Animals: Veritable & Virtual

Horse sense is the thing a horse has 
which keeps it from betting on people.

~ W. C. Fields

I can’t honestly say I like horses very much. Oh, I enjoy looking at them and I appreciate their beauty and sleekness. However, I never want to care for one (or two) again. The two we owned were purchased for the kids. They enjoyed riding the horses but the day to day care was often haphazard. After three years, the boys sold the horses.

When counting, try not to mix chickens with blessings.

~Unknown

When our children were growing up, we had fresh eggs from eight cage-free laying hens. We also raised fryers. My mom and dad, living next door, took care of butchering the fryers. Our freezers were filled with all we could eat of that prime meat.

If I had the space, I would raise free-range chickens for their eggs. On a small piece of urban land there would be no rooster. However, on two or three acres there’d be a strutting head-of-the-hen-house rooster so I could always have farm fresh as well as fertilized eggs (go figure!).

If you’re short of trouble, take a goat.

~Finnish saying

The less-than-acre of land my brother and I grew up on was in a riverine part of the exurbs. Fertile, loamy alluvial soil produced bountiful crops of fruit and vegetables. Our parents raised chickens and owned four goats, April, May, June and Chloë. As soon as mom quit nursing us, my brother and I drank goat’s milk, not cow’s milk.

When my sons were young, we owned two goats. The first one, Rowan, was a just-weaned male given to me as a housewarming gift when we moved to a mini-farm. I guess he was too high class to eat the blackberries and weeds on the three acres— he sure had no problem at all munching on the flowers in my perennial gardens. After a year or so, we gave him to a local woman who said her pregnant goat needed the companionship of a neutered male (don’t we all?).

A year later, we adopted sweet, fully-grown Ms. Sylvia Goat. She loved to run, jump and play with my youngest son. She would even walk along with him on the roadway as he went to visit neighbors. Sylvia did have an issue with being “non-human” however. She really wanted to be with the family all the time.

One icy, bitter cold winter afternoon I heard what sounded like “Maaaa-maaaa, maaaa-maaa” coming from the back yard. I ran outside and just as I turned the corner of the house, I saw Sylvia paddling around in our above ground pool. Somehow she’d freed herself from her pen, climbed up on the wooden deck, slipped and fell through the cover over the 5’ deep pool.

Her cloven hooves were no help as she desperately tried to climb out. In the process of trying, she ripped much of the liner to shreds.

Fortunately my parents lived next door. Dad ran over to help me pull that wet, cold, frightened goat out of the water. Sylvia was none the worse for her escapades; however, we realized she needed more room to roam and more freedom than her daily romps with my son provided. A local family with other goats adopted Sylvia.

I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. 
Pigs treat us as equals.

~Winston Churchill

Over the years we raised three sets of pigs, two each time. Sonny and Cher were the first residents of the lean-to pied-à-terre built on the back side (downwind side) of our barn.

We’d heard all the stories about pigs favoring mud and wallowing in filth, about how noisy they could be. None of that dissuaded us. We loved the “end products” and my father offered to take care of their feedings when we were at work.

As much as one could read the mind of pigs, we figured out they really did appreciate clean bedding and good food. At least, we humans preferred to keep the pen clean and the food healthful, and the pigs didn’t seem to mind.

Those two pigs grew fat and healthy and the ham, bacon and pork chops from them proved to be worth our investment in time and money.

The next two were males: Barney and Fred. My dad did all of the feeding of these two and much of the “housekeeping” as both my husband and I were working full time. Dad, ever the frugal one, wasn’t feeding them as much as I felt necessary.

As with the first pair of pigs, when grocery shopping I stopped by the fresh food section to collect any fruit or vegetables heading to the discard bins. However, I went further with this second set:

My husband and I attended formal company banquets five or six times a year. In those days the banquet fare was usually steak, baked potato, a limp, gray-green vegetable and some nondescript dessert. At least half of the attendees left huge amounts of food on their plates. What a waste! My pigs would love this stuff!

