WEDNESDAY, APRIL 03, 2008 “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry." March 26, 2008 The first baby lambs and goats have arrived! It all began two days ago when a Polypay ewe wouldn’t come to the 6am feeding. She had other things on her mind. She walked around for two hours, scratched the ground, lay down, got back up again, walked around, scratched the ground, laid down again and again, until she lay down for the last time and begun to push. Thirty minutes later the first lamb of the year was born. The ewe, a gift to the Mission, came from Idaho about four years ago. Since then she has become one of the ewes who are center to mission talks concerning the issue of “where does our food come from?” This ewe is both a good mother and has twins every year. This year was no exception. An hour after birthing the first lamb the second came into the world as well. Both are boys! Four hours later the first kids of the year were born to Betsy, a South African Bore goat. She had twins as well, but one didn’t make it. Every year Betsy seems to have a little trouble with her babies. She is a great mother, but never makes it past raising one kid. April 2, 2008 Today we are at eight mothers and ten babies. Six of the mothers are ewes and two does. Now looking back on the past week it is apparent that the two goats had their babies a little early while the sheep gestation period has run its course. Currently there are four more ewes to have babies and ten more does. Since we bred for April 1, we expect the birthing to be a regular event from here on out. We scheduled breeding for April 1 so grass would be growing when the babies were born. Thus, allowing the mothers to have a higher protein intake as soon as they begin nursing. Our neighbors took a different course of action. They bred so their mothers would begin birthing about a month allowing the babies to be old enough to process the grass for themselves by the time the weather warmed. In either case, it isn’t working out as everyone hoped. While the sun is giving us longer days almost asking the grass to grow, the weather has been colder than normal stemming grass growth. Instead of having animals on pasture for most of the day, like we hoped, the mothers are getting about two hours a day on pasture and eating hay the remainder of the day. Robert Burns in his poem To a Mouse, wrote,
often heard as, “ The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” Isn’t that so often the case? We can dream, make plans, put together the best course of action and sometimes the weather changes—or not, mothers have babies early, or a board is lifted in the barn in the middle of the winter exposing a mouse nest. The days are bound to warm soon. At least the weather people are telling us this is the case. In the meantime, there will be birth and ewes and does who were not mothers yesterday will be today. Soon grass will grow and be abundant. Sheep, goats, lambs and kids will have their full and run and jump in the newness of life. And while plans may go awry from time to time, gestation continues to call for new ideas, new thoughts, and new plans. April 2, 2008 PM Well, I should have sent this this morning when I was done writing it. Now I need to add one more line and say; we have one more mother tonight who has never been a mother before! It’s a boy! April 3, 2008 An online article on farmworkers came out in DisciplesWorld the other day. If you are interested you will find it at http://www.disciplesworld.com/newsArticle.html?wsnID=13201. ______________________________________________ |
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MONDAY, MARCH 24, 2008 “... a smile on their beaks."
A little over a week ago friends came to the Mission to spend a week of hanging around and learning about what we really do. And to lend their help in the stuff we really do. After a week of doing much of the stuff we really do at the Mission, it came time to do one thing. There are these seven chickens at the Mission. They have been at the Mission for quite a while now. However, for their safety and other reasons (like we couldn’t give them away even if we wanted), we decided the best place for them is at the farm—lots of room, dirt with worms and other little critters chickens seem to think make a great meal, and goats and sheep for company. These chickens though are not the typical chickens that might come to mind when your imagination conjures up the life of a chicken. They are not those who live their lives bunched up in cages as you might have seen in a Tyson exposé. Nor are they the type you might think of that live in a chicken coop who spend days moving in and out of a laying box fulfilling the number one human goal of laying an egg. Nor are they the animated chickens in movies such as the Golden Globe nominated Chicken Run or Walt Disney’s Chicken Little. No, these chickens are of the variety who have not had their wings clipped (so they cannot fly), who have lived where stray dogs have access to their yard (and more than once have watched a colleague carried off in the mouth of a dog), and who have learned what it means to really take advantage of a chicken brain. Simply, the chickens that remain at the mission are survivors. Survivors pay attention, watch for opportunity, give trust sparingly, and get out of the way before trouble has a chance to upset their day. Just because a bunch of humans believe life is better on the farm instead of at the Mission doesn’t mean a chicken of survival thinks so, nor is willing to take the risk to find out. What this all comes down to is, catching a survivor is not easy. Isn’t it interesting that we humans think of ourselves as smart and chickens as dumb? Isn’t it interesting of how many different animals we think of as dumb? On the morning of the chicken catch, it wasn’t the chickens that looked out of control, not thinking and not considering the other animal’s next move. Nope, these were seven chickens of survival who had learned to avoid dogs and coyotes; being chased by humans was not a problem for this set of birds. It really was unfair; the humans didn’t have a chance. After all, these humans had never felt what it is to have to catch food or go hungry, so compared to a chicken brain that has learned the have to of survival, the scales were clearly unbalanced. If it were not for a little luck and one person with a past life with chickens, it really would have been humiliating! Imagine, if you can (and those who were there that fateful day, who are reading this can), humans moving in on the birds. The birds first clucking and walking around, with a wary eye on the people, knowing that time to time these two-legged creatures bring food, but who finally realize, there is no food forthcoming. The clucking comes a little faster and chicken legs begin walking in the same direction as the humans—away from the humans. While patience is a virtue, we humans don’t carry a lot of it with