Category: Farm Life

Coop to garden. A mountain of learning.

R.I.P. Felix

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I’m so sad, but I can’t cry. We’ve lost so many animals here at the Hillhouse, and now we’ve just lost another. It’s part and parcel of life here with the wilderness just steps beyond our door. Elihu takes it in stride, but this morning my heart is unusually heavy with the loss of our dear little Bantam Silkie Rooster, Felix. I suppose when we finally do lose our beloved Molly one day, then I will cry, but for now I’m merely beset with yet another loss of a creature I’d grown to know and love, yet another irretrievable event out of my control here on our small farm, yet another inevitable tiny heartache.

I think back on a summer morning last year when we awoke to find all sixteen of our young chicks – finally on the doorstep of adulthood – mangled and dead on the floor of their brooder pen. My fault, I knew. I’d not secured the wire over the window very well, and it was an easy entrance for some creature. A creature who did not even eat his spoils. That broke Elihu’s heart more than the deaths themselves. It’s much easier to accept a death when you know it served to feed another needy stomach on the planet. But to see death for no gain – that’s a true heartbreaker.

I’m wrestling with myself this morning. Did I in fact secure the barrier plank against the coop last night?? Did I? It had been knocked over this morning, and that was my first warning something was amiss. Felix, as he’d been rather picked on by the bigger birds, had taken to spending nights under the coop rather than in it, and so I’d made sure to close the perimeter of it, leaving but one entrance point which he used like clockwork to let himself in each evening. In the morning, my routine was to kick his plank down, opening up his ‘door’ and wait for him to emerge, thereby giving him a head start over his larger cousins upstairs. But did I close him in last night? Had I perhaps forgotten? Or was there a highly motivated creature here last night who’d simply knocked the plank down himself? I’m pretty sure it was the latter, but since I can’t be sure my mind goes tormentingly round and round.

In the end, there is nothing I can do so I must let it go. I make one more hopeful look around the property, waiting for that familiar lift my heart always feels when I first see the strutting of his poofy little legs and goofy little silhouette. He is here, he is there, he has always been somewhere about, and to come upon him all at once is always a joy – a tiny bright spot in one’s day. One cannot look upon a silkie and not smile. But his was a lonely life – the only one of his miniature kind, always skirting the edges of the main flock lest his tail feathers be plucked to bleeding by the other birds as they had been many times before. And as his feathers are fluffy rather than tightly zipped up as most birds’ are, he’s unable to fly, making him an easier target still. The irony to me is blunt: Elihu and I had only yesterday decided we’d set out to find him two hens this week, and they were to be Gretchen and Gertrude. It gave us peace to know that soon our dearest little Felix would not be alone, and his way in the world might be lighter.

Well, Felix is no longer in this world, and I’m sure his way is indeed much lighter today. Some other forest creature has satisfied a long empty belly, and Felix’s cares are all ceased. Rest in peace, little rooster. Thanks for the joy you brought us. We’ll miss you.

Post Script: A “bantam” is a miniature breed of chicken, standing about eight inches tall. Silkies have fluffy white feathers – even on their feet! – and dark purple skin with blue combs. They really are pretty adorable. And they’re very soft to the touch. Here is what our Felix looked like:

http://liselfwench.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/800px-silky_bantam.jpg

A Better Bird

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Elihu and Molly

After agreeing that we would put Molly down if she did not get better – and admitting to ourselves that we had little hope she would get any better at all – I am so absolutely pleased to report that our beloved hen is indeed much, much better today. And I’ve gained some skill the past few days in administering meds to a chicken. I know that her crop is on her right side – I know to avoid her trachea, I know how to hold her, pry open her beak and get the stuff in the right channel. At first it was tricky – not so much because of her non-cooperation, because in fact she, being quite sick, hardly protested. It was because of my lack of skill. I’ve given pills to cats before – and in the end, that’s probably harder, but just not knowing if I was getting it down the right pipe with Molly had me second guessing my technique. Guess I did something right because today Molly was not only walking, but she was drinking and eating on her own – and God bless her, she even pooped! And we all know you can’t leave the hospital til you have a bowel movement. Right?

I was further heartened to see she’d hopped down from her bench and had walked into the kitchen, where she pecked occasionally at bits of dirt on the floor. I poured some of her fancy, nutritive -rich, vet-bought feed on the floor in front of her and was relieved to see her eat some of it. Not much, but some. Although better, her hind end is still bare and rather plump, not at all what it should be. But I continue to massage it often, encouraging things within to keep moving as they should. Not sure if she’s egg bound or not. No conclusive info to be gleaned from the internet. Nor the vet. Not without an xray, at any rate. (And that aint happenin.) Just to be clear, she’s gone from a bird who went hours without any discernible movement to a bird making quick and darting, dare I say bird-like movements. Which is good news for a bird.

