Barnheart Page 9

  YOU NEED A TRUCK, GIRL

  FINN JUMPED OUT OF THE DOG CRATE in the back of my Subaru as if tailgate leaping were a caprine Olympic event. With his tail high, front legs tucked under his chest, and back arched, he looked more like one of the cardboard reindeer decorations of my childhood than the son of Cain that he was. He landed on the grass, twirled around, tail wagging, and bleated for some milk from the bottle in my hand. I beamed at the little guy and fed him, as some coworkers strolled out to enjoy the sunshine. We were parked only a few feet from the herd of motorcycles the writing staff drove in on, without fail, every sunny day.

  Paul, Eric, and Tim started up some small talk. Finn splayed his legs and peed, having downed two bottles of milk in a row. The guys laughed and made fitting comments. I joined in. There was no point in trying to class up a peeing goat.

  While we enjoyed the sun and talked about work, pets, and the weather, Eric crossed his arms and leaned back onto the heels of his shoes. He smiled and shook his head as he looked at the back of my Forester. I hadn’t even thought about shutting the hatch of the car, but as Eric looked into the back of it, I was able to see it through the eyes of a normal non-goat-owning person. It was a horror. The once pristine car was full of dented dog crates, hay, feed bags, old quilts, garden flats, mud, and dust; what little room was left was occupied by egg cartons. It was the aftermath of a very intentional life in an unintentional vehicle.

  My car had become the victim of homesteading. It smelled like dead grass and wet dog. The windows were smudged with nose smears and the sides ruined with claw marks. “You’re never going to be able to sell that car,” was all Eric had to say through a smirk. He was right. And the more my life careened from part-time homesteader to full-time farmer, the more I was realizing I’d better start thinking about my automotive future.

  I needed a truck. It was time. I’d been hauling hay, tools, feed, and every farm critter imaginable in the back of my eight-year-old station wagon. Since I’d started down this feed-sack-lined path, I had made passengers out of boxed honeybees, chicks, turkey poults, ducklings, goslings, bunnies, chickens, geese, fiber rabbits, roosters, three sheep, two dogs, and a goat kid. I had transported vegetables, topsoil, hoses, tools, Havahart traps (occasionally inhabited), dead chickens, and everything else that comes with living on a small farm.

  While the car had served me well, there was no question it had suffered. Carpeted backseats were not meant to handle a flock of sheep; there was still a stain from when Maude peed all over it (I didn’t realize the tarp I’d put down had a hole in it). Clearly, it was time for me to start looking into something meant to take such a beating. A pony is not a draft horse, no matter how many times you put the hames over its head.

  Eric wasn’t the only one who thought my car days were behind me. It wasn’t uncommon for me to inspire jeers in the parking lot of places like Home Depot and Tractor Supply. My station wagon — in all its topsoil-and-dog-hair-encrusted glory — would pull up to a line of trucks and park between them like a sparrow among crows on a telephone wire. When I’d open the hatch and start piling in bags of compost or feed, kicking up clouds of dirt and bits of hay, someone would inevitably get into the truck next to me, shake his head, and say, “You need this truck more than I do, darling.”

  Money was tight, though. Another car payment was out of the question, so if I wanted to get a truck, I knew it would be used, for cash. My budget would not allow spending a lot, either. My first searches at preowned-car dealerships and the weekly flyers seemed to suggest that to find something serviceable, I needed to have at least three times what I’d hoped to spend. The Internet turned up cheaper options, but they were sketchy at best. On Craigslist, folks were selling trucks for two hundred dollars that sounded more like a death wish than a farm helper. I’d come across ads that said things like, “Bottom’s all rusted through but I got plywood down there and new brakes last spring. She’ll pass inspection if you know someone.” Great.

  Sheer luck had landed me a respectable sum in the shape of a book advance, and it was enough for me to work with. Hopefully, I could find a small pickup in fairly decent shape for my budget of three thousand dollars. I had two caveats: It had to be automatic and it had to play music. I knew myself well enough to realize that I would be driving with a hot mug of coffee in one hand, a dog in the front seat, CDs changing in the stereo, and a ruckus in the back bed, depending on the season and the livestock being moved. This is not the lifestyle of someone who needs to concentrate on a stick shift.

