Barnheart Page 8

  Actually, I wasn’t as worried about our repartee as I was about their dinner. My coworker Nadine — who had a flock of Texas Dalls in Hebron — had given me a few small bales of hay as a congratulations gift for getting my own stock. I had a list of potential suppliers of second-cut hay pinned to the fridge, and Nadine had offered to sell me more as well, so it wasn’t like these guys were going to starve anytime soon. Also, the farm was loaded with high late-summer grass. I had a few weeks of free salad bar already lined up for the new tenants. But winter was certainly coming, and a Vermont winter is no joke. I still had to find a local hay farmer, and soon.

  Sometimes you get lucky.

  As we crested the hill up Hebron Road, heading back to Sandgate, we passed a farmer and some of his employees loading bales of beautiful green hay onto the back of a pickup truck. The hay looked absolutely amazing; it was so green and lush, I was ready to pour some vinaigrette on it and dig in myself. Could I be so ridiculously lucky as to run into a hay dealer on the drive home with my first livestock?

  I slowed down, and the station wagon hit a bump in the pavement. Everyone baaed. That caused the hay makers to look over at what they’d previously thought was a normal car. They didn’t do a double take (this is Washington County, after all), but they did shake their heads and laugh. To them I was just another flatlander who had moved to the country and bought some sheep as lawn ornaments for my second home. Or maybe they thought I was crazy.

  I rolled down the window and leaned my head out to yell over the sounds of the motors. Despite the ruckus, the sheep in the backseat remained calm. They had either accepted their fate or were plain bored. All three were lying down with their elbows tucked under them, like Zen monks. They watched as I called up to the older gentleman running the show on top of a hay truck. “Hi, there!” I yelled. “Do you guys have any hay for sale?” Without missing a beat, the older farmer (he must have been eighty-five) retorted with a belly laugh, “Do you have any sheep?” Then we were both laughing at the absurdity and within minutes were shaking hands and making introductions.

  His name was Nelson Greene, and he’d been farming on this same spot in Washington County his whole life. He had inherited the farm business from his father and had kept it going ever since. Independent dairy farmers are a dying breed, and Nelson was one of the few American dairymen still among the living.

  I let my eyes dart around behind him as he was talking. His farm was huge, and the view was breathtaking. His world of milk and hay sat on the edge of a rolling hill, perfectly sited to take in the setting sun. I was now only half-listening to his story. I snapped back into the conversation when Marvin (I think) belted out some slow jazz behind me.

  Eventually, I told him something about myself, but my story wasn’t half as interesting. I told him I’d moved here from Idaho in the winter and so was new in town. I also explained that these were my first sheep (he grinned and shook his head) and that I lived over in Sandgate. I asked if he’d be around for a while working, because I’d like to come back and buy some hay tonight, if possible. He told me to drive back after I unloaded the animals and he’d fill up my car as best he could. I drove away from Nelson’s farm, convinced that the world had been folded on dotted lines for me this day. Life can surprise you with its tiny generosities, especially when you’re carpooling with ruminants.

  When I got back to the cabin, I parked the station wagon as close to the sheep pen as I could manage. Then, one by one, I took each sheep by the halter and placed it inside to feast on grain and get acquainted with the new digs. Sal balked a little but with a firm pull and a kind word he trotted through the gate. Marvin was next and was even easier to unload.

  I was foolish to assume Maude would be as easy. No one named Maude would be easy. I slowly opened the hatch and reached for her red nylon halter, cooing softly to her, as if I did with the boys. She looked back at me with wild eyes, like this was the drop-off from the last train into a slaughterhouse. When I had the lead in hand and the door open, I gave her a gentle tug. She leaped past me out of the car, almost ripping my arm from the socket as the halter jerked. Then, to our collective despair, the slip halter slid off her muzzle and over her neck, turning the gentle lead into a noose. She was confused, bleating, and pulling to get free. I held on, worried she’d bolt for the woods and be gone forever. I needed to get her into that pen.