So after a happy Valentine’s day in which Elihu gave his classmates a drawing of a swan (he didn’t want to draw a dove, it was too obvious a choice) and gave each a highly polished and unique gemstone as a lasting token of his friendship, we are going to retire happily, knowing our beloved white hen sleeps just one room away, very much on the mend.

Sick Bird

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I used to think that people who brought their chickens to the vet were ridiculous. Come on, taking a hen to the vet? How silly. I’m much more practical and cooler-headed about my birds. Sure sometimes they get sick – a little wheeze or some diarrhea now and then, but they’ll sort it out on their own eventually. After all, they’re farm animals – they live outside. They’re tough. They’ll be fine. I would never take my chicken to the vet – what a crazy waste of money! That sort of thing was for naive, soft-hearted urbanites who merely kept a trio of layers in their back yard with names like Daisy or Myrtle. Not for real country folk like us. (You do know where this is going, don’t you?)

Yes, last night I had to change my tune, eat my words and become humble. One of our hens was truly sick. The very fact that I could easily catch her told me how unwell she was. She was our eldest hen – the chicken who’d started it all. The one we bought as a fuzzy, yellow chick at Tractor Supply one Easter season, the one who bore most of the flock we have today, the one to have survived foxes, raccoons, fishers, mink, hawks. The one who’d seen some thirty coop mates disappear over the past three years to unseen predators, plucked one by one from the flock, or mangled en-masse in a dead of night attack. She had survived it all. While we’ve had many birds casually named things like ‘Keithie One’ or ‘Keithie Two’ (hens named for Elihu’s friend who’d found the eggs they hatched from) or ‘Claras One and Two’ (seems a shame to lose a perfectly fine name just because we lost a hen) this hen was our dear Molly. Our first hen, our only white hen. Our one and only Molly. We had to do something.

When she made no effort to run or even struggle, I knew she was bad off. I’d noticed that in the past week she no longer roosted at night, but stayed on the ground of the coop. She’d lost all the feathers on her butt too – but I’d chalked both changes up to a new, broody sort of behavior. Early spring, perhaps? A motherly mood? Now more serious problems came to mind – did I have an egg-bound hen? I turned to google, and in a few minutes had Molly bathing in a warm sitz bath in the kitchen sink. Admittedly, I’m not as frontier bad-ass as I’d like to think; it took a moment to get into the new mindset needed in order to massage my hen’s bald and bulging ass end. I knew that soon an oiled up finger might need to be inserted into her rear to check for a stuck egg. I just wasn’t up to it yet. So I massaged, felt around for any clues under the skin. I know I wasn’t patient enough with her bath and massage – I was so eager just to get her system moving – to expel whatever was blocking her up – I ended the massage after barely ten minutes, and after making a few more google searches I chose instead to inject some olive oil down her throat to lube her up. I’d added some Epsom salts in order to improve upon the laxative properties of the oil – but she puked it up instead. I later learned Epsom salts can make you nauseous. Oh poor Molly, I wasn’t providing any benefit to her, and I was now seriously concerned about her getting worse.

One half hour later, there I was, walking into the local animal hospital with a hen in my arms – instantly dropping a cool $55 just walking through the door. I justified my visit by considering it to be a mini class in hen health. I’d I thought I’d keep it to that; I was there to learn what ailed her and how I could treat it on my own – the way a real, able-bodied chicken farmer should. But my objective was quickly forgotten in the talk of fecal tests, parasites, antibiotics and dietary supplements. Before I knew it my mother was coming to our aid, visiting us at the vet’s, checkbook in hand. I could afford to walk in, but I couldn’t afford to walk out. Tests cost money, medicine costs money. And apparently, Molly needed some high tech help. Although the vet was able to massage her in a more productive way than I (the gassy smell in the room was good evidence) poor Molly’s system was fairly compromised by this point and needed assistance. The damage? $260. Hmm, let’s see, that means it ended up costing $52 a pound to mend her. Although mom knows my financial situation – that is to say she won’t be holding me to pay her back that huge sum – it’s still kinda of a bummer to know that in the end, we couldn’t do it old-school, on our own. We needed help. Phooey.

Plus it does kind of cast a shadow on the prospect of Eggs of Hope appearing to make a profit. I guess that’s kinda in the tank now anyhow. In the beginning, we did actually make some money. Not much, but some. That was then… Three years ago, when we started out, I’d hoped to keep the operation simple, organic, cheap. The girls would forage all day, reducing the need to buy feed. They lived in the garage at first (this was a disaster – chickens poop quite a lot, and they create dust, dander, just plain a dirty mess…) Live and learn. Fareed popped twelve dollars for a retired international shipping container for their coop – which ended up being, in Elihu’s words – a ‘death capsule’. A year later and a little help from my dad and we had a professionally made coop. But when the workers left us with our brand-new, empty coop, we still needed more stuff. A little extra carpentry for roosts and nesting boxes. Here began my learning process as I started to use my saws, my crude assembly of tools and salvaged lumber. But as with anything in life, there’s more to everything than one fully appreciates in the beginning. I ended up throwing in the towel this past fall, when my roosting bars finally fell under the jostling of twenty birds. For the time being we’re using tree branches stretched across the rungs of a couple dilapidated ladders for roosting bars. And the nesting boxes I made (I’m actually kinda proud of these) still sit on the floor of the coop – rather than a few feet up and on the wall as they should be. The fence which once (well, almost once) enclosed them is now in tatters, and I can’t keep a one of them inside. All in all it’s a sketchy, hillbillyish setup at the moment. But this year, goddamit, I will finally get it all under control.

