CALF RAISED BY DONKEYS

21

The temperature has risen to 40, melting the ice. The white ice on everything was beautiful to look at, but it is even better to see it go. I put the donkey's hay close to the fence this morning because it felt less desolate for them under trees than out in the open ice and cold. Fog is coming back, the trees rain melted ice. The calf in the meadow with the donkeys has been on my mind and has been on my heart. It is coming into its personality. I'm more able to see consciousness there, something to interact with. I've prayed for it and see now that it has come into what I've been looking to for it. I've not known what to do for it. Its fate appears to be a solitary existence in cow form, a herd animal. Its story is the sad tale of cows, meat. 21 was taken from mama way too early, even to indifference way too early. My friends who buy and sell cattle asked about leaving two or three calves in the meadow. Sure. Glad to have something in the meadow. The calf was set loose in the meadow when the grass was green. Weeks old. It learned about grazing. It slept in a small stand of ironweed close to the fence. Coyotes would taunt it in the night, all around it, yipping their ear-piercing puppy yelps. Immediately on hearing them, I run out the door and holler, GIT, full bass roar like the giant got out of the box. It's the only thing I've found to work. I tried banging pot lids, pots, anything that clanged. The coyotes paid it no mind. One loud Git and they are gone. Concern for the calf haunted my heart and I did not know what to do. It's not my business. It's on its way to cheap meat. It was born on the production line. It was afraid of me and ran to the other end of the meadow. I believed it was short-term temporary, and left it be somebody else's concern.

 

jack September 2013

 

I had been hearing about donkeys keeping coyotes away, and seeing out on the county roads one or more donkeys in a meadow with a herd of cows. A Jack came up for sale from somebody I knew at very reasonable cost, a rebel yaell price, hail yeah. Donkey turns up in the meadow one day. I didn't know what to do. It was a beast. Much bigger than me. I was aware of a statistic I'd heard on NPR some years ago that less people are killed in plane crashes around the world per year than are killed by donkeys. I thought: Donkeys? I continued to think, Donkeys? I'd think about them being African herd animals originally. They're not too different from zebras that are famous for being untamable. Sheena of the Jungle rode a white horse with black lines painted on it Fifties jungle movie obvious. The donkeys have a naturally humble nature. It lends them to being used by humans to carry things, as tamable as a dog. A significant difference I've observed. Dogs forgive. Donkeys are like cats. They get you back, if not right now, first chance. Before I learned anything about donkeys, I'd only been told to stay out from behind them. I went up to the gate that was close to where I park and looked at the donkey. It came walking to me eventually. We gradually, tentatively, became acquainted, both of us cautious. Once acquainted through the gate, I bought carrots at the grocery store. Lord have mercy, how tasteless they are. The donkeys love the crunch and more than likely the taste. Suddenly I'm realizing these carrots are bred for high sugar content. Might be more to it than I imagined when I call myself the ice cream man. The human in the barn delivers morning sugar rushes. Crunchy sugar cubes. Or maybe I'm exaggerating. The donkeys like the carrots and that makes me happy.

 

jack and 21

 

A creek divides the greater meadow into two meadows of equal sizes. Donkey won't cross the creek. Calf was on the other side of the creek. Donkey stayed in the meadow he was released into. The calf crossed the creek a time or two. They were acquainted, but uninterested in each other. The calf evidently found the donkey unpredictable and stayed on its own side of the creek. The calf seemed to have no awareness. It was aware that Jack was not a welcoming presence. They stayed in their own yin-yang meadows with Spring Lizard Creek running between them. I don't recall the time in months, but another calf was brought in, number 23. I don't know if I can find a picture of 23. An update with restart, and all my pictures are gone. I believe they are still in the computer, but the likelihood of me finding them is similar to the chance of finding the Malaysian plane in the Indian Ocean, the post-modern needle in a haystack. I'll not worry over it, will keep on a-keepin on. The two calves were conceptually far apart like from pre-beginning pre-school for 21 to maybe first grade for 23. The new calf was somewhat socialized, had known other calves. The calf in the meadow had been living solitary since knee-high, no learning from mama or other calves, a baby left to the coyotes in the night. Jack did not chase away the coyotes. They surrounded him a few times. A moment from the movie, Runaway Train, a young, vulnerable woman, a railroad employee, screams at Jon Voight's character, "You're a Beast!" He answered, "Worse. Man." The coyotes, like everything else, know the two-leggeds are lethal. The new calf, 23, became a teacher for 21, who started coming to. Then 23 had an accident, was taken away to die after a few days.