  In a panic, breathing heavily and gasping, she fell to the ground. I was at her side immediately, talking to her softly and removing the halter from her neck. She was helpless on the ground, as all sheep become once they’re on their backs. (This is the trick to shearing them; turn them on their rumps and they’re about as feisty as rag dolls.) When she was breathing normally, I grabbed her by the wool on her shoulders and above her rump and acted on gut instinct. I led her into the pen, and she ran to be with her friends. I swear she turned around and leered at me. I apologized, telling her she didn’t have to freak out like that. It would be months before she let me touch her again. As it turns out, sheep remember everything.

  When the sheep were in their pen, and looked like they weren’t going to form a SWAT team and vault the fence, I headed back to Hebron for the hay. The day was nearly over, and the sun was getting tired. I knew that when I finally got home, it would be dark. As I headed back through the winding dirt roads to Nelson’s farm, I turned on some music and got lost in the reverence of the day. I was already nostalgic for the present. The music was soft and lovely, and I was overcome with the emotion a met goal inspires. I had sheep. I was, in some sense, a shepherd. Tears started to fill the corners of my eyes, and I began to sing along with the music. It was on that first ride to pick up hay that I fully understood my place in this short, saturated life. I had to become a farmer. Somehow, I just had to. I had lived twenty-five years so far and seen much of the country. I had jumped off waterfalls in Tennessee and ridden a white Mustang through the Rocky Mountains. I’d driven cross-country. I’d written a book. I’d fallen in love. But I had never felt the perfect sense of knowing my place in the world till right then. Some of us are born to stoop down, touch the soil, and know it. I was one of them. I only hope I’m half as happy on my wedding day.

  GETTING MY GOAT

  WHEN I RETURNED TO THE SWAP MEET the following year, I left with a new addition to my flock. I didn’t really mean to buy a goat. It just happened. One minute I was standing there watching the tiny herd of two-week-old lambs and kids play; the next thing I knew, I was asking the farmer who’d unloaded the trailer whether she had any wethers. She pointed to one, a small brown goat with white stripes up his face and (I swear) a sly grin. Just him, she said. I asked if she would hold him for me, and I’d be right back; I just needed to think about it. I had come to get some new laying hens and had only slightly entertained the thought of adopting a pack goat.

  Just so you know, a pack goat isn’t a feral goat that runs with wolves or becomes a member of your herd in some canine-inspired family bond. A pack goat is one that’s trained to carry a pack. Your own personal Sherpa. The ideal animal for this type of training is a castrated male dairy goat, preferably one of the Swiss Alpine breeds. These goats have been bred for years in mountainous regions of Europe and have the sure-footedness and outback savvy to traverse even the most questionable backcountry terrain. Males, being naturally more muscular and heavy boned, make for better beasts of burden. If I could raise and train a young goat to walk on a leash, come when called, and learn to carry a small pack, I could take him hiking with me. I realized I hadn’t been hiking in months.

  One of the downsides of farming was the lack of time I could spend in the great outdoors. I had stopped driving to hiking trails; I was spending so much of my time in the great backyard of farming, I barely had the desire to hit the parks. I used to go hiking up into the mountains to be out in the fresh air, work my muscles, feel the soreness and the draw of nature. But farming had taken its place. I spent so much time around plants and animals (even if they were broccoli plants
and chicks, not trees and wild geese) that I no longer felt that need to grab maps and a compass and head for the hills. When I did have a free Saturday and all my chores were done (a rarity), I found myself wanting to spend it indoors. I’d haunt a bookstore or coffee shop for a few hours, see a movie, go to a friend’s house to play my guitar by the woodstove.

  I realized that as much as I loved everything that made up my life, I missed hiking. I missed the way it felt to load up the station wagon at eight in the morning and leave it at the trailhead until I returned hours later, exhausted and starving. I missed how it felt to crash up a mountain, stand on a summit, and listen to the world, all tired and thin feeling. I’d pull out a tattered paperback and read the heart sutra, or The Dharma Bums, or a how-to guide about farming (before farming kept me leashed to the house).