There’s something to be learned in every new endeavor. And I’ve learned a lot these past three years. Ultimately what I take away from my experience thus far is that having chickens – doing it right, that is – actually does take some organization, infrastructure and yes, money. And sometimes even a trip to the vet.

A Post-Script:  Molly seems a tad better now. At this writing, some twenty-four hours after her trip to the vet, she’s begun to drink water on her own and looks a bit less stressed than she did before.

Cold Lesson

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It’s Monday morning. Hm, let’s see, how did this go again? Pipe in the heating system broke last Tuesday night, left for Chicago on Wednesday, court date ran late, so rather than come right home I had to spend Wednesday night in Dekalb, then came back mid-day Thursday and had pipe fixed. Elihu got home from school then in a couple more hours we had a warm house again. Ironically, the next morning we ran out of heating oil and the house began to get cold again. I bought some kerosene and dumped it in. The tank was at 6 inches. Good for a few days – until I could get a proper delivery of oil. All was well and back to normal by Friday evening when Elihu returned home from school.

Then in the middle of the night it began to get cold again. I checked my math; I’d put eight gallons in. At less than 2 gallons a day, it should be fine all weekend, right? What was going on? After putting it off a couple hours, I finally braved the forty degree house temps and went downstairs to the furnace. You see, now I kinda know about these things. I went through all this last spring. In 2010, when Elihu and I made a list of the things we’d learned or accomplished that year, he’d written “Mommy is not afraid of using a saw”. If we’d made such a list for the following year he might have written “Mommy is not afraid to check the furnace”. I don’t like balloons because they pop, but as the mother of a young child I have learned to blow them up anyway. I don’t like furnaces because they deal with contained explosions, but as a lover of a warm house, I have learned how to bleed the air out of the system and restart the pump.

This time however, it is clearly not as simple. You know the way a car over a certain age just starts to need everything in it replaced? First it’s this, then it’s that, then you’re asking yourself whether it might not be wiser in the long run to just buy a new car. I’m kinda there with the various systems of this house. Only thing is, you don’t just trade in your house for a new one that works. Today I will call someone to look at the furnace. I will stand over their shoulder the whole time and ask them to teach me whatever it is that I need to learn how to do to fix this situation should it ever happen again. My guess is it’s the oil filter. And I’m less afraid to poke around and see for myself than I would have been last year. I’m this close to finding a pair of pliers (don’t own a wrench set and so can’t attempt it the correct way) and just wresting the damned bolt off to see what’s going on. But then what? So I have a dirty filter. Can I whack it against the side of the kitchen sink and just put it back in? Or is it that simple? Does it even lift out? Or do I need a new one altogether?

I’ve always marveled at the way so many men just seem to know how things work. They just seem to know that ‘it’s your oil filter, m’am’… So many of em just plain know stuff, as if they were born with it. But you know they weren’t. Now I get it. They’ve been tinkering for years. And I’ve only just started to pay attention, let alone tinker. (Course the only tools I have are some dollar store screwdrivers. I’m not really outfitted to tinker anyway.) Every time something needs fixing, I learn from it. And while it wasn’t enough to get the air out of the oil line this time, whatever it turns out to be, I’ll know about it now. Yep, today I will learn another new thing about how something in my home works. On the third day of living in this forty degree house there is some tiny, hidden gift.

Just gotta get the kid dressed and off to school first. Me, I’m going to get some of my own schooling today too. Home schooling, that is.

161 Years Old

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Today, January sixth, is both my mother’s and my father’s birthday. Together, they are one hundred and sixty-one years old. (They share a birthday, yet are seven years apart.) We have nothing planned to celebrate; I think the recent soiree at our house on Monday will essentially have served that purpose. I do think mom’s planning on the two of them going out to a good supper at one of Saratoga’s finer restaurants – but that will likely be tomorrow, as she puts in a full day of work today. I wish I had something special for them, but alas, I don’t. I am going to give each some comfy new pairs of socks. Really, who doesn’t like new socks? And at their age, it’s highly likely that they haven’t been out to purchase any in quite a while. My mother seems to have quit buying new clothes a few decades ago… And my father’s new acquisitions depend upon my mother taking up the charge. So it’s likely neither’s had new socks in quite a while. Although it might seem I’m ‘under-gifting’ them, I believe my modest gifts will be thoroughly enjoyed.