 

21 and jenny

 

I was puzzled about what to do. Two herd animals in solitary confinement either side of the creek. Stepped into the meadow with Jack and got to know him gradually. I chose to name him Jack because it is the most common name for a male donkey. A Jack means a male donkey. I like that it has associations with a friend of my parents when I was a kid, Jack of Jack and DeLouris, who drove a brand new pink and gray 55 Ford convertible. I thought Jack was great. I loved DeLouris like crazy. I did not name Jack the donkey after this Jack. I just like the association. Keeps someone in memory who was important in childhood. I decided to put out a search for a girlfriend for Jack, another Bethlehem Cross donkey. Jack was lonesome. Found Jenny, brought her here in a horse trailer. Jack took off after Jenny in complete unconsciousness. She kicked him all over his body, neck and head so he could not bray for a few days, only able to squeak. They were so rambunctious that the ice cream man stayed out of the meadow over a month. By the time hard winter came, the calves had shared the shed with the donkeys. All three mourned the loss of 23. Jenny became a friend and teacher to the calf, brought it a little farther along in awareness. The calf has grown to the same size as Jack. The three have their hierarchy worked out. Everybody is happy now that Jenny is here. Jack loves her single-mindedly. Jenny seems happy to be with Jack for her mate. The calf stays near the donkeys now, though out of kicking range. The calf has seen me touch Jack and Jenny. It has watched them at carrot time. It is three at the gate now. Jenny turns on the calf, doesn't want to be its friend anymore during feeding time. The calf has something of a herd now.

21

 

 

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CALF MEDICINE DAY

jenny, jack and 21 from the road

 

Thought I'd make a run down the road to Whitehead to see the guys at the welding shop. Car would not start. Justin was across the road in the woods with chainsaw cutting a trail through the woods to drive his truck through. I thought I'd walk over there and find him, have him stop by on the way out and jump my battery. I was walking up the road when I saw Jesse's pickup stop by a gate to the meadow. He had brought his two girls and friend David Parsons with him. David is quite a good country singer. He made a self-produced album ten or more years ago and plays at places around the area from time to time, small places. He sings folk style with acoustic guitar. They had come to give the calf some worm medicine and to put something on it for lice. I welcomed them to the petting zoo. The girls asked if the donkeys were safe. I told them the donkeys would neither kick them nor bite them, but I had to add I can only really say they won't bite or kick me. I don't know about somebody else. I said the chances are good, very good, the donkeys won't be a problem. Jenny walked right up to Abby, who started petting on Jenny, who doesn't like being touched. Zoe, her sister, stayed back a little bit. Abby wants to be a vet and is interested in everything to do with the animals. She was right there with her daddy asking questions and getting good answers. She wanted to be in there as close as she could get. She watched Jesse wrestle the calf down to take charge of its head so he could put the medicine in its mouth. David put some solution on its back for lice.  

 

david, zoe, abby, 21, jesse, jenny, jack

 

I used to be impressed by knowledge that had no practical application. Possibly, I learned the attitude from school, where if you're going to do something you have to be great, succeed, be famous, have wealth. By this time in my life, I'm more impressed by knowledge that is practical, knowledge you function by. In addition to the other. Jesse's knowledge I would have completely overlooked before I came to the mountains. He would have been just a redneck farm hand that never heard of Wallace Stevens or Robert Rauschenberg, drove a pickup and wore a ballcap, talked with a hillbilly whang, and didn't know nothin. Today I laugh, I mean ROFLMAO, at what I would have missed. At this time in my life, I look at what Jesse knows how to do, Justin too, and many others like them in these hills, my Tennessee ancestors, and I am stunned by the knowledge. I rode in the pickup with Jesse and Justin when we went to pick up Jenny. Driving a road with woods on both sides, one says, "There's a doe." Didn't even have to indicate direction, which side of the road, anything. The other saw it almost as immediately. I search the woods as fast as I can and never find it before we're gone from sight. Every time. I've never found a deer one of them spotted in the woods, and the other says, "A big'n," or, "I'd let that'n go for next year." I barely know what they're talking about. They talk hunting all the time. I've gained extensive hunting knowledge from them. Have even been in Bass, outside Charlotte, the Walmart of sporting goods. If they don't have it, it does not exist. Jesse is people that say to me, "I'm probably boring you to death," and I say, "No! No! Go on," when they're telling me about dragging a ten-pointer uphill all the way to the nearest place he could get with the truck. A buck the size of a donkey is heavy. When they tell hunting stories, the situation they had to drag it out from is part of the adventure.

