A is for Animals

When we first came to the valley, I thought having animals would be one of the simple joys of country life. Feed them. Care for them. Watch them graze in the fields. Maybe collect a few eggs.

I had no idea.

Animals have a way of turning a piece of land into a home. They give names to places that didn’t have names before. The goat pasture. The cow field. The duck pond. The chicken coop. Before long, directions around the farm aren’t measured in feet or fence posts, but in creatures.

The goats are behind the barn.

The pigs are asleep in the shade. And somehow, without asking permission, they become family. Our family has certainly grown. There are cows and goats, chickens and ducks, dogs and now even Kunekune pigs. Dolly and Bo joined the farm along with seven little piglets, born on the Fourth of July.

And this summer, two little girls named Isobel and Sky came bounding into our lives, adding puppy chaos to a farm that was hardly suffering from a shortage of chaos.

There is always somebody hungry. Somebody where they aren’t supposed to be.

Sven is over by the little chicken coop.

Somebody testing a fence that apparently isn’t as hot as we thought it was. Somebody requiring us to abandon whatever we had planned for the day because this has suddenly become the emergency of the day. Sometimes the absurdity catches me in the quietest moments. Can you see the quiet chaos!

I’ll be standing at the kitchen sink doing dishes, glance out the window and think for half a second: Why is there a brown dog out there? Then my brain catches up.

That’s not a dog. That’s Bo.

Our brown-spotted Kunekune boar, wandering around the farm as though he has somewhere important to be. I’ve learned that loving animals is funny and messy and exhausting. I’ve also learned that it can break your heart. We lost our precious princesses, Tiny and Dot.

And then came Isobel and Sky. They didn’t replace the girls we lost. They weren’t supposed to. But somehow there was room in our hearts for grief and new love at the same time.

Welcoming Isobel and Sky taught me something I don’t think I fully understood when we began this life. On a farm, beginnings and endings aren’t tucked neatly away from one another. They live side by side.

There can be new piglets to fuss over while you’re still missing the animal who used to come running when she heard your voice. A new puppy can make you laugh until your sides hurt without replacing the one whose absence still catches you unexpectedly.

That may be one of the hardest lessons I’ve learned in the valley.

The cycle of life isn’t just something you understand intellectually when animals share your life. You witness it. You participate in it. And sometimes you have absolutely no say in it.

It is beautiful. And it can hurt like hell. So you learn to celebrate the arrivals without pretending there haven’t been goodbyes. You make room for the new without pushing aside the ones who came before. Maybe that’s one of the first things the animals have taught this abecedarian:

Love them while they’re here.

Feed them. Protect them. Untangle them from the fence. Chase them back through the gate. Sit with them. Laugh at them. Take too many pictures. Learn their ridiculous little personalities. And when the time comes, remember them.

Because somewhere along the way, I stopped thinking of Lavender Jolly Acres as a farm where we keep animals.

It became their home, too.