Today is also Epiphany, or the day when the three wise men finally reached the manger and gave baby Jesus their gifts. I’ve always thought this day made much more sense as a gift-giving holiday than the date we celebrate. It’s hard for us Americans to understand that much of the Christian world is celebrating Christmas today. In our family, partly because of mom and dad’s birthday – brother Andrew’s is nearby New Year’s Eve as well – we didn’t think of the season as being completed until this day. In a purely secular way we simply thought of this as the logical conclusion to the season. I like that too. Coming to a screeching halt with the holiday – either the 26th or January 2nd – feels much too abrupt for me. I like to coast down easy after all of it… and I can take down my tree and decorations with much less frustration and a better sense of closure and satisfaction when I do so upon full completion of the anniversary of the events we purport to celebrate. Somehow, it makes me feel in better step with the rest of the world. My life just breathes better when I wait til this day to remove the festive red and green. Good-bye Christmas, thank you for all the spirit you helped us to express. Good-bye New Year’s Day, thank you for restoring our sense of hope.

Happy birthday, my beloved parents. Thank you for all that you’ve helped me to be. I wouldn’t be right here, right now if it weren’t for you. Thanks for teaching me about art, music, nature and everything in between. I love you both so much.

Some December Pics

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Marching Band in front of Saratoga Springs Town Hall
Elihu, finally without glasses
Elihu loves the tuba. Has since he was 3. Just a couple more years...
The marching band's on break
Elihu follows the band on Broadway
Santa tells Elihu about the geese he sees from his sleigh
Santa, checking the children's holiday spirit
The field where we cut down our tree
We two, with our newly cut tree behind
Our Christmas tree.

Santa

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Santa visited us here in Greenfield the other night. There were very few kids in attendance, perhaps because so many had seen him at the Victorian street walk in nearby Saratoga just the night before. Santa gave each child, as he does each year when in our tiny town, an unrushed, generous turn, engaging each child in thoughtful conversation in a way I doubt many Santas do. I drove by the small community center to check the line before I zipped off to pick up Elihu, who was at the moment, making gingerbread houses at a friend’s place.

When we returned, Elihu was pleased to find his classmate Jack, the other book-loving kid in his class for whom Star Wars was also of no interest. The two boys giggled and ran around on the lawn outside til I called him in for his turn. As soon as he approached the chair Santa called out to him. “Elihu! It’s so good to see you!” Elihu has come to expect that Santa will not only remember him, he will also recount in lovely detail his observations of the birds he sees while flying in his sleigh. And so the conversation begins. The room is full of chatter, and it’s hard to pick out exactly what is being said. Hoping not to ruin the mood, I catch a little on video. I keep wondering if this is the last year. Jack’s mother and I share our concern and wonder if living in Greenfield might not help extend the magic. It’s hard to know; we are not so isolated from the world as we might hope. I myself have searched Elihu’s face, his physical language, his tone of voice for signs of doubt. I think this year Elihu is still truly on board. As usual, Santa shows no sign of needing to wrap thing up. They continue to talk, and I back away, letting the moment be.

Soon it is time to light the town tree. As he does each year, Santa leads all the children out the door and around the corner to the large tree in front of our tiny town hall. He sings as he walks, ho hos and such, chatting with the kids who run at his heels. When he gets to the tree, Santa tells us that with enough holiday spirit he can light the tree, but first we must show him how much we have. He bends to a child in front and asks if they have the holiday spirit. He then touches their nose and his index finger lights up. He touches the noses of several children before he turns to address the small crowd. He asks us all to shout in chorus “Merry Christmas!”, and when we do, the tip of his right index finger glows red. But it flickers out. “Ho ho! Come on now! I need all of your holiday spirit!” He leads us again, and this time we’ve done it. Santa sweeps his arm upward and points to the giant tree with his glowing finger and it bursts into life. The large, colored bulbs turn on and the crowd claps, every face smiling. But what’s this? Do we hear sirens? Could it be already? Yes, it’s time for Santa to get back to work. He must leave Greenfield now, and the fire truck is coming to whisk him away. The hook and ladder truck pulls up alongside the gathering, lights whirling and sirens blaring, and Santa picks up his pack. He turns to wave at us once more as a fireman, clad in his working gear, gives Santa some help getting up the stairs and into the front seat. His finger still glowing, Santa waves goodbye to us as the truck pulls off into the night.

When Elihu was six, and we’d just come home from lighting the tree with Santa, a tiny blossom had opened on our paper whites. We’d waited for weeks for that first flower. He was beside himself. “Look, mommy!” he said, stunned. “Look how much Christmas spirit we had! We even had enough to make the flower bloom!!” He was thrilled. He was pure belief, pure joy. That was year before last now. He may still believe in Santa, but he and Jack had just discovered that there was a giant electrical box under the tree, and they just knew someone inside the building had turned the tree on, not our Christmas spirit. That jig was up. Gone too, no doubt, was the idea that spirit had once opened a blossom. “Come on, tell me, what did you guys talk about??” I asked after we got home. “Well,” he started quietly, “he told me he sees the geese when he flies. He’s actually flying right next to them in the air. He says the setting sun looks beautiful shining off their bellies. Can you imagine that? That must be amazing.” I wait a bit, then ask – what else? “Did you tell him anything you wanted?” I ask Elihu. “No” he said. “He asked me, but I just told him that I already have everything that I want. I told him I had everything I needed. I just told him that I was happy.”

