There is a great and growing schism in the country between people with pets and people with animals, and here, on my blog, many people in both cultures come together. I have pets and I have animals. So here we go again, I am meeting what I see as my responsibility to be honest about life here, and to respond to this deepening gap in a hopefully positive way. I do it for the animals. And for the people who wish to learn something about them, rather than make judgements from afar.
Fate jumped in the big water bucket after herding, and fell into it, her head and shoulders first, her feet sticking up in the air. I saw her and pulled her out.
One of the first responses came from a reader named Kathryn, I was not surprised to see it, it was posted on Facebook. She was not pleased:
“It really would not take much effort to use a less deep bucket, do what’s best for fate, and take away worry. There is nothing wrong with taking preventative steps. Life doesn’t have to always be harsh with lessons in reality.“
I am not angry with you, Kathryn, I thank you for caring. At the same time, I don’t care to be seen as stupid and callous, I have been living with my animals for a long time, and have lost very few of them for any other than natural reasons (I did shoot a nasty rooster or two.)
Here is some reality for you, in the name of animals, farmers, and animal lovers everywhere, life is not nearly as simple as you would like to see it:
There are about a half dozen shallow buckets and pans, all over the pasture. Fate can drink from any one of them, she prefers the big bucket that is used for the pony, donkeys and sheep.
Here’s the context. It is very hot, the big bucket is always filled with cool and fresh water.
Animals like sheep and other livestock do not have human toilet hygiene. They will eliminate where they stand, and the shallow buckets often fill with feces and urine, dangerous to the animals in terms of infection, and unhealthy. They also walk in the shallow buckets, knock them over, trip on them.
This is why Fate doesn’t drink for them, I believe, she can probably smell the waste material. The shallow buckets have to be changed constantly – they are also out for the chickens and barn cats – and on hot days, they are left empty to dry out. The flies would be unbearable to the animals.
The deep buckets keep the animals from defecating them, or walking in them or knocking them over. That’s why they are big and heavy, so they don’t move when nudged. A donkey or big pony like Chloe will knock one over in a flash if they are not large and filled with water. The donkeys also, and the sheep. It is not possible for Fate to herd the sheep and not be near the big buckets.
So I’m afraid, Kathryn, that we cannot wave a wand and eliminate worry. We take all kinds of preventive steps all the time, including thousands of dollars in good fencing, but we cannot create a perfect world for these animals – at least not one we can afford. There are always risk in the natural world. A life with animals is not easy or perfect.
Standards like you are talking about make it ever more difficult, controversial and dangerous to have animals. Soon enough, some well meaning animal rights blockhead will get to some clueless politician and will demand a law requiring shallow buckets on farms, and farmers will get arrested for not having enough of them or keeping them full. There is harsh reality in life, and we do have to learn it’s lessons, if animals are to remain among us. So, sadly, do our animals.
I do expect comments like yours, this is perhaps the 100th time I have written a piece like this, and some of the response is always the same. It does not surprise me. My response is not done in pique, it is done to help save the animals in our world from extinction and to speak up for the people who love them and live with them.
Fate is a fortunate dog, she has a great life, is adored, she has sheep out the back door, parks and forests and meadows to walk in, people loving her and with her all day, toys and treats everywhere. If her life isn’t good enough, then what chance does any animal or animal lover have?
We need a new and wiser understanding of animals than this. We must understand the real lives of animals like horses and domesticated elephants and dogs and ponies and sheep, or there will be none around for me to live with or you to worry about.
I appreciate your being courteous and direct, but I think that’s about the best reality I can offer you. I hope you take something from it that is useful to you, and to the vanishing animals of the world.
My blog subscription program mirrors my own back-and-forth, up-and-down progress towards love, spirituality and authenticity. I was loathe to start it, but at every turn, people have come along to beat me up and get me going, and there are good signs that it is beginning to work.
The idea of paying for things online was shocking to many people just a few years ago, it is less so now. Book writers like me are either making the transition online, or vanishing from public view and relevance. I still write paper books, and love them, but the blog is my book now, my living memoir, my great work. For better or worse, I will stand or fall on the blog, it is how I make my living. How ironic, when I wrote my first book, the idea of writing blogs would have absolutely horrified me. But it is my medium now, it fits me.
A marketer told me that accepting subscriptions for the blog was no different than accepting royalties for a book. That blew it open for me. He said the progress would be slow and steady, and that I should give people several inexpensive ways to do it. Last year, he berated me again for mentioning subscriptions too infrequently so I mention them once or twice a month.
He has been right on all counts, the subscriptions are making a real difference in my life and my work, they make it possible for me to remain someone who writes for a living. They pay for the maintenance of the blog, help maintain my computer and photographic equipment they help me keep the blog free for those who cannot afford to pay even $3 a month for it. And there are many.
The blog focuses on my life, on animals, rural life, my town. It is think blog, we talk about stuff, we are not obsessed with agreement, it is not a “left” or “right” blog, we do not lament the state of the world here. I write about animals, spirituality, the hero journey, authenticity. There are no comments permitted on the blog itself – it is a monologue, not a dialogue – but the blog is posted on Facebook throughout the day and comments are permitted there.
I do not handle any of this money, I cannot start or stop subscriptions, subscribers manage their own accounts for their protection and my sanity, it is quite simple and you can cancel their subscriptions at any time and easily. Everyone is notified a week in advance when the subscriptions are up for renewal, you can opt out with a click. No financial data of any kind is stored on my site, and you can use Paypal or major credit cards to pay for it. You can pay $3 a month, $5 a month, or $60 a year.
Or nothing, many people have been with me from the beginning on this journey, I will never forget or abandon them.
At first I only mentioned subscriptions at the beginning of the month, my bookkeeper points out that I need to spread them out and mention them towards the middle and end of the month as well. So I will do that. I am learning to listen, accept help and follow the good advice of people I know.
You all, I hope, are paid well for your work, and I have come to enjoy being paid for mine. Back to the future, it is an exciting place for me to be. I am not one of those writers you will ever hear lamenting the good old days, the good old days are always for me the ones I am privileged to live and work in. So thanks for subscribing.
Yesterday, when we were done with sheepherding, Fate walked with me to the gate. She looked over and saw Maria and Chloe walking in the pasture, a new ritual of the morning. Maria and Chloe are working it out. Fate rushed over and a new ritual was born – woman, horse and dog out taking their morning walk.
Today, as we closed up the herding pasture, Fate took off to look for Maria and Chloe. She ran over to Chloe and the two of them touched noses, and then walked together all around the pasture. A rich new scene for the changing landscape, another ritual born on the farm.
