Florette is dead

   Florette, our last sheep, died while we were gone on vacation. Christian found her remains in the upper field, already picked over by the turkey buzzards. Now there’s just one old cow left and, when she’s gone, that’s it for our livestock. For several years we’ve been moving towards birds - ducks, chickens, geese and turkeys - as they are easier to maintain and have a high entertainment value as they wander the property.
   Still, it’s hard to lose Florette as she was our last connection to the early years of the Hermitage when we eagerly acquired rare breeds of goats, sheep and oxen to live with us. They embodied our ideal of returning to the garden, of living in harmony with the earth and her creatures. We had no fencing then and the animals roamed freely about the property. On warm summer evenings they gathered around our outdoor supper table, sitting on the ground, waiting for any tidbits to be tossed their way. We truly felt at peace in those moments, as rare as they were when we were building a community almost literally from nothing, moving log and timber-frame buildings to the property while living in the barn.
Like our early Moravian forbearers in Bethlehem, whose First House had people at one end and animals at the other, our barn, the only original building left on the property, had Christian and I living on the main floor while the animals lived below us in the stable area. At night we heard them moving and mooing around and it was comforting to know we were together.
   Florette was a Jacob, a small, rare breed from England that is brown, black and white. The fleece is wiry and coarse, not a good spinning fiber but the breed is so visually interesting that we fell in love with them. Our Jacobs came from a flock in Tarrytown, New York, owned by the Rockefeller family, actually just by the widow of David Rockefeller, who imported a shepherdess from England to manage them. We’d arrive at the entrance gates in our beat-up old van to be admitted into a private world where wealth was shown by the size of the stables and barns and by pristine maintenance of the fields and pastures. We’d load up the van with lambs and drive them back to the Mahantongo Valley where they faced a very different world, sharing our own hard-scrabble life of building, farming and creating a spiritual place all while trying to make a living to keep everything going.
   Eventually the lack of fencing posed problems as our animals began roaming and foraging on our neighbors’ corn. We were forced to put up fences that kept the animals away from us, breaking those early bonds, replacing closeness with security. As the Hermitage grew in numbers of programs and buildings, we had less and less time for the animals and gradually sold most of the livestock until we ended up with just Florette the sheep and Christmas Early, the cow.
Florette was nearly 15 when she died, old for a sheep, though her death was hastened when she was chased into the pond by a dog and ended up swimming for her life. The stress of that encounter, just before we left, must have been difficult though I thought she doing well as she returned to her routine of grazing and resting.
   Now she is gone and only our cow remains. She is also about fifteen years old and I’m sorry she’s alone. Herd animals need to have others around them but Christmas Early is all that’s left and I know she’s lonely. When her sister died some years ago, Christmas Early mourned and bellowed for days. When she dies, our livestock will be gone and a significant chapter in our story will be done. But don’t forget the birds. Ducks are always amusing.