Me too. Thanks, Santa.

Change

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I wake up at exactly 4:40. For some reason, amidst the dreams which begin to dissolve into my conscious thoughts, I am remembering having seeing signs announcing ‘lots for sale’ and ‘will divide’ in the fields of one of the old farms on Locust Grove Road. I have taken the division of this countryside in stride, sucking it up each time a familiar parcel, untouched since our country was created, is hacked up into pieces and forever transformed. I’ve been good about it. But yesterday, when I saw that sign, my heart could bear it no more. It sighed with disbelief. Sorrow replaced the effort to understand. Not again… not again.

One of the large swaths of fields that the early settlers worked so hard to clear out of the endless woods, the property sweeps up the incline shared by the farms on either side. Stone walls neatly edge the field. Recently, sometime during this past year, a rather large and imposing house appeared just to the south of the property’s barn. It went up quickly, which was probably good, because it gave me little time to pine for how it was before. The new house is large, but quite attractive. Well-built. No doubt, what with the influx of moneyed folks seeking the solitude of the countryside, it is well-appointed throughout. Fine details, the very best materials. For some reason, I forgave it it’s trespass on the ancient farm. In some part I was able to allow it because of the great field that still rolled down to the south. There was buffer. So I adjusted. And in the months since it’s been there, I’ve even begun to integrate it into my visualizations of how the reformed lot will look. Now I realize that field will no longer remain thus. The signs told of another person’s visualization for the future of that field. As if falling into a dream, I began to see hazy apparitions of large, well-crafted homes taking shape throughout the field.

I tucked it away in my mind. I couldn’t begin to process it as we had other plans on our mind at the moment. My son and I were driving into town for the city’s 25th annual Victorian street walk. An occasion, I told my son, in which the citizens celebrated the era in which Saratoga was created; there would be carolers strolling in period costumes, lights twinkling in every store – all of which would be open. The street would appear like something from the tiny Christmas village we set up in our living room each year at this time. The small city was celebrating its beauty, its history, and would recreate the feeling we so often associate with the season. We drove through the darkened countryside with hearts full of expectancy. We were ready to be enchanted by this rare opportunity to step into a lost world when things were simpler.

Klieg lights swept the skies. Cars were everywhere. We created an impromtu parking spot for ourselves, along with many others, alongside the drive-through lanes of a bank. Although Elihu’s father had asked him to call from the party, he had told his father he didn’t think it was a good idea. There were no cell phones in the Victorian era, and he wanted to fully play the part. He was dressed in layers so that he might display his fancy clothes, our quick attempt at recreating the most authentic look possible. He had a black velvet scarf wound round his neck. With his just-so hair and tootsie roll eyes (sans dark glasses – oh the relief of a nighttime activity) he did indeed look the part of Oliver. We started out for Broadway.

I, in my favorite long faux fur coat, skipped along side him, both of our hearts beating fast in anticipation as we neared the mass of people that had taken over the wide main street of town. We paused to get our bearings. First, we wanted to find the reindeer that Santa had brought with him. But we heard drums. The feeling was strong and mutual – find the drums. Hand in hand we darted through the crowd and soon found ourselves striding along side a marching band. Elihu clapped in glee, his face smiling, his feet joining along in left, right left. We followed the band til they stopped in front of the grand town hall building. Just in time for opening ceremonies. We watched as the mayor cut the ribbon, then we turned to follow the progress of the band.

We decided to treat ourselves to a fancy dinner. As I’d finally gotten paid just today for my fall semester of teaching, it seemed a forgivable expense. We made our way into a crowded restaurant. A man dressed as a rather diluted version of Santa stepped in line behind us. Elihu’s eyes got wide. “Ho ho ho, young man” he said, and began his little spiel. “Is that really Santa?” Elihu asked under his breath. Knowing that he has now spent quite a bit of time in conversation with the Santa that visits Greenfield each year, and that they both share a love of birds and trains, I saw the look of doubt in his eyes. “No, honey” I leaned in. “I think that guy’s just been hired by one of the shops to play Santa”. Shortly after the man had given his name to the hostess, he broke character. After listening in for a bit, we both concluded that he was from Long Island, not the North Pole.