us. While one elder, who grew-up raising, caring, and butchering chickens, continued a slow patient march towards the chickens, the rest of us could not, and it took less than a second to move from walk, to jog, to run. The chickens as a group, screeched, rolled their eyes (my imagination, let yours take you where it may), took one more step, and then took flight. There is a reason why dogs, coyotes, cougars, and humans have not eaten these chickens. With unclipped wings, they really have no problem out flying a human (I guess as a whole, we humans don’t do well flying at all…yah, that makes me feel better). The chickens took flight in seven different directions. Not one of the flights were extraordinarily long, just long enough to put adequate distance between them and their pursuers. The humans really had no chance after that. Time became dull and place faded as humans ran and yelled and chickens squawked and flew. Finally time cleared and place sharpened as the humans tired and began to wonder how they were outsmarted, and chickens perched in trees with what could only be called, a smile on their beaks. Come to think about it…maybe it was a bit humiliating for the humans after all. At least we left the Mission with two chickens, one white with black speckles and one black with white speckles, in a box. Who knows if it makes a difference in a chicken’s life, but at least for the humans it felt as if by having two chickens at the farm neither would become lonely. The chickens stayed quiet during the drive to the farm, but then what does a chicken have to say when trapped in a box? After twenty minutes, we arrived at the farm, two chickens and nine humans who were still processing and a little shocked from the earlier day’s events. Humanity gathered up the box, carried it out to the hay barn, turned the box on its side, and slowly opened the lid. Before the lid was half open those two chickens blew the top off the box, flying out so quickly, without hesitation, it was if they were flying liketwo bats out of Hell (You know, there aren’t that many times in life you get to use that phrase…so there you go, finally I can check that one of the list!) This was not a flight of just getting beyond human reach; this was a flight of wide-open spaces, a flight as if there were no tomorrow, a flight of freedom. They flew and then flew a little more. It happened so fast no one really knew where they landed. It was like a black and white streak of lighting—you see the bolt of lightning, you saw the beginning of it and the end, but once that fraction of a second is gone you no longer have a clue where it began or ended. Humans stood around talking about where the chickens might be, one willed the landing site as the willows beyond the barn, but no one was sure where the final landing site was, for everyone had that glare in their eyes that keeps reappearing, again and again, after watching a bolt of lightning in the evening sky. It took five days. On the fifth day, the chickens reappeared. Sure enough, they walked out of the willows, chest out and head up as if this were always their landscape, their home, their solitude. Today, there are four more chickens living with the first two. Our chicken catching days are different now. We moved to a more measured approach. It’s called a live trap. Now we place cracked corn inside the trap, let them walk in, spring the trap door behind them, and then carry them to the farm. It seems less stressful on the birds and a whole lot less humiliating on the humans. One more chicken remains at the Mission. Maybe it’s a little smarter than the others, maybe it now recognizes the trap, or maybe, this chicken is simply smarter than we are. A little over a week ago folks came to learn what we really do at the Mission. Now they know. It seems we’re just trying to be as smart as the chickens. ______________________________________________ |
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SATURDAY, MARCH 01, 2008 “...smoking could impact the smell of the van.."
“Who Smokes?” He asked with a grin, humor and a fair dose of curiosity. I had to think a moment before I understood the question and smile back in reply. Our neighbor had just returned the Red mission van. He had checked the oil, headlamps, taillights, turn signals, and fan belts. Now he was dropping it off and picking up the New van to check it out as well. It is now, in the late winter, when we have the mission vehicles inspected and fixed so they are ready come summer and the return of the Summer Fun Program and the Learning & Serving groups. “Remember around the first of January when the nightly temperatures started falling into the single digits?” I asked. “Well, it was the same time when the transmission in the van used by Noah’s Ark Homeless Shelter to transport people to a nightly bed, took a hike. Now we knew many of the homeless folk smoke and that smoking could impact the smell of the van. With a little reflection though, we came to the conclusion that having an indoor bed at night, when the temperatures are in the single digits, could make the difference between someone waking up in the morning, or not. After that realization, it was easy to lend the Ark the Red van to transport folk between the shelter and their bed. ‘Course, we could have held hard and fast to our no-smoking policy. But balancing a no-smoking policy on one hand to the possibility of someone not taking a bed and not waking in the morning on the other hand…well, let’s just say we figured we’d let that one go.” “Well, I was just wondering, you know.” He said with a laugh. “I just had never seen anyone around here smoke and when I got in the van it made my eyes hurt.” Everyone in the room laughed, with a fullness that spoke to an unspoken nervousness. The unspoken truth that each of us knew we had family, friends, and acquaintances living at the edge who could find themselves in the van next winter. Some winter mornings I wake and look out across the valley. The moon reflects boldness in a sky that is neither dark nor blue. Clouds flowing over the southern ridge beckon for open window. Cold morning flows over the window ledge and gathers around the feet, while birds speak in the grease brush. The ridge, the moon, the cool air, the birds, the grease brush, and the ground become seamless. As if all is one and the same. On these cold mornings the tie is deep and it seems more than a feeling, as if it were true, that the old I Am is sitting in the back of the van, smiling at the performance of a salmon handshake two seats forward, breathing deeply the smells of alcoholic struggle, looking out through frosty window at the moon over the southern ridge, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. ______________________________________________ |
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SUNDAY, FEBRURAY 10, 2008 “holy new...lives not in the space of individuality but in communal consciousness."