One particular evening, dinner having been served and the speeches just beginning, I watched as the waitress moved up behind me, pushing her cart full of dirty dishes and assorted clumps of leftover food. As she leaned down to query me: “Are you finished, Ma’am?” I asked her, sotto voce, if there was any way I could collect all that discarded food for my pigs. “No problem, not at all. Sure, drive around the back when you leave and I’ll have it in garbage bags for you.”

Oh, I felt so very proud of myself! My partner grinned knowingly when I told him about my coup. And, in an hour or so, there we were, he in tux and I in cocktail dress, hoisting four 30-gallon garbage bags full of table scraps into the trunk of our car.

The next day before wheel-barrowing the bags down to the barn, I looked into one of them. To my dismay, almost every half-eaten potato or steak had a cigarette butt mashed into it (oh yes, did I forget to say? Those were the days when smoking was allowed—every place!).

Well, MY pigs were not going to be fed cigarettes! Dishpan in hand, hour upon hour, I took every single bit of those leftovers into the kitchen sink, sorted through the garbage, found and discarded all the butts. Fred and Barney were forever grateful, of course.

By the time my family and I were raising the third and last set of pigs (two males again, Andy and Bax), we felt we knew what we were getting into. The boys and their dad picked up the two little weaners as soon as they could be taken from their momma and all went as planned with the care and feeding.

The time came for Andy and Bax, full-grown, healthy and quite active, to be taken to the abattoir. By this time, my father had sold his slat-sided trailer. However, we now owned an old car with a hatchback and no back seat. This rig had served us well for hauling hay, straw and animal feed. We saw no reason it couldn’t be just as good as the trailer for taking these piggies to market.

Autumn’s short days seemed to sneak up on us. Poor scheduling on my part meant it was almost dark when the boys, their dad and grandfather began guiding the pigs out of their pen, up the planks and hopefully, into the back end of the vehicle. 

I watched as the strong and suddenly very stubborn oinkers refused to budge up the boards. Eventually the coaxing and cajoling, along with a few ears of corn to sweeten the path, did the trick. The hogs’ heads touched the roof but at least they were inside. The hatch slammed shut and soon the old jalopy was bumping through the pasture up to the front gate, past the house and out onto the road.

As I walked up to our front porch, about to step inside the house, I stopped to wave at the kids and their dad. Pulling out on the roadway was a sight I still laugh about to this day: Andy and Bax had their heads over the back of the driver’s seat, each resting a chin on my husband’s shoulders! Those two pigs looked for all the world as though they were enjoying the outing.

A leap year is never a good sheep year.

~Olde English saying

Not much can be written of our foray into raising sheep. My guy brought home the smelly, dirty old ewe because someone he worked with said money could be made by raising sheep. Supposedly this female was pregnant. She took up residence in our pasture, ate way too much for one, yet never did produce any lambs. Fortunately, the ewe was welcomed back at her original home.

The reason a dog has so many friends is that he wags his tail 
instead of his tongue. 

~Author Unknown

When my brother was about three, our dad surprised the family with a small mixed-breed dog. He didn’t last long (the dog, not my dad). My memory is that the dog yipped a lot and, maybe even more annoying to my mother, the dog nipped at my brother as he toddled along.

Ten years later Tippy came into our lives. It seems to me he just appeared one day. A medium-sized black dog with a white blaze and white-tipped tail, he was a sweet, calm and loyal mutt who loved to play with my brother and friends.

My sons had dogs, sometimes one at a time, sometimes two or more. When we moved to our small farm we had one dog, a tiny black thing my younger son named Pepé Le Pew. Pepé did her best to fit into her new life “down on the farm.” She raced around the pasture with the horses and chased the chickens (which were as big as she was). She definitely didn’t put on any citified airs.

Pepé wasn’t jealous when April, a white and orange terrier came to live with us. She and April got along just fine. Two smallish dogs and two boys to run and play with them—life was good.

Pepé had been spayed when we adopted her. The little tart, April, however, got herself in a family way with our neighbor’s collie/Sheppard mix. We gave all of April’s puppies away except Daisy.