The restaurant was loud and chaotic. Elihu plugged his ears. He said he couldn’t take it. He said he wished he were outside listening to carolers. I was sorry I’d taken us here. They were so slammed with their rush of customers that they did serve us quickly. We ate quickly. Packed up our uneaten food and left. Hopefully, we could regain the magic that the evening had begun with. For a while, we did. After discovering that the reindeer were not here this year, and that the line to see Santa was two hours long, we were happy to see the marching band making another pass down the street. We followed, and I used the last final drops of energy from my near-dead batteries to catch a bit on video. Elihu strode alongside the band matching them step for step. When they got to an intersection at which they would make a turn and go down the hill towards their station in the park, one of the leaders in front broke formation and came over to Elihu. “Good job, little man!” he said, and shook Elihu’s hand. He was exhilarated. I continued to film. The band, and Elihu, turned and marched off down Phila Street. I stopped the camera, and ran to join them.

I couldn’t find Elihu. I followed the band for blocks. No Elihu. I began to call his name. I ran back up the street, calling. No Elihu. This was Saratoga, I told myself, not Chicago. It would be ok. But as I retraced the same path for the third time – fifteen minutes had now passed – I was beginning to imagine some folks seeing this handsome young boy and wanting him for themselves. ‘He’s too smart for that’ I told myself. It occurred to me that we didn’t have a plan. Had I told him the things to do in a crowd should we become separated? Had I? My mind raced. Even if I hadn’t, he’s smart. He’ll know to stay put. But he wasn’t at the corner where I’d last seen him. Where the hell was my son? I shouted his name and my voice cracked in desperation. “What’s the problem, lady?” some young boy called to me from his group, laughing. “You crazy?” “I’ve lost my son” I shouted back. The boy said ‘oh’ and apologized, his face somber. That did it. His brief audience broke my composure. I was crying now. Police, I thought. Find the police. As I arrived at Broadway again I spotted a police car and headed toward it. But then I saw horses. Police on horses. If Elihu hadn’t followed the music, I thought, he would have followed the animals.

Sure enough, I saw his little form, scarf over his shoulder, patting the muzzle of a giant horse (whose name I later learned was King Tut). I shrieked his name, he saw me and we ran together. I lost it. I began to sob. And I wondered, even I as I wept, my arms now full of my only child, if that might not be a little too much – after all, he was right here, safe. I pulled Elihu away from me to meet his eyes, and although he had been smiling just seconds before, he too was now sobbing. We held each other and cried. I looked up and nodded my thanks to the man atop the horse. A tall, smiling officer came over to us. He needed my information anyhow, as he’d already started to file a report. He assured me that in Saratoga my child was safe. Even if that wasn’t entirely true, it was good to hear. As Elihu and I turned to go he began to bounce up and down. “That was awesome!” he laughed. “Everybody was talking to me!” “So this is a night you’ll never forget, huh?” I asked, my limbs still cold with adrenaline. “Oho yeah, I can tell my kids about this!”

Elihu’s review of our night, using a 1 to 10 scale: Victorian street walk: 2. Not authentic in any way. Very disappointing. Never need to go back. Dinner: 1. Too noisy. Meals should be peaceful times. Marching band: 6. (What? 6?!) His disappointment at the event itself prevented him from fully enjoying the band. Police: 8. Exciting. Horses: 10. Well then. Next time we’ll just go down the road and pat the horses.

I agree, on the whole the night was disappointing. It wasn’t quaint. It wasn’t gentle. The carolers were too soft to be heard over the din. And not all of them wore costumes. The town was swarming with people. I guess we learned you can’t go back. Which brings me back to the signs on Locust Grove Road. How do I integrate all of this? I know I wouldn’t really want to have lived 200 years ago, nor 100 years ago. I am grateful for pain-free root canals and all the other conveniences we live with. Yet I am sad; I’m yearning for something I think we all are: simplicity, truth and love expressed through the everyday. More and more I’ve come to believe that our ending up here, in the country, was what our souls cried for, even without our knowing it. Elihu and I do feel lucky to be here. We are both mindful of our good fortune. So somehow, we will learn to defer to the future, knowing that with it come unexpected perks and advances. One day the new houses will be old. All in its time and place. It all just keeps on movin forward…

I’ve said before that I’m not good with change, and I say it again. It seems my son has an anachronistic yearning, too. But tonight I saw how change is all around us; it’s inevitable. Heaven forbid that I should ever lose my child – or that anything horrible should ever happen to him. That is a change I cannot fathom. Tonight, if only for seconds of my life, I began to take that thought to a deeper level. I know that every parent hides guilty worst-case-scenarios in their minds of their children being dragged off, hurt, killed… For some, that does happen. I’m reading a book right now about a woman who lost her five year old daughter overnight to a freak case of strep. I don’t really know why I’m reading it – because it is incredibly hard to take. But somehow, I want to uncover the dark. Reveal it, perhaps in order to make some sort of peace with it. Maybe I think if I learn about it through someone else I won’t have to experience it myself. I don’t know. But I do feel I’m facing it head on. Suffice to say, Elihu and I now have a plan should we ever get separated.

I notice that I began this post at 4:40. That used to be the pitch to which all orchestras tuned their concert A. Not true now. Concert A has been inching up – albeit in tiny increments – over the past few decades. The orchestras play at a higher pitch, the world moves at a faster pace. I know it’s an exciting time to be alive, really, I do. I’m just a little reluctant. But I’m willing.