  But a pack goat! What a reason to step outside again! It was the perfect bridge between farm and woods. This little goat could be my passport back into the wild, a goat to run behind me on the trail, past waterfalls and chasms. We’d tramp through the woods, my solo humming punctuated by the occasional bleat from my scrappy brown pack goat. And when we stopped for me to read by the water’s edge, I’d let him graze, and I’d sigh as I put my hands behind my head and look at the sky again. I missed the mountains so. A mountain goat would bring me back.

  Sure, the goat seller replied, she’d hold him for me. The chances that anyone else at the fairgrounds would want a male goat were slim. The females had the advantage of offering milk and future kids for meat. But a mongrel male like this was destined to become goat curry unless some sucker decided she wanted a pet. I was that sucker. I wanted to raise a kid.

  After a short walk around the festivities, and the purchase of a pair of started pullets (production reds), I returned to the goat pen. I couldn’t talk myself out of it. I wanted a goat. I already had the shed, the fences, and the hay a person would need, not to mention three happy sheep who were raised with goats. And this little guy — well, he was clearly being raised with lambs, so he’d be used to the company.

  For two crumpled twenties and a folded ten-dollar bill, he was mine. The goat lady put a red collar around his neck and placed him in my arms. I remember being shocked at how warm he was. He felt like a black dog that had been lying in a sunny spot all afternoon. His giant hooves hung over the crook of my arm as I hugged him. He didn’t cry or fuss, just nestled his head into my chest. That was all it took. Any sense of regret or anxiety dissappeared as I buried my head in his baby hair. We walked through the festival like a mother with a new baby clutched to her chest. People stopped and stared, smiled, and took pictures. A lot of the people gave me that glance I had become very familiar with — that look of excitement and envy future farmers dart at each other when one takes a big step. I had given that look to Diana as we carried her new calf across the creek in Idaho. I had given it to my neighbor Roy when he came home with his new tractor. And a few people were giving me that same look as I held my very first goat in the folds of my beat-up jean jacket.

  We got to our spot in the parking lot, and it hit me that I wasn’t prepared for goat transportation. The only cage I had was full of new chickens, and I wasn’t anywhere near a pet store. There were some hand-hewn wooden cages for sale, but they would cost more than he did. So I did what any sensible Vermonter would do. I set him down in the passenger seat, walked around the car to my side, and drove away. He stood up and put his hooves on the dash. Then he turned around in quick circles. When spinning grew boring, he sat like a puppy and started eating the nylon webbing of the seat belt. Whoever invented the car seat deserves a Nobel Peace Prize, I thought.

  After a few minutes, though, he was fine. He was great company, actually. He folded his small front hooves under his chest, splayed out his legs, and simply rested. He looked as if riding shotgun was as normal to him as drinking milk and running around a pasture. I reached a hand over and scratched his ears as we drove past the State Line Diner. I wondered if I had broken some sort of state law by transporting livestock from New York without paperwork. I asked the goat if he knew the procedure, and he replied by closing his eyes and laying his head across the dog-hair-covered seat. I considered that pleading the Fifth.

  “We’re going to need a name for you, little man,” I said, and tried to come up with something appropriate. He was brown and white, so I thought Tin Type might be fitting.

  When I got home, I called my friend Kevin and ran it past him.

  “Can I name him?” he asked.

  “Whaddya got?”

  “Name him after someone from Buffy,” he said. (Buffy the Vampire Slayer was our favorite TV show.)

  “Uhhh …”

  “Name him Finn!”

  And so Finn was the name that stuck. But it wasn’t because of the famous scrappy Huckleberry of our nation’s literary history. It was after Riley Finn, the military special-ops ex-boyfriend of Buffy Summers. He was my least favorite character of all time. As a nod to Kevin, Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy), and my pop-cultural upbringing, my first goat was named after a B-list character on a defunct television program. A little of my past life was blending with my current one.

  And so I became a single parent raising a goat. I’d wake up ridiculously early and head out to the makeshift kid pen I’d designed. It was a combination of what I think was an old potting table, chicken wire, straw, and some metal roofing, but it worked fine. Inside it was an old dog crate, which I’d lined with fresh straw. Every night the little guy crawled inside to sleep.

