A Bag of Onions

Posted by Holly at February 28th, 2008

So today I picked up two tons of lime.  I got each ton in a big white bag that looks

exactly like ones you sling over your shoulder to carry groceries.  I also bought six feet of

new hose for the back-up weed killer and bug sprayer, returned two packs of swedges

that are not big enough splice caps for the 12 gauge wire in the vineyard and went to

John Deere to pick up a new nozzle for some one of Jim’s farm things.  Okay, I did stop at

Fred Meyer and I did buy one skirt.

In between trips and planting the ten rose bushes we bought for Charlie and Alexis’ wedding last July that will now form a beautiful and permanent rose garden out back under the St. Francis statue, I checked my emails and got one from my oldest friend.  “I’m in Paris now…” she wrote.  I could only guess she didn’t spend her day on a farm or, if she did, it was only as a houseguest in some hundreds of years old quaint farmhouse with a fabulous meal at either end of the day.  The juxtaposition of that life and this life was vivid today.

And I’m not complaining.  We don’t have to force spring here, as our democratic presidential contenders spoke of the new dawning possible; spring happens on the farm almost so fast you can hear the smacking sound of buds opening as if they were lips ready to gulp the morning dew.  Jim woke up a couple of mornings ago and, when I asked how he slept, he told me not well because he was having spring anxiety.  Ah, but the smile at the corners of his mouth told me a different story.  He is at his happiest and best right now when, even though there is a ton of stuff to do, his hands are in the dirt, on the vines, around the tiny seeds he starts in the greenhouse.  He moves fast.

Today’s tasks involving the tons of lime were for the new vineyard.  Jim took out the acres of blackberries over the winter and took down dozens of trees – no small feat – in order to claim the field for the next vineyard.  The grapes won’t go in until next year while the soil renews itself and Jim tends it.  Part of that process is to plant winter wheat and today’s application of lime was to feed the earth; I thought to improve the nitrogen levels but Jim told me it’s to neutralize the acidity levels and improve the Ph.  Now I could have just written that as if I knew of what I spoke but that would have been such a lie that anyone nearby would have to get out of the way of the lightening.  I know so little.  Still, I was pretty impressed with myself driving our big truck to the ag store to get the lime.  I had my comeuppance with the last load as I steered the truck onto our road and that gigantic grocery slid forward into the back of the cab.  In the split second of the sound, and as I understood what was happening, I had visions of it sliding right through the cab’s window and burying me underneath.  But it didn’t.  Then, as I turned into the driveway – and, by the way, making each of those turns at about 3 miles an hour (how fast can you go anyway, with a ton of lime on your back) – the sack slid backwards against the tailgate.  New fear:  2000 pounds of lime lying at the bottom of the driveway.  Surely my fault.  But nothing bad happened, I was saved and the day continued.

Planting the roses was a much easier task and we’ll delight in seeing them from just about anywhere in the back of the house.  Unless the bug spray worked today in its two doses, I’ll be watching them from inside because there are so many boxwood beetles they fall on your head if you walk out a door.  I hate them.  But I also hate seeing them scurry when I smash one of them.  I wonder how the ones in the vicinity know there’s danger.  Do they see me flick at one and recognize danger?  Frankly, the only thing that makes me feel a little better about killing them is that they, individually, have a pretty short life span anyway.  They do have lovely red wings.  They’re like the rats and roaches in New York City.  Even the baby ones of those horrid creatures are cute but not enough to make them less detestable.  When I get too homesick for New York, I make myself remember the rats and roaches and then I don’t feel so bad.  I was so determined not to import roaches to the Pacific Northwest when I moved out here that I had a roach motel in and on every single carton and every stick of furniture and I moved in December so I knew the cold interior of the truck would freeze any remaining life right out of them.  I haven’t seen a roach out here so I guess it worked.