However I’m still going to set up our little Victorian Christmas village this year in the living room. Every house fits just so. Every tree, every bench, every caroler. Windows are lit and cozy. All is quiet and well.

And that little hamlet is not going to change.

Mundane Matters

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Had a low grade headache for over twelve hours now. Thinking back, I might attribute it to a couple of glasses of wine last night. Been without it for a while, and thought it would be fun to have a glass as I endeavored to make our first all vegetarian meal (at Elihu’s request). Having found $25 while cleaning the house, I felt I’d hit paydirt, so off we went to the market to buy some tempeh and wine. To the dollar store for a pair of sweet little wine glasses. As Elihu settled in to watch another documentary by his beloved David Attenborough, I filled the pretty glass with my first taste of wine.

Now, at five am, I think I would have better without it. Too late, but lesson learned. Clean living is easier on the body. Tempting in its absence, the very thing that seems to offer a tiny spark of hope ends up to disappoint in its presence. Oh the quandary of being human.

Awakened by the constant pain, my mind starts going. And I realize that sleep is not going to take me away again. I rise and go to make a pot of tea, discovering two more dead mice in the new traps. Two last night, two this morning. Plus the nine last week that finally succumbed to my five gallon bucket trick. Merely the tip of the iceberg, but a good start. This brings me to a mundane, domestic matter that has troubled our little cottage for a while now. Mice. I have finally found the answer. A company called Tomcat makes these clever little traps – so easy to set my son can do it. Bulky, plastic things, they act just as traditional traps do; they snap closed on the mice as they investigate the bait within. It’s easy to pinch the trap open again, dumping the poor victim, its large, black eyes still staring at the world, into the garbage can with all the rest of our mess. I say a prayer, ask for its forgiveness, then try to shake it off. Never a pleasant experience, in spite of the fact that his tiny death was my objective.

I pour a cup of tea and step outside. As I watch the horizon grow light, I think back on Thanksgiving. My brother Andrew had blown up just before we were to sit down to dinner. It began when he brought my cat, Mina (who lives with my parents now as Elihu is quite allergic) to the table, and lowered her down to meet the eyes of Martha’s hound dog, who was resting at her feet. The dog whimpered with excitement, my cat hissed and fear blazed in her eyes. She’s a fraidy cat to begin with, and my heart jumped to see her distress. “Andrew”, I begged, “Please don’t do that to Mina! Please, don’t do that!” Instantly, he looked at me with wrath I cannot fully describe, nor understand. He erupted, and said something about my inability to stop talking, and that I was Satan himself. “Satan!“, he repeated. Then he told us he couldn’t eat with me here – that he wouldn’t come back until Satan had left. It got worse. Later on. Suffice to say, that when he did return, there was an incident which left my son sobbing in fear and confusion, had me running to dial 911. It was his worst blow up in years. Andrew is a dry drunk. He’d begun to taste the wine again recently, and with those first dangerous sips an anger began to loosen in him, an anger that has been for the past ten years directed at me. I am the reason his life sucks. I realized that night how strong he was; fueled by rage, I truly felt he might kill me. That night, and several since, Elihu has asked me if we could please lock our doors at night. We’ve been here three years and have never locked them once. Maybe this isn’t so mundane a topic after all, but it swims around in my brain alongside everything else that keeps me from sleeping.

I hear my son coughing in his sleep. He’s been a little asthmatic lately, and that is worrying to a mother. He’s a good kid, and will even do his nebulizer in the night some times without even waking me. He doesn’t want to trouble me. That’s ok, I tell him, that’s exactly what I’m here for. And it is never, ever trouble to me. I hope he gets that. There. He’s stopped coughing, I relax a bit.

A mosquito whines by my head as I write. We’ve had a rash of them lately. They seem to emanate from the toilet – or somewhere in the bathroom. But we flush often, we even turn on the tap to keep things moving in the sink. But still we seem to have a hatchery somewhere, and they escape into the bedrooms, their high, zinging sounds strangely out of place this time of year. Or maybe not, as it’s been so warm. Even seen some outside.

It’s the first day of December now, and yet the weather is still so mild. Global warming? I wonder. It just feels wrong. Rather than fret about this, I’d better turn my concern to filling the oil tank. Knowing my oil man has received his voucher from the state, I’ve called him to ask if he can deliver some. No response. It’s all ok for now – I’m grateful for the mild weather. But we have less than ten gallons now, and if it gets cold, it’ll be uncomfortable. Thanks to this past year, I can report we’re good at living in a house at 58 degrees. We’ve gotten used to it. I’m surprised. I like things toasty. But it is amazing what one can live without. One does adapt.