Daisy was a mid-sized golden haired dog who, as she neared a year old, developed a taste for chicken. A family on a city lot (and no chickens in sight) adopted Daisy.

Teddy Bear was just one large, big-hearted, loving galoot with Sheppard markings and long hair. We adopted him as a puppy from a neighbor on the adjoining farm. Any human could just about melt when Teddy Bear looked up with his big brown, knowing, loving eyes. Teddy Bear lived sweetly and died softly at 12 years of age.

The sleek, short-haired, black, white and tan adult dog, Arrow, just appeared on our doorstep one day. The other dogs didn’t seem to mind and the boys both wanted “just one more dog, Mom, pleeeeease!” Arrow chased every wheeled vehicle passing along our country road. His addiction eventually shortened his life.

Pepé Le Pew, trying hard to be a farm dog, got her little black nose into a wasp’s nest one day. She didn’t last through the 25-mile drive to the vet.

April had been in our family for almost 10 years when she disappeared. We never knew what happened to her. Living in the country was tough on small, free-range dogs.

Dogs are known to pine away if their human isn’t around. Dogs need to be walked and pottied and tended to much more than cats. I doubt I’d have the patience to be a good and responsible owner in this era and at this stage of my life.

Dogs come when they’re called; cats take a message 
and get back to you later.

~ Mary Bly

I grew up with lots of cats. My family somehow seemed to corner the market on pure white, long haired cats. One or two even had blue eyes and one had a brown and a blue eye. We named him Lucky; I don’t recall the names of any other cats.

None of the cats in my childhood ever visited the vet and most of them stayed outside, living in the barn and being good “mousers.”

Shasta came with us when my boys, their dad and I moved to the farm. She was a mellow gray and white tabby. I don’t know how we found my husband’s favorite cat Lincoln, a large short-haired orange tabby. Linc would jump up and curl around his neck when he sat down.

My sons knew I had a special spot in my heart for orange cats and when they heard of a friend whose cat had just had kittens, they picked one out for me. On Mother’s Day they gave me the tiny, white cat with orange splotches.

She was very petite and had just been weaned. I had no name for her so called her “LC” for “Little Cat.” That morphed into Elsa. And “Elsa” she stayed. Many times I would see Elsa’s gold and green eyes watching me from the cherry tree outside the front window.

Shasta, Lincoln and Elsa lived good lives. They were inside as well as outside cats (this was long before I became so acutely aware of the number of songbirds cats kill every year).

Roaming free had its pluses of course, but that same freedom is what we surmise contributed to the death of all three. We never saw their bodies, just assumed what had happened when one by one they’d disappear. Coyotes were suspected.

It’s been many years since I’ve had a pet of any kind (well, take that back: I did have a Beta fish for a while). I’ve thought long and hard about getting a dog or a cat.

There have been innumerable times when just the purr of a cat on my lap and rhythmically stroking the animal’s fur brought me peace and calmness in the face of uncertainty and turmoil.

The ability to fend for themselves is one of the reasons I’ve always liked cats. They aren’t needy in the way I feel dogs are. Yet cats’ loyalty is only as deep as the next can of tuna.

I would never let the cat outdoors therefore I have the dilemma of where to put the littler box in my very small apartment. Additionally, I don’t have the discretionary income which might be needed for veterinary bills.

Even with these quandaries, every now and then I think of adopting a cat. Some of that transitory energy must be finding its way into the minds of others.

For example, cat-compatible friends have spoken to me about the perfect place to “find” my cat and offered suggestions about where to stash the litter box. And just a week ago my grandson pulled up a footstool and leaned in close as he said to me, with great 11-year old understanding and solemnity, “Grandma, I know you have lots of plants and flowers, and you like taking care of them… but you really do need some kind of pet… like a cat.”

Up to this date, my cat is only a virtual cat, yet I know a lot about her. She’s a female cat. A gray and white tabby cat. A what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of cat. Her name: Ruby Wysiwyg