Yesterday I opened the front door and found three Wyandotte hens looking at me quizzically, none of us where the other expected. It took me a second to believe my eyes as we have a large pen that connects to the sheep paddock where the chickens live, the fence is very high and has an electric wire running around the middle.
A few days ago our neighbor was walking her dog and some marauding Wyandottes raced across our dirt road in front of her. She quickly called and left a voice message. It reminded me of being called by the school when the boys were being a bit too adventurous for the classroom.
The task of getting them back in is not simple. Bronte completely ignores any commands to herd chickens. Eye on the prize, she runs past the chickens and stands in front of the sheep fence while I play the Border collie and walk in wide circles round them hoping to corral them into an open gate. Sometimes we push them into a corner and are able to pick them up, while they scream indignantly, pecking our hands.
Interesting is the time when, exasperated, I simply walked into the pen and began spraying cracked corn or mealworms. Normally well-behaved hens come running while their “out-mates” stand at the fence, heads moving back and forth watching others scratch for treats. Frustrated, they lift off the ground, flapping furiously and fly directly over the fence back into the pen. Seems frustration is scattered as easily as corn.
We work hard to keep our animals safe from predators: when I look out the bedroom window and see black and white feathers outside the fencing I feel annoyed, but there is a piece of me that bows my head with respect. These creatures don’t want to be confined by regulations or borders. They want freedom badly enough to take daily forays over the boundaries to greener grass. Cradling them, soothing their wild hearts, I feel guilty popping them back into confinement, even knowing it is for their own good. I understand resistance.
November in Vermont is the bridge between fall and winter. It is also a crack of light between finished and unfinished winter prep. The nights are beginning to consistently drop below freezing. For a while we drain our outside water system at night but have it up and running during the day, once the days begin to freeze we have to lug water to the animals. The cost of putting a hydrant next to the barn is prohibitive so we fill metal pails in our tub, balance ourselves, one in each hand, and haul them, often over icy ground. Nothing says November like cold water sloshing out of buckets into your boots.
We find ourselves watching the extended forecasts to determine when to wrap bee hives for the winter. In farming, everything walks the line; you don’t want to plant garlic when the days are too warm or it will sprout, you don’t want to shut bees into a hive wrapped in black tar paper if the temperatures will exceed fifty degrees. When days remain below forty and it is dry we rush down and button things up. The bees will still fly on warm winter days, even with snow on the ground, so we have to provide ventilation but avoid condensation. We pull the tar paper tight around the hives and Paul staples it in place. As the stapler bangs into the wood I can hear the hum from the bees grow louder. This is a good sound..as long as they remain inside. I grab piles of bee suits for washing. For a week they sit, washed and folded neatly, on the dryer until one of us can return them to the lower barn. I look at them as I pass into the music studio admiring their whiteness knowing they are cleaner than they’ll ever be again.
When the grass finishes growing, Bronte and I bring the sheep up the road for the final time this season. Looking up at the trees arching overhead, I think about how many times I have gone up and down this road, it is so familiar that I notice the smallest of changes; little winter berries bending over wilting ferns, the way that the stone wall meanders through our woods, years of managing livestock. I watch Bronte drop into her crouch and move stealthily behind the sheep who run ahead, keeping Bronte in their vision. All I have to do is feel my feet join the ground as I climb the hill.
With sheep off pasture, metal gates open and welcome our neighbor Bob with his tractor and bucket.
It is time to give back to the land for the season of grazing we have just finished. Paul pulls the old manure spreader out of it’s shed. Bob digs into this year’s designated pile and scoops out a load, dark as chocolate cake. This composted dirt holds the secrets of two years of farming; tons of sheep manure and piles of discarded vegetable waste consumed by worms and microbes. Good compost doesn’t smell like manure, you take a fist full and sniff as it cascades out of your hands and it smells good, like musky earth. Between cello students I stand in the window and watch Bob’s bucket load the spreader, its conveyor chain squeaking as it turns. I see Paul turn his back to the spreader and a large clump of manure flies off the auger and whaps him in the back of his head. I laugh out loud at the same time he does. He takes off his hat, shakes it and puts it back on. I can’t help standing a bit longer watching the manure spreader pitch fast balls at him.
Thanksgiving morning, the crown jewel of late autumn. Paul sloshes our potatoes around in the sink full of water. I take a jar of pumpkin and applesauce from the freezers downstairs. I make a pumpkin pie, put it in the oven and finish spicing my butternut squash soup in the ratty old crock pot as the smell of pumpkin, cinnamon and nutmeg fill the house.
Josh and Al arrive, arms full with brussel sprout and German potato salads. Paul walks in after picking up my mom and her friend Henry. I light the last candle and greet them all.
Sitting round the table, I watch as Josh shares a hunting story with Henry who laughs as he spoons mashed potatoes onto his plate. My mother wonders to herself about the teacups of soup I have placed on each person’s plate. Bronte curls up underneath the table hoping for a nap interrupted by dropped food. Al helps pour wine and Paul and I set the turkey in the middle of the table. We toast to friends and family. I walk around the table to clink glasses with Henry and give him a hug.
It has been a turbulent year. We lost two beloved dogs, dealt with a second flood on the exact anniversary of the previous year’s flood, and watched the world turn upside down politically.
What we have left is the choice on how we react to it all. We are choosing to move forward, sometimes resisting, sometimes accepting and being hit in head with poop. We continue to spread our fertilizer anyway, always hopeful that good things will grow in our path.