  Every morning I read the Craigslist postings, hoping that some family somewhere had brought home twins and needed to trade up to a minivan. I figured somewhere in Vermont a small single cab had to be waiting for me.

  Turns out there wasn’t.

  I finally gave up looking in the Vermont classifieds and started looking in New York instead. After all, Washington County had scads of trucks on its county roads, far more than the Subaru-speckled country lanes over on the Vermont side of the border. A few days into my search, I came across an ad for White Creek Auto, just a hop over the state line. An ad for an automatic side-step 1999 Ford Ranger came up. Her paint was called Copper and looked like a burnt orange-red. She must have belonged to someone who never farmed a day in his life (God bless him) because, from the photos at least, she looked pristine. She was beautiful.

  White Creek Auto had it posted for twenty-nine hundred dollars, with over a hundred thousand miles already on the odometer. While on the phone, the manager explained that they’d gotten her at auction dirt cheap and were selling her as is. I clicked over to the White Creek Auto website and read its slogan, choking on my Saturday-morning coffee as I did so: WHITE CREEK AUTO: HOME OF THE ABSOLUTELY NO GUARANTEE WHATSOEVER! Well. I guess that covers it.

  I told him I’d be down in a few hours to take it for a test-drive.

  My friends Phil and Mike came with me to see the old truck. Both lectured me about the art of bargaining, that I should lowball the guy and expect to walk away. They were better at this sort of thing than I was. Honestly, if this truck was in good shape, ran well, and had a sweet stereo system, I wasn’t about to turn a 180 and stroll into the sunset for a lousy two hundred bucks (of course I considered far more important things, like four-wheel drive, mileage, gas consumption, and amount of rust on the body, but somehow, they didn’t seem as important to me as a decent stereo). I could sell my banjo and make two hundred dollars. If this animal was sound, she was going home with me.

  When we pulled into the garage’s driveway, I noticed the little pickup instantly; she looked as if she had just come off the showroom lot. I speed-walked over to it and opened a door to check the interior. There were a few cigarette burns here and there, but it didn’t smell like an ashtray. Inside the small khaki cab were two giant coffee-cup holders, a CD player with radio, a few storage compartments, and CD slits in the visor. Perfect.

  The owner of the garage came out and asked if I was the girl who e-mailed about the Ford. When he saw how excited I was, he knew he had a sucker in his claws and handed me the keys and a magnetic plate. Mike, ever the watchful big-brother figure, agreed to come along on the test run. He drove a new Toyota Tacoma and loved it. I had ridden along in his pickup and loved it too, but I also knew such a vehicle cost more than a down payment on a farm. And I wasn’t looking for a shiny new commuter like his, anyway. I needed a workhorse.

  We climbed into the cab, and I took a few seconds to get my bearings. I turned the key, felt the engine rev, and hit the gas. I don’t know if Mike noticed the grin on my face, but I was elated. My feet almost floated off the pedals as we turned the corner down the dusty road.

  We drove a mile or so, and Mike suggested we pull her over and look under the hood while she ran. We both felt she passed the driving and brake-slamming acrobatics we had put her through — now we wanted a physical to prove we were right. Leaving the engine idling, we popped the hood. All looked well inside.

  It wasn’t long after we pull
ed her over that another truck started down the road and saw one of its countrymen in “distress.” A gutted, windowless, 1980s Toyota with a flat wooden bed pulled up with three people jammed inside: the driver — a wiry guy in his mid-thirties — and two silent, equally skinny teenage boys I suspected were his progeny.

  “You okay?” he asked, sincerely.

  “Yup! Just taking this used truck on a test-drive, checking what’s under the hood.”

  “Whaddretheyaskinforrit?”

  “A little south of three grand.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “Buy it. This heap of crap cost me three grand. That truck looks brand new.”

