First thing in the morning: let the tide of puppies out of their crate. Allow yourself to be carried along with the rolling surge: down the hall to tumble down the stairs, finally pooling – whirling around and around at the door in a cacophony of bells. You open the door, and out it rushes, into the dark, freezing morning.
A minute and a half later, there is howling at the door. Back in they gallop, you’d think: looking for breakfast. But in reality, it’s you they want, on the floor. If you are brave enough to sit, they lavish on you frantic love, gnawing affectionately on your arms and feet, gazing briefly but soulfully into your eyes before finding something fresh to gnaw or lick or roll on.
If after that, you don’t know that life is worth living, you need to go back to bed.
Odd thing yesterday. My horse neighbor to the east—every year he buys a calf and brings it over the summer. Sometimes two. These cattle lead a lovely, peaceful life—untroubled by dogs, consorting with horses to the south and to the west. Plenty of food. And entire little pasture of their own. The only sad thing about it is that often they are Only Cows, not a comfortable situation for a herd animal. But the horses seem to help with that.
And every fall, he turns his cow(s) into meat for the winter. The process is professional – quick and without drama. The cows suffer not even apprehension. They are at home, for one thing.
This is as close to the reality of my long life as I have ever gotten, I think. I have to name the cows things like “short ribs” in the spring. That reminds me. I actually met my own cow this year, and Stan had named him “chuck.” The first odd thing is that I am not horrified by the situation. Few creatures on earth lead as pleasant and undemanding a life as these cattle do.
(Interjection: 2nd stage of the morning—an inundation of Chaz energy)
But here is the oddness, and I think I have told you about it before – it’s the horses. Especially Dustin. They are the reason I know that cow-harvest day has come; they utterly refuse to enter the east stall of the barn on that day.
When the cows are taken, there is no brouhaha. It’s a silent process, a classic case of not knowing what hit them. There is nothing brutal or bleeding about it. I could see no signs in the snow yesterday when I looked, except to note that the pasture gate was now open.
But the horses always know. It’s not like the neighbor is just gone on a trip to the vet; that wouldn’t shake them this way. First, Dustin wouldn’t even enter the arena. Zion, evidently a much more pragmatic guy (and can afford to be, as he owns the west stall) seems untroubled. But Dustin stands and stares into the pasture next door, unwilling to be tempted into his middle stall, even by his beloved alfalfa. And Sophie, whose stall is the east one, is equally shy of that side of the property.
Out of focus and season – it’s really supposed to be a shot of Hickory. But you can see, anyway, how lovely Dustin is, and how statuesque when his attention is taken. And how hard it might be to lead him anywhere he is disinclined to follow.
I wonder at this. I wonder what they feel or smell. And I can’t ask them. I can only keep up a litany of human assurance – nobody will EVER eat you, only over my own dead body. Finally, I put a halter on Dustin, lead him over to that side of the fence and gave him something else to think about, little tasks, moving his feet – all of which he did with his face to the east, a nervous flurry of worried feet.
At last, I had reassured him somehow, or the last trace of cow spirit had drifted away, pushed along by the edge of the northern breeze. Dustin settled down to eat. Which means that they all did, in almost their proper places. But why? Why do they react this way, as though there were a palpable and disturbing presence in that eastern edge of their home?
In a way, I find this reassuring – that even in the non-verbal, business-like world of nature, there is fellow-feeling between unlike creatures. And far more under heaven than we realize, Horatio.
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