Saving Simon (21 page)

Simon would have an equine buddy. We both loved the image. When you come out of a tough and painful divorce, as Maria and I both had, your sense of family is shattered. The animals were healing for both of us, and the idea of our moving and re-forming in this cozy new peaceable kingdom was very much in our heads.

We researched the animal move and planned it like a space launch. Ken Norman, our farrier, would move the animals. The donkeys first, then the sheep. It is not so simple to move donkeys where they don’t want to go, and none of our donkeys thought getting in a trailer was a good thing. We had done it once with Lulu and Fanny, and they almost took the barn—and the trailer—apart. Ken was big and strong and would throw a rope behind their rear legs and pull. Once he got them near the trailer, he would simply get behind them and shove.

At our new farm, we had Ben build a pole barn right off the big barn. It was a cost-effective way to shore up the big barn and provide shade and shelter for the animals. The barn was cleared out, so now there was a stall available to house Rocky in bad weather. We built a skip barn—a portable sheep barn that could be moved back and forth—in the sheep pasture. We ordered two hundred bales of hay from Nelson Green, considered the best hay maker in the county.

I ordered two heated hoses. Our budget didn’t allow for a frost-free pump right then, so I hatched an elaborate plan to install an outdoor frost-free faucet, attach it to the heated hose, and run it outside to the barn behind the farmhouse.

We hired a tractor to clear the brush and some other workers
to clear the pasture of debris. We ordered two truckloads of gravel for the feeding area by the barn.

We also talked to two large-animal vets, some farriers, and several friends with horses to ask them how we could best acclimate the donkeys with Rocky. Rocky’s blindness meant he couldn’t really defend himself from the usual jockeying, bumping, and biting that went along with equine introductions.

Just about everyone told us the same thing, and it squared with our own sensibilities. Separate Rocky and the donkeys for a few days; let them become aware of one another. And then introduce them, leaving them together for short periods of time.

The advice was unanimous: they would work it out. Animals always work it out. The donkeys would sense that Rocky was old and infirm—would see that he was no threat.

And to be honest, this was also my experience. Animals don’t feud or make war; they survive and adapt. And why wouldn’t they work it out? An old blind pony is no threat to healthy donkeys and sheep. As always, they would take their cues from us. Maria and I always set the tone on Bedlam Farm. Everybody gets fed, everybody has shelter, everybody gets fresh water and lots of attention. The animals in my life have little to envy and no reason to squabble; they all get what they need.

Animals always act in their self-interests, not out of emotional motives. Donkeys are companion animals for many horses, and I’ve often seen them out grazing together. The farm was compact, the pastures small. Maria and I were almost always on hand to keep an eye on things, to encourage the right behaviors, to reinforce the atmosphere of our farm. It was a peaceable kingdom. It would stay that way.

We moved the donkeys first. Ken came by with a friend and a small horse trailer. We backed it up to the barn. That morning,
we had lured the donkeys into one of the barn stalls with some carrots.

Lulu, the watch-donkey of the group, the smartest and most vigilant, was not fooled. Fanny and Simon came running in for the treats. Lulu got to the door, took a look at me and Maria, and balked. But it was too late. Fanny and Simon were already inside munching on the grain we had put down in bowls. I got behind Lulu, smacked her on the butt, and slid the barn door closed. She had nowhere to go, but I could see that she sensed something was up.

Ken showed up with his trailer and backed it up to the barn door. By now, Fanny knew something was up as well, and she and Lulu tried nosing the barn door open. Simon, trusting as always, was hoping for another carrot.

We opened the barn door, put up gates to the back of the trailer, and got into the stall behind the donkeys. Lulu led the charge out, but there was nowhere to go except into the trailer. She tried to bust through the gates, but Ken was waiting for her. We put some grain in the trailer, banged some trash cans behind them, and Simon was the first one to jump in. Lulu and Fanny followed, as donkeys do. They were not going to be separated.

It took less than half an hour to drive the trailer over to the new farm. We had put Rocky in his stall inside the barn, separated by a gate.

When we got to the new place, we opened up the back of the trailer, and Simon was the first one out. All the donkeys looked a bit rattled from the drive, but curious about their surroundings.

Simon came walking quickly up to me, and I gave him a carrot, which he chewed gratefully. Lulu and Fanny weren’t buying it yet and wouldn’t take any food, but seeing Maria and
me calmed them down. Rocky neighed in the barn, and all three donkeys were soon outside of the gate, sniffing the air and looking in. We left them to get used to the place. Later, when we left to go back to Bedlam Farm—we humans wouldn’t be moving into the new house for a few days—the donkeys were out grazing in the field.

Like most animals, they did not waste a lot of time missing what they had left behind, not when there was fresh green grass. They checked Rocky out from time to time, but we were pleased by the first encounter. It seemed like no big deal. They would figure it out.

The move changed us both in ways we had not considered or really even imagined. Every day I did things I had never done before. Necessity is the mother of invention. And of self-reliance, as well. I learned how to steam wallpaper off of a wall, pry open jammed windows, stack firewood, putty holes in walls, polish and paint wood.

I was at the hardware store a half dozen times a day looking for glue, the right screwdriver or hammer, the right kind of nail. I got Florence’s creaky forty-year-old mower repaired and kept my promise to mow my own lawn instead of paying someone else to do it, as I had for years.

Each day I talked to Ben about slate roofs and putting new windows in the barn to keep the snow out. I hauled debris from the pasture out to the woods and down to the dump.