Mostly what we have here in the critter category lives out of doors.  The gophers and moles plague Jim all season.  They build these elaborate tunnels with mountain top holes at the surface.  They eat roots.  They must love grape vine roots and alfalfa roots because there are zillions of those mountain tops in the vineyard and the pastures.  The dog spends a lot of his time in spring when he’s up in the vineyard with Jim with his nose in those holes.  Sometimes we’ll see him actually go on point.  Now and then he gets one and delivers it to the porch.  Thanks, Gemini.  Today I found the remains of one in the vicinity of the new rose garden.  I must be getting used to this life because I didn’t scream.

Well, I know I’m getting used to this life.  What’s not to love.  In the mornings Mt. Hood rises from some primordial mist and in the evenings, now longer and longer lasting, it glows as the sun sets behind our house and casts its last rays on the mountain as if it were Theda Bara or Sarah Bernhardt making a final Hollywood appearance.  The crocii are up, the daffodils have their heads up but not yet out, the tulips are beginning to stretch through the earth.  When I rake the heather, it’s like brushing a head of beautifully curly hair that suddenly gets all springy and shiny.  Even though it isn’t Paris or even New York with a view of the Chrysler Building outside of my window and even though I still think the neighborhood could benefit from a corner deli where we could get a bagel or bialy and coffee, it is good here.  And pretty soon we’ll be able to go out in the garden and pluck tomatoes right off the vine and pop them in our mouths.  No matter how good almost everything else is in New York City, its dwellers will never taste that pleasure.

Posted by Holly at February 22nd, 2008

I had a really terrible dream a couple of nights ago; highly unusual for me since my dreams are usually vivid, long and a lot of fun. So this one surprised me and woke up my husband with my dream crying. It was about our dog and one of the horses. In my dream, the dog was the dog but looked like MJ, Jim’s lovely old white mare. There are photos of him winning horse competitions with MJ. I dreamt that Gemini, now a dream dog-horse, was captured by people in big vehicles – really big vehicles; one looked like a huge half-moon shaped sanitation truck and one was a big box shaped trailer on a truck bed. The captured animal was injected with something lethal and forced into the box trailer. I was too far away to get there in time to save him and kept shouting for him to run. He was rearing but the men and the injection were too strong for him.

It was awful. I dreamt it on a night when Gemini actually went off to play at a neighbor’s house. He rarely runs afar and never for very long. He has a couple of dog pals around here and one has been around more frequently because her master is working with Jim. It happens that they live nearby and Gemi went over there after dinner. I phoned down there and, sure enough, they had just sent him home. I didn’t like it one bit that he was out and vulnerable, if only to his own instincts to sniff and explore the territory. So that was on my mind.

I think the horse association came from the loss of one of our horses a few weeks ago. This is the largest animal I have ever lost. This one was the oldest of the horses at 26 years old. She was the one everyone thought I could safely and comfortably ride if I were to try that because of her gentle and trustworthy nature. Her end came quickly. One morning Jim came in to say she was not well and he thought she might have a bowel obstruction. This is terrible for horses; well, for anyone, but very complicated and fairly common in horses. Jim scared me into being careful early on in my acquaintanceship with the horses by making sure I understood how dangerous it is for them to swallow anything other than their grain and hay and juicy apple or carrot treats. Some hard object was missing and Jim speculated that it might have ended up in the horse’s belly. Then he described the possible consequences. He probably knew he was making the point so I would never forget it. It worked.

I have, by now, seen horses ailments and injuries enough to know this horse was hurting and to know Jim is so experienced that he could diagnose and treat her – at least in the early stages of a crisis. He’s taken some horses all the way through a crisis to cure more than once in just my few years with him. The most amazing to me was DeDe, our not quite year-old beautiful filly named for the double diamond on her forehead and the fact that she was born on April 25^th, giving her a diamond birthstone. One day out in the pasture, DeDe got separated from her mother for a moment and started running around in wild circles until she jammed into a fence post and ripped the skin on her foreleg. It was a big and gaping wound with her glossy brown coat hanging down limp and damp. Every other day Jim cleaned and dressed that wound. He had DeDe’s complete trust. I held her most of those days, nestling her head in my shoulder while Jim ministered and I can say she barely moved an inch and never complained. He was able to heal her and allow the skin grow back together so it isn’t even obvious where that injury was. Jim made sure he imprinted on DeDe moments after she was born, touching her, talking to her so she would know him, know his voice and trust him. And she does.