I ponder our dependency on outside help. For food, for heat. My mind wanders to an email I received recently from an adult student of mine. While she thought she was being funny – and no doubt thought I’d share her amusement – I did not. It was something to the effect of ‘we good guys’ carrying the weight of all the country’s ‘indigent’ folks… paying for their food, their heat. Not sure she realized – maybe it’s hard to see me as one of the ‘indigent’, what with my gleaming, new grand piano, harpsichord and view of the mountains out my living room window – but if it weren’t for the benevolence that still remains embedded in our system, my son and I would be on the street. We are her ‘indigent’ folk. Really. I consider whether to address it or not. Maybe at our next lesson I will. Maybe I will also remind her that she cancels a lesson for every two she schedules, and that this reduces my income, making it even harder to ‘pull my own weight’. Maybe I should have her pay up front. Another thought in the maelstrom.

Christmas. It’s coming, and I have less than $30 to my name. A friend in the Midwest recently sent us some money to put towards Elihu’s gifts. After some internal debate, I ended up disclosing the amount to him, and telling him he may use half for a toy of his choice. (House rule: spend half, save half. That goes for Elihu and his money – mine is gone towards living costs almost before it comes in.) He, being about all things that fly, began to research in earnest the options before him. He read product reviews, watched test flights on Youtube – all on his own – until he arrived at the perfect, affordable remote controlled helicopter. Lest I think I do not have a ‘boy’ boy – this recent experience has me smiling to myself at this newly revealed aspect of my son. He has spent a fair amount of time watching videos of flying toys, he has learned new terms; he is immersed. He ordered his helicopter on Friday, and each morning it’s the first thing on his mind when he wakes. So he’s got that gift for which I am so very grateful, but what else? I’m glad I had the presence of mind to purchase little bird-related items through the year, when I had just a bit of extra cash, but what now? His father probably won’t send our monthly support for a week or more yet, and I cannot buy a thing until then. I look to new students; there’s one possibility. But then I must pay for Elihu’s drum lesson, and that will simply cancel out the new income. Argh.

There’s really no end to the matters that swim around in my head. Thankfully, I’d taken some pain reliever an hour ago, and now my headache, while still there, is only a shadow of its former self. That’s good. And really, everything is good. As the new language of our culture tells us, all we have is the moment. And right now, I mean right now, it’s ok. It’s good. Elihu is sleeping quietly, I got all the dinner dishes washed last night, I have my long-awaited vacuum cleaner bags (the house has been quite dirty this past month as I was out) – plus I finally have a way to reduce the mouse population. Bald Mountain, our dominant rooster, is crowing. It’s now light outside. Soon I’ll get dressed and let the birds out for the new day.

But for now I’m going to let all my thoughts alone for bit as I enjoy a moment of stillness on my couch. The giant living room window faces east, and from my seat I can see a wide, sweeping expanse of hills and sky. Although I don’t, I could choose to see this every morning if I wanted. So this too, I suppose, is mundane. Nonetheless it is a good thing. And it matters.

November

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This morning the air was deceptive. It was one of those odd fall days that smelled of spring. With the subtle scent of new growth and soil, I felt my heart lift. Ah, Spring… But no, this was November… These days I’ve been trying to get a better grasp of what November really is, trying to rediscover it’s essence; I’ve been trying to redeem it from the dismal thing it seemed to be in my childhood. This is a start.

As a child of seven or so, November seemed gray and endless. Trees were bare, the wind stung, and often there was no snow on the ground to make the cold worth it. Sometimes there would be snow on Thanksgiving, sometimes not, but I remember it always being cold. I can remember the Miller family playing a game of touch football in the school field across the street on Thanksgiving weekend. I can remember the silhouette of the oak tree limbs against the white of the sky. I have images in my memory of the leaves we’d cut from yellow, orange and brown colored construction paper, taped to the windows of our classroom, long after the real things had fallen from the trees and lay in sodden, depressing clumps on the ground. I don’t remember feeling much hope in that month. To me, as a young child, Christmas may well have been a year away. November was long and dreary.

So far this November we’ve had several nights well below freezing, we’ve had snow, and we’ve even seen tender shoots appear from beneath the fallen leaves. As I try to take a new inventory of what this month is from my adult perspective, I come up with a short list, and I feel I’m getting closer to reconciling with the month.

It seems November is a leafless month, a month of transition before the final closure of winter. The weather experiences a sort of climatic ambivalence. It’ll get down to business, and I’ll pull out the box of hats and gloves one morning in a panic, then the next day we’ll leave our coats indoors as we tend to our backyard chores. There is no color in this month to speak of. (That is consistent with my memory.) Whether related to climate change or not, I can’t say, but my current day experience of this month is that it is not brutally cold. The cold that November has presented us with so far gently reminds us of the cold that is yet to come. It’s a month to really hunker down in earnest. To finally drain and put away the garden hose. To cut back the butterfly bush if you haven’t already.

Ok. I think I am good with November now. She’s doing her job. She wasn’t trying to pull a fast one on me this morning with all that fresh-scented air. She’s not quite ready to get down to business. I understand. So I’m going to enjoy this day as best I can, but tonight I’ll make sure that we know where our gloves and hats are so we’re ready to go when she is.