  Feeling like I had received a benediction, I drove her back to the garage content, thrilled even. Mike smiled, too. We had both made a new friend in this decade-old orange truck.

  After an intense sparring match of bargaining with the owner, I sealed the deal for the unbeatable price of twenty-nine hundred dollars — exactly what the ad requested. He simply would not budge on the price. He said a truck like that didn’t sit on his lot long, and I believed him. He wasn’t feeding me a line as much as he was simply making a statement. So we sat down, and I wrote a check (the largest check I had ever handed anyone), and within moments the title information was handed over and the paperwork mailed to Albany. He handed me the key, shook my hand, and told me to take care of her. Barely believing this day had come, I took the small black key from his hand and waved to my friends, then we hopped into our separate rides to head home. I pulled a small black CD case out of my shoulder bag and popped a disc into the truck’s CD player. Old Crow Medicine Show’s “Wagon Wheel” blared through the speakers, and as the fiddle started to croon into the first verse I pulled out of the driveway. This greenhorn farmer had finally entered the world of cabs, beds, and tailgates.

  Despite a quick return to the garage to have a wheel bearing replaced, the thing ran like a thoroughbred. It passed Vermont state inspection with flying colors, and I was secretly elated when the garage gave me a 10 sticker instead of a 9. It was late enough in the month of September for the inspection to count as October, so my favorite month, my holy month, was birth-marked on the windshield. I considered it a good omen.

  The truck became my main vehicle. I took it everywhere: to work, on weekend errands, for dinner in town with friends. But this was also a working vehicle. It was constantly loaded with hay or straw, feed, and fencing. I drove it to pick up fifteen chickens with a coworker, and we happily carried our stock home in the bed. As autumn turned deeper into her burning days, I started the simple ritual of driving it a few miles down the road from the office to Clear Brook Farm, where I could buy freshly baked breads, cider, and cheddar cheese. I could have a baguette with fresh curd and wash it down with sweet, freshly pressed cider. I would come back to the office, sit in the bed with my picnic and a book, and savor my lunch break with a new level of gusto.

  When your life is one of gardens and livestock, a pickup truck becomes an extension of that life. It didn’t take long for me to understand the affection of a hundred country ballads or the gruff conversations going on at the back of the Wayside. I used to roll my eyes and smile as I heard those men talk about their trucks with such passion, concern, and protectiveness. If someone needed to buy a new one, watch out. The debates over makes, years, and models would be loud enough to spill your coffee. But after driving one, depending on one, and learning about the flexibility and freedom the thing granted me so easily, I was hooked — a convert to the First Church of the F150, Our Lady of Silverado.

  BUILDING PARADISE BROKE AND ALONE

  WHEN AN OLD TRUCK IS CONSIDERED a luxury purchase, you can safely assume that I’m not a wealthy individual. I’ve lived, and continue to live, paycheck to paycheck. It’s not something I’m particularly proud of, as I’ve never been much good at saving, but I am proud of the quality of life I live when I’m not freaking out about money.

  My first year in Vermont, things were especially tight. The first paycheck of the month went toward rent, the Subaru payment, food, and utilities. The second was eaten up by bills, credit cards, and things like gas and dog food. What was left over was usually around two hundred bucks; that’s what I ran my backyard farm on. Sometimes that was more than enough, and sometimes it barely got us through. When times called for drastic measures, I had to start selling things to make ends meet. My first winter with sheep, I sold my beloved banjo so that I could buy enough hay to get us through till spring. I foolishly budgeted for the fencing, the shed, and all the hardware that goes into the work and then realized the sheep probably wanted to eat at some point. I played one last sad song on the banjo and sold it to a student at Bennington College.

  Now, two hundred bucks to manage a small farm for a month is plenty, if all you’re doing is feeding a small flock of chickens (I’d say you’d have about $175 extra, quite honestly). Taking on even just three sheep meant a whole new world of start-up and sustaining costs. I needed money for such things as hay, fence repair, shelter, winter water-tank defrosters, hoof trimmers, Pro-Pen antibiotics, and my very own assortment of syringes for livestock injections (something I never thought I’d have in my medicine cabinet, short of developing diabetes or a heroin addiction, both of which I hoped to avoid).