When the senior mare’s decline began, I knew Jim was worried but also that he knew how to handle her and what to try. He wanted to get her walking and drinking water. She wanted to be lying down most of the time, rolling on her stomach. He did get her up and, once or twice, she got herself up; cause for some joy and a sense of fleeting relief. On the second morning, I was out in the barn with Jim and asked if I could do anything. He said I could walk her in big circles around the arena and make sure she stopped to drink. He had put down blankets for her to lie on and a bucket of water. She didn’t want to walk much but Jim showed me how to get her going by turning the opposite way. Every time we made the arc around to her water, she made a big point of stopping for as long as she could, not even drinking as much as putting her nose down in the water. I thought it was a smart way to get a moment’s rest. Her eyes were watery and teary. And they looked sad to me. I walked her for about 15 minutes, frankly thinking she just really wanted to be lying down.
Jim and I had to go somewhere that day and left around 1 PM. When we got back that afternoon, he went out to the barn and, a few minutes later, came in to tell me the horse was gone. A horse gone, just like that. Such a big and sweet creature. I was glad I had spent time with her that morning.
It’s a different relationship and different kind of loss than I have experienced with dogs and cats. The cats and dogs do more with us in our lives. Not that the horses don’t relate to us, they do; but, the others play with us, toy with us, love us in a much more evolved way involving games and responses. Horses do have special relationships with people; certainly ours do with Jim but, and maybe this is the big difference, they keep their sense of being horses whereas our cats, most raised by us from the time we could hold them in the palms of our hands and as their only parents, seem to us to have some of the same feelings and thoughts we have. Even the 65 pound dog, whom we have had since he was 18 months old and was never small enough to be in our palms, shows signs of knowing what we want, where we are going and decides what he will do about that. And the cats and dog cuddle and climb up into our laps. We love it when Gemini crawls up into Jim’s lap and put his arms around him. Just as it’s endearing to me to have Koufax walk up my reclining body to my chest, put his front paws on either side of my neck and start hugging. The closest the horses come to cuddling is putting down their heads and nuzzling. Also very sweet and makes me think of Sandy, the horse upon which I did learn to ride on the beach in Atlantic City a million years ago when I was a five, six and seven year old and would spend winter and spring vacations with my grandparents in what was then a Victorian style resort. The hotel we always stayed in – the Chalfonte/Haddon Hall – is now Resorts Casino. Then, it was a wonderful smelling beachfront palace with vast marble vestibules filled with wicker seating arrangements and palm trees and leading to the boardwalk or the mezzanine where, every day, we had tea. On the beach was a horse-riding concession. Even though I could not take a horse home with me and fall asleep with him curled up into my body, I fell instantly in love with the horse, the boy who led her around, the feeling and scent of chill ocean air on my face and the high, curling sound of the seagulls above my head as I rode along the water’s edge. I could lean forward and hug Sandy’s neck, whisper in his ear. I could stand with him at the end of a ride and look up into those big soulful eyes. I could swear he cried on the day, every vacation’s end, when we had to part.

Growing up, we weren’t allowed to have anything four-footed in our home, a rule set down by my mother and grandmother. My grandfather, who loved animals as much as I and who would routinely load up my baby carriage with stray cats in our Brooklyn neighborhood treks, got around the rule by bringing home chicks, ducks and, once, even a turkey. Plus those exotic farm animals, I had fish, a turtle (four feet but slow and usually remaining in place in the flat round bowl so, therefore, acceptable) and parakeets. The love for that first horse in my life was pent up affection for running and jumping creatures. And as soon as I got married and moved out into my own home, I got a dog. Cats came later and never as many at one time as in this current, joyous household.

    I’ve lost dogs and cats and have felt very sad. And now a horse is gone, leaving

a big sweet empty presence. It is no wonder to me that, in my dream, I was trying

to fight off this ineluctable loss.