—NOVEMBER— Today is hard. Today is sacred. The butcher arrives today. Today is different from the short cold days of winter’s edge, eight months ago. Those are days when ground wakes in the frost of sunrise and sleeps in the mud of sunset; when sunlight lengthens so quickly, the sun’s northern journey is perceptible; when wind, the sun’s traveling companion, who follows the sun north, begins to blow from the southwest. In those days, when the weather is on the cusp of warming, the ewes and does begin birthing. Falling from wombs, anything but cold, into weather that is, lambs and kids quickly rise to the warmth of underbelly and teat. Life begins. Life is lived. Cool days turn to warm and warm into hot. Lambs become sheep and kids grow into goats. Summer slowly backs away, sun returns to southern existence, and the wind runs to catch up. In the late windy days of fall, this day, today, happens again. The Sacred does not always come easy. Maybe it never does. Eight months ago, birth, though not easy for either mother or baby, was a sacred moment. The unease of coming into the Sacred though, for humanity, is more than physical. For the Sacred affects more than muscle, sinew, and bone, it entices and cajoles all-that-is-human into a dance of transformation. Though all-that-is-human craves to participate, the dance is not easy for the mind, not easy, because dance calls the mind to enter the heart. And the heart is a very awkward place for the mind. The mind, being of all-that-is-human, sorely wants unification with the heart, but the intellect of the mind fears this place of mystery. Entering heart space is fearful for the intellect for its being is always to ask one more question, but within the heart, questions have no answer. Unanswerable questions make the intellect nervous and unsure what to do, where to go, whom to follow. The Sacred, aware of intellect’s unease, cradles intellect’s hand and begins dancing towards the heart. Today is sacred but it’s not like the days of birth. Yesterday, the eight-month-old kids and lambs were culled. Those who stay on the farm and become tomorrow’s ewes and does were moved to pasture, the rest, who will become tomorrow’s meat were moved to a stall. The butcher arrives soon. Life as it has been outside the womb, for some, will be no more. The dance soon begins. This dance isn’t a waltz or a tango though, it is ritual. Ritual creating steps, movements, sounds, taste, song, and smells. Ritual that helps remove scales the intellect fashioned to fortify itself from, fear, delight, hurt, joy, ache, and bliss. It is through ritual that the Sacred brings the heart and intellect together as one. Creating something that is holy new. This, which is holy new, then lives not in the space of individuality but in communal consciousness. Where melded hearts and minds of many lose all semblance of individuality and become creative consciousness of mutual relationship. Today’s ritual immersion has a deep and abiding truth—life, without exception, lives at the cost of life. Loss of life is what the intellect so desperately wants to run from. Loss of life is why the Sacred encourages ritual. The Sacred knows that the wellbeing of the taker of life and of the loser of life only occurs when they become mutually one. The richness of ritual occurs when the mind of the about to be butchered animal and the mind of the one who will eat of the animals flesh enter the heart together, into communal consciousness. In the place where space and time are lost, there is transformation—a oneness—for both who are about to experience death. Dance begins with the walk to the barn. It starts as individual. Unspoken prayer deepens with each footfall. The mind races, is unsettled, as the dirt underfoot breaks silence, begins to speak, lifts awareness. The cool fall dirt, no longer lifeless, bares its soul as tiny emerging plants tilt small blocks of earthen crust; reminding the mind—the intellect, life is intractable, always struggling, always anew. Each step brings deeper consciousness; the walk is hard to continue, for each time foot reconnects with ground the weight pushes tilted earthen crust and plant beneath back into soil. The stall where the animals are, once close, seems forever moving further away. Time loses meaning. Space becomes unstable. Sacred moves in, cradles hand, hums in the breeze, and dance becomes ritual. A clank and the gate latch is lifted. The gate swings open and the stall entered. Ritual now becomes communal. Animals and human pace the stall unsure of the next step. The air is different; a slight breeze begins taping stray roofing tin together. Multiple hearts beating together lends meter. Creation attends to moment and land and animals lift voice. Song begins. Singing, Singing, Singing, Scratching behind ears. Mystery leans against fence post. Minds move near heart and there is something singular in the air. Voices sing. They sing. They sing. Scratching brings all life together. Wet muzzles against neck bring cold morning air into the dance. A word is spoken and the word is heard. Thoughts, mind, heart are no longer individual, of individuals, but fuse to communal. Sacred releases the hand, fills the voids, and all that remains is sacred. ______________________________________________ |
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