  Expanding the garden was expensive, too. I didn’t have a tiller to maintain, but I quickly learned that I needed to invest in decent hand tools. After the cash was spent on seeds, tools, and a few six-packs of veggies, I realized I’d also need to expand the garden fencing, put in a scarecrow or plastic owl, and buy netting to keep the birds out of the berries. Most of these were start-up costs, but as a renter, every new backyard is a start-up. I was getting tired of breaking all that fresh sod, too.

  This was the reality of my new life. Homesteading on a larger scale simply cost more money. But there was some income slowly filtering in as well, which is more than many folks can say about their backyards. At the office I was selling eggs for a couple of dollars a dozen, and the occasional apple pie, too. I had learned to breed my French Angora rabbits successfully, and their pedigreed offspring could fetch up to fifty dollars a kit. The chickens were buying their own feed and the occasional cup of coffee for their farmer, and the rabbits were certainly earning their annual room and board with the sale of woolly bunnies. I taught beginner fiddle and dulcimer workshops. And whenever things got really tight, I’d fall back on selling things on eBay and eating a lot more homemade food.

  Homesteading saved money, too. I was eating really well from my giant backyard garden. My second growing season at the cabin, I had fifteen raised beds, each with about twenty square feet of growing space. I had corn growing taller than I was, pumpkins curling around the fence posts, and tomatoes so plump and red, I was worried they’d burst open if you stared at them too long. I canned and froze my garden harvest and baked my own bread and pizza crusts. Weekends, I ate entirely from my little homestead, with breakfasts of garden omelets or homemade French toast or pancakes, lunches of salads and cold mint tea, and dinners of savory pasta, baked squash, or bubbling pizza with my own handmade mozzarella.

  By my second summer at the cabin, eating out of the garden had saved me enough money that I could not only afford to keep the farm afloat, but I could also buy a new banjo to pick in the hammock I’d strung up between two ancient oaks. Some weekends I would park the car in the driveway and not get into it again until Monday morning rolled around and I was off to work. I can’t say I was such an honorable pioneer all the time, but most of the time I was content with a blanket, a book, and a new song to practice on my violin in the sheep pasture. I’d sprawl out there on a blanket for hours with a cold drink and some instruments, and eventually Sal would saunter over for an ear scratch and lie down beside me. If I could manufacture the sense of home and peace I felt lying on my back in the sun, among the tall grass, sipping some hard cider, listening to the quiet cud-chewing of my flock as my fingers mindlessly plucked away
at my strings, I would be wealthier than Martha Stewart.

  To keep the farm running, I had to plan for a string of summer weeks that required practically no money at all to prepare for what I called the Fall Wall — that time from September to the first snowfall when suddenly life in the Northeast gets very pricey: firewood, heating oil, winter hay (I now stored it in the garage to keep it dry and parked my car outside in the driveway), snow tires, and warm clothes. I rarely shopped, and when I did, it was in secondhand stores as much as possible or at sales at places like the feed store. I used to blush when people asked me where my sweater came from and I had to say “Oh, clearance at Tractor Supply: five dollars!” but I got over that quick. I might have been broke 99 percent of the time, but my money was being funneled into my experience and living the life I’d always wanted to live. So what if everyone else from my college design classes were taking weekend trips to the city or filling their homes with furniture from Crate and Barrel? I was taking weekend trips to buy livestock or see local sheepdog trials, and I actually used crates and barrels every day to store tools and chicken feed.

  Some folks might say it’s careless, dangerous, and certainly foolish to start farming without a respectable savings account and more experience. But quitting my day job and going back to school for agriculture or taking up a resident internship at an organic farm wasn’t possible. I had student loans to pay off. I also had real-life bills, from living on my own since college. No, deciding to wash my hands of the nine-to-five world and living off my backyard was not an option, not unless I wanted to lose my health insurance, declare bankruptcy, and have the dealership take away my Subaru.