Ducks, Ducks and More Ducks

Ducks. That’s what we’ve got: way, way too many ducks. And catfish. Big, big catfish. In spring, we had just five Muscovy ducks; they are white with hairless, red, fleshy clumps around their necks and faces. They have been called ugly but familiarity breeds fondness. The males have wonderful bouffant hairdos piled on top like whipped cream or an aging Las Vegas entertainer.
We’ve had them for at least five years and they have never had any babies that survived being eaten by the foxes that periodically check out the farm for munchable tidbits like baby ducks. We have tried to save them, even to bringing indoors entire nests complete with eggs so the mothers could sit on their eggs in complete safety. Unfortunately we also learned that once a nest is disturbed, the mothers have nothing more to do with it so the eggs never hatched.
This year we decided to watch the nests and capture the ducklings the day they hatched. However the first batch was kept so secret by their mother that we didn’t even see them for several days, by which time they were so fast we couldn’t catch them and, sure enough, the same old routine repeated itself, within days eleven of the twelve ducks were gone but we were able to corral the last duckling and put it in one of the bird houses for safe keeping. The poor baby was all alone and looked wistfully out through the wire screening to freedom just beyond. It was lonely but safe.
We had more success with the second batch of ducklings. Seven were left by the time we found them, all of which we caught plus the mother, who stayed right with her children despite the fear she must have felt at us coming at her to capture her family. So they, too, went inside the bird house. By now the first duckling already had his feathers and was quite large. Still, he took to the new mother and adopted her as his own, staying by her side all day and trying to nestle under her at night with her real babies. Of course he was so big that he actually lifted her up as he tried to get underneath her, which caused issues for her and her babies. Still, everyone adjusted and there was harmony in the coop.
We found the third mother had a nest of eggs in the tractor shed and we watched her for days. Ducks take about 35 days to hatch and we weren’t sure when she started brooding. She, too, stayed right on the nest as we cautiously approached to check on her. Again, her fear was overcome by her genetic drive to protect her babies.
` Finally, patience was rewarded when I saw her proudly leading her newly-hatched family outside the wagon shed. It may have been their very first walk as they were still unsteady so I was easily able to grab all of them, putting them into a bucket and taking them over to the bird house. However, I couldn’t catch mom and she went squawking down to the pond.
We assumed everyone would get along but no, there was jealousy and two of the babies were pecked to death before we realized the problem then we kicked the first batch out. By now they had their feathers and followed mom, along with the adopted child, down to the pond.
Each of our female ducks had hatched a brood but unbeknownst to us, the first mother, who only had one child survive, was determined to try again. One day I saw sixteen little fluffy yellow peeps swimming in the pond with mom. This is where the catfish come in because I knew that between the muskrats and the catfish, these little guys didn’t stand a chance. So I dove into the pond and swam around catching them one by one.
By now Christian had arrived on the scene with a bucket on the dock and as I caught the babies, I handed them to him. The ducklings and I went round and round the pond, one even learned how to dive under the water and swim to another part of the pond, which made things quite frustrating because I’d chase him to one area just to have him dive and pop up someplace else. Finally he wore out and went on shore where I was able to catch him as well.
Unfortunately the mother didn’t want to be caught so we took the 16 babies up to the bird house where they fortunately fit in with the ones already there. So now we had nearly 30 babies together and they were soon found by their respective mothers who stood guard outside. They were joined by a mother goose, unsuccessful at hatching her own, who decided to adopt the ducks as well so all three maintain vigil at the bird house.
Once the ducklings are larger and have their feathers, we’ll set them out for a grand reunion with their mothers (natural and adoptive) who will take them down to the pond where they will finally have a good chance of surviving. I don’t want to deal with the issue of what happens next summer when all of these ducks are ready to mate. I just hope the females will use the morning-after pill and the males are gay.

Our three barn cats

We have three barn cats and they’ve been here for more than twelve years. Blackie wandered onto the property and gave birth to Charlotte. Soon after birth, Charlotte was trapped by our dogs in a wood pile and wedged herself deep within the lumber, which is the only way she survived as her brothers and sisters did not. Carefully, we pulled apart the lumber around her and put her and her mother in a safe, dog-free environment: the barn. They live there today, along with Boudicca, named for the famous female Celtic warrior simply because she has a pink triangle on her nose.
The three of them are quite contented; spending most of each day sleeping either in the barn or out in the barnyard on sunny days, the dogs, for the most part, having learned a live-and-let-live attitude. In the evenings the cats like to sit with me as I take a few minutes to relax, laying on the grass and scratching their ears and petting them. Only Charlotte will roll over and let me scratch her belly, though she’s still suspicious enough to keep an eye open for approaching danger.
Many people don’t feed their barn cats, thinking hunger will make them better mousers. Perhaps that‘s true, but I prefer not to use hunger as a motivator. It just takes one ill mouse for us to lose a cat and I don’t want to take the chance so they are well fed. I figure hunting is so instinctual that they will probably hunt just for the thrill of it. From the way our cats play with their prey before killing it, I’ve learned that hunting is as much a game as being necessary for survival. And, as I said, hunting isn’t necessary for our cats. I feed them cafeteria style; there’s always food in their bowls. Of course they have to share it with the chickens and turkeys who have also found the food bowls and don’t realize these tasty morsels are just for cats.
Our vet said Blackie is the healthiest barn cat she’s ever seen, and I take that as a compliment to how we provide a safe, nurturing place to live for the three cats.
I think about them one evening while driving home through the woods and see two young kittens playing in the road. I stop and get out, wondering if they are tame enough to be saved. But they run into the bushes as I approach so I don’t know if they are alone or have mom with them. I try calling out to them but my “meowing” is probably not very realistic as I hear them rustling in the tall weeds but they refuse to appear. Unfortunately their instinct for survival will not save them from the night creatures who themselves are looking for food and for whom two young, defenseless kittens will be easy prey. Their chances of surviving a fox or other carnivore are slim. Then there is the issue of food; these kittens are probably still nursing. What a waste, I think, to go through the whole gestation and birth process just to be eaten alive shortly thereafter; it hardly makes sense, like so much of nature for whom creating and destroying are constants. These sweet, beautiful kittens, so full of life and playfulness, won’t live very long and there’s nothing more I can do to prevent that than standing on the edge of the road “meowing” in a fruitless attempt to stop the inevitable. Like so many moments in life.
All I can do is spend time with Blackie, Charlotte and Boudicca, scratching and petting them and glad for each day they’re here.