Maria and I did most of these things together. She had once forsaken making art for a career in home restoration, and the last thing she wanted to do was spackle and paint, but she did, and I did, and because it was something we were doing together,
because we were working on our new house together, we both loved doing it. Most nights, we collapsed into bed, filthy and exhausted, and were asleep before we could even turn the lights out.

I didn’t realize how much we had needed to leave Bedlam Farm until we left. I was often asked, “How could you leave such a beautiful place?” Pride kept me from confessing at least part of the truth—we couldn’t really afford the upkeep anymore. But the real reason was more difficult to explain. The scale of my life had changed. My values, too. I was finally running my own life responsibly, and I wanted to do some of the things that other men did, to learn to repair and build and care for the physical objects in my home and in my life. I was astonished at how much money we were saving doing so much work ourselves. It was something of a breakthrough when the toilet kept running and I started to call a plumber. Instead, I put the phone down, went to the hardware store and got a rubber stopper for the tank, and fixed it myself.

I began calling the new farm Bedlam Farm 2.0. It had all the qualities we loved about the old farm, but was scaled to fit to our current life. The grounds were smaller, the hay right upstairs in the barn, the water buckets fifty feet from the back door. The house was more compact and intimate. I had to be careful about cluttering it up—the old Bedlam Farm house was big and sprawling; it easily absorbed all of my junk, papers, books, and clothes. We no longer had a screened-in porch, and the old windows were rotten at the sills. When we opened them it was like a superhighway for bugs and flies. Still, we coped, and I dragged two Adirondack chairs out by the back pasture where we could sit and enjoy our beautiful new surroundings.

The move drew us even closer together; Maria loved having
our
house rather than us living in my house. She took ownership
of the new place so differently and intensely. The new house was her “adorable place,” as she put it.

We were now close to several towns, including Bennington, Vermont, and Cambridge, New York. Everything we needed was closer—gas stations, hardware store, friends, doctors. We lived a few hundred yards from Momma’s restaurant, so we could walk down the road to get a burger or a wrap when we were hungry; we didn’t have to drive thirty miles. I spent so much less time in cars.

Simon and I still enjoyed our daily chats. I offered the opinion that the new farm was a good place for both of us and he seemed to agree, watching me closely, chewing his carrot. He seemed as content as I was. He loved the new pole barn, and walking the flat pasture was much easier on his battered legs (and on mine).

We built a dog run behind the house, and the dogs settled in, as dogs will. Red had sheep in the backyard again, my Lab, Lenore, had a pasture to explore, and our guard dog, Frieda, had a lot of trucks to keep at bay.

We scrambled to fix up the old schoolhouse on our property to be Maria’s studio. We needed help for this. Ben came and sanded and polished the floors. He poured insulation into the walls and fixed all the holes in the side. We put in track lighting and a baseboard heating system. Maria settled in to her new studio happily, cranked up her blog, and began making and selling her quilts and fabric art. I was happy, too. I took over the parlor where the pastor used to visit and set up my Apple computer. We got right to work.

The old Bedlam Farm had been remote, but our new home was close to friendly neighbors. One by one, they came over to welcome us, offer us help, and tell us the secrets of the neighborhood. And we began the exciting and draining process of
entering a new community. I volunteered to teach a writing workshop at an arts center in town, while Maria volunteered to work at the town food co-op.

Our days were rich and full. We did our work, visited the animals, scrubbed cabinets, and repaired old lamps. At night, Maria and I would head out to the Adirondack chairs by the back pasture and hold hands and watch the moon rise in the sky.

“How does it feel?” I asked Maria one night after many hours of wallpaper scraping; there were bits of wallpaper down my back and in my hair. “It feels like home,” she said. For me, too.

EIGHTEEN
 

Maria and I both
like to remember that sunny fall day when Rocky took us for a walk in his secret garden. He had several spots—hiding places, perhaps safe places—which he would visit regularly, usually daily.

One of Rocky’s regular haunts was the corner of the south pasture where clover grew. It was private and shrouded by old trees, bounded by a busy road. Another was below the apple tree behind the big barn, where he would often graze and stare out at the world, listening, perhaps remembering when he could see.

But I think Rocky’s favorite spot was out of sight, down the hill behind the big barn, across a marshy stream. Sometimes, when we called him, he would be down there. Sometimes he would come out, sometimes not.

One beautiful Sunday afternoon, when we finished brushing and grooming Rocky, he whinnied and pranced around us playfully. We had never seen him so exuberant before. Old as he was, Rocky usually moved slowly and deliberately. But this afternoon,
buoyed by some time with Maria, his old spirit seemed to surface, and he turned his head down toward the bottom of the hill and then seemed to wait for us.

It was hard, sometimes, to separate love from compassion when it came to Rocky, but sometimes compassion can grow into love. When I first met Rocky, I just felt sorry for him, this old blind pony alone in his pasture for years, his human fading after a century of life. But as I got to know him, this feeling of being merciful deepened. I loved the way he and Maria connected. I admired his independence. He accepted. He endured. There was something wonderfully noble about Rocky—something heroically stoic—and I came to love him for that.

That morning, he trotted down the hill, turning several times to wait for Maria, Red, and me. We waded across the wet grass, pulling some wooden planks across the swampy water. The marsh was about ten feet across, and then a gentle hillside rose up. Rocky stood there until we caught up, and then turned to the right, to a path hidden from view up the hill at the barn.

A field opened up—a gentle pasture, surrounded by shrubs and brush and another stream. Rocky went over to the stream—we saw his hoofprints everywhere—and drank from it. He sniffed some of the wildflowers, nibbled on some berries, pulled up some deep green marsh grass. He came over and sniffed Red and whinnied, it seemed in great pleasure, time and again.