  In the morning, I’d tiptoe over to his pen just before dawn and see how close I could get before waking him. I could usually get right up to the edge of the pen, then whisper-sing “Good morning, Finn …” and he’d come bounding out, ears flapping and tail wagging. He’d jump around inside the pen as I set aside the bottle of milk replacement to open the gate. As soon as he saw breakfast, he’d start carrying on as if I were the most wonderful thing that ever happened to him. I’d untie the baling-wire latch and he’d nip at my fingers, nickering at me to be let out.

  When he did burst free, he’d bound out and do a few laps around the chicken coop, always coming back to my side. From what I’d read about raising goats, their personalities are often compared to those of clingy dogs; a goat that was attached to a person would not gallop off into the wilderness if it knew your property was where it ate and had shelter and family. If I walked over to the garden or the sheep pen, he would come running with a grace you wouldn’t expect in a goat. When he really got going, he’d snort, and I wondered if I should have named him Ripper instead.

  Our morning ritual went like this: Finn would follow me around the farm while I fed chickens and sheep, weeded the garden, and carried buckets of water. As I did chores, Finn created his own series of games to keep himself interested while I pretty much ignored him. These included games such as Look How Far I Can Jump Off This Thing! and Head-Butt the Angry Rooster! Even before my first cup of coffee, I was smiling and laughing (a rarity before a goat came into my life).

  When all the chores for the other livestock were done, the little guy would join me on the old wooden porch for breakfast. I’d sit in the ancient metal chair I’d outfitted with a new cushion and he’d down two bottles in my lap. It was a quiet, beautiful thing to experience before heading into the office. Feeling the heartbeat of a warm young animal as he sits in your lap, stroking his head, and giggling as his tail tickles your legs … it was like living in a storybook. Writing about it feels almost made up, yet it happened every day. And of all those mornings, it was the rainy ones I remember most fondly. Something about the sound of warm rain on a late-May morning, and the smell of coffee on the stove inside the cabin as I fed Finn his breakfast became a potent sensory memory. Some people never forget the feel of wet grass under their feet during their first kiss or the way the snow smelled the night their first child was born; I will never forget the feeling of a warm baby goat in my arms on a rain-soaked morning. It’s not exactly roman
tic or epic, but it was a genuine experience and something I was starting to crave more than caffeine.

  So this was what I did for those first few weeks. After my morning shower and a few cups of coffee, I’d load up Finn in the back of the Subaru in Annie’s retired dog crate and head off to work. During break times and lunch, I’d let him out to pee, run around, sniff the dogs my coworkers had brought to work, and, well, be a kid. He was a hit at the office; no one seemed to mind this weird breed of sporting dog that had taken up residence on the back lawn.

  In the evening, after the chores were done and the animals fed and dogs walked, I’d grab Finn’s lead and we’d go for a walk, even if there were only twenty minutes of daylight left. We didn’t walk far; I usually had a stomach full of food and would be growing tired. We moved slowly, a postprandial jaunt over the little dirt bridge that spanned the stream. We’d head down to the main road, and every now and then Finn would stop to nibble a dead leaf on the ground.

  We usually didn’t see a single car. I’d listen to the sounds of weather changing — leaves tossing in the limbs above us, a burning brush pile crackling on someone’s property. The air smelled like smoke and cut grass. We’d stop in the cool shade of a sugar maple and the wind would rush warm air into us. Finn, confused by the sudden change in the world, would bow down on his front legs and then jump into the air, throwing his horns into nothing to fight the barometrics.

  If I’m lucky and get to live into old age, I’ll look back on these rituals and be glad. I’ll remember the summer nights at the cabin walking silently alongside my young goat, scanning the trees for fireflies. Perhaps, as an old woman, I will find myself on a walking tour of someone else’s small farm on a rainy morning. Because I am me, there will still be a mug of coffee in my thin hands, and when I approach the goat pen and smell that combination of goat hair, straw, and hot coffee, I will almost fall to my knees from the nostalgia. Raising Finn was turning out to be a revelation.