 

david, 21 and jesse

 

I listen to their adventures hunting, racing, fighting, all of it, and love it as much as I love a good talk by somebody like Jane Goodall, a good reading by somebody like Robert Bly, a good show by somebody like Louise Nevelson, a good film by Krzysztof Kieslowski, good banjo pickin by Kyle Creed. I love hearing their hunting adventures. These are rugged men. I've walked over land with Justin he told me he dragged a buck out of a few weeks ago. It was a great distance, long uphills, a creek to cross. He took me in with him when he carried the parts in for his tree stand and ladder. I offered to carry something. No. He said it's a one man thing. You don't take in any more than you can carry yourself, because hunting is a solitary thing to do, mostly. They take their kids. Justin says Vada will have her first deer before she's five. She will. By the time she's in high school, she will be a foxy, stylish babe after her mama, will like to ride horses, bow hunt and she'll be able to fight a man. Justin and Crystal and I have talked many times about the world she is growing up into. Rape culture is bad in colleges now. By the time she's in Jr hi and high school, it will be there. It already is, but it will be far more pervasive in ten to fifteen years. She's going into martial arts training as soon as she's able, age 8, thereabouts. All of us want Vada able to defend herself from men. We know the world she's growing up into. Like Melvin, Jesse and I say, "Justin's gonna end up killin somebody over that young'un." I've known Justin all his life and he knows I love to hear his hunting stories, fishing stories, fighting stories, whacked out on drugs that would make your hair stick straight up to hear about stories. He knows I don't judge him, so he tells me like it is. These guys are wild. That's spelled W-I-L-D. They're armed at all times. And they're fun. Their kids love them like crazy. So do their women. Good people.

 

de-lousing 21

 

The word from Jesse today is hopeful for 23. He said the calf is not yet able to stand up, but it's energy is coming around. He said he poked it with a prodder and the back legs made an effort to stand up, but couldn't make it yet. That told him the calf was recovering and he would be bringing it back to the meadow in a day or two. For fun, I told him to tell 23 its friends are looking forward to it coming back. I say it. They are steers. Jenny was as curious about the proceedings around 21 as Abby was. She had to see everything. Curiosity is very much her nature. She sees something like a dog walking down the road long before Jack. Not long before, I had given them carrots across the fence. I gave Jack a good rubbing on the underside of his neck and under his jaw. He likes it, though not too much. Jenny, seeing me petting on Jack wanted me to rub her neck and she liked it. I've found she only lets me touch her after she's seen me rubbing on Jack. Then she wants me to touch her. It had not been fifteen minutes since I'd been petting on Jenny that Abby started petting her. Abby was good with Jenny. For quite awhile she acted like she didn't see Jenny, was just there observing. Jenny came closer, she reached out her hand, touched Jenny's nose, and that evolved into a petting. I thought: she'll make a good vet. Calf de-wormed, de-loused, and examined, it walked away as if unperturbed by the medicine, like this is what we're doing today. From there, they rode Jesse's pickup down the hill to my car, and I walked with Zoe. She asked about how the calf fell into the creek. At the car, jump cables out of the trunk hooked up to Jesse's truck, car started. Drove to Whitehead and back. The doors are working like nothing ever happened. The door I thought would never open again is working like before. The fasten seat belt light goes on and off according to habit.  

 

jenny's turn for attention

 

 

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DONKEY JENNY FEELS MORE AT HOME

jenny and jack

It felt so good today with temperature above freezing in the afternoon, I looked out the window and saw Jack on his side with his head down on the ground like he was dead. One ear sticking up. His belly to the sun, he was soaking up some rays, feeling good. Jenny was standing still receiving the sunlight on her side. Calf 21 was lying down chewing its cud. I walked up to neighbor's house and had another long hot bath. It felt good in the sunlight. Not much wind today. A very pleasant day to follow the coldest day of the year. The calf stays close to Jack or Jenny and by now feels free enough not to be close to them all the time. It seems like the two donkeys have a new attitude toward the calf, and the calf toward them. Before, they were distant. It was the donkeys in one part of the meadow and the calves in another. Jack and Jenny have taken to 21, supporting the calf. I'm thinking the donkeys are able to hear the calf cry with their telepathy. Even without telepathy, they know the loneliness the calf is feeling. Jack, Jenny and the calf were all abducted, taken from their friends and mothers. Jenny is still feeling the loss of her goat friends. I've been seeing in Jenny a calmness come over her in the last week or more. Jack stays close to her, and she stays close to him. One knows where the other one is at all times. On the phone this morning with Carole, I was remarking how calm Jenny has become recently and how Jack kinda seemed like he was hovering somewhat. It appeared to me to be a protective feeling in Jack. I can't read donkeys very well, but his interest in being around her gives the appearance of feeling himself Jenny's protector.

 

jack's nose

 

Jack is a very interesting being to me. I've had a chance to know Jack for some months before Jenny came into the meadow, and by now we are friends. While I was fussing with the hay, Jack was wanting another carrot, which I didn't have. He was poking his nose at my shirt pockets where I carried the carrots, giving me a pesky look with his eye. My glove has a Velcro flap at the wrist that I did not have fastened. It was sticking out from the glove and the sleeve. Jack took the flap with his teeth, looking at me with fun in his eye, I let out a yelp and he let go. I explained to him the carrots are gone. I noticed in the last few days the niggling joy within when I carry an armload of hay through the gate. I let Jenny and Jack each take some hay to chew on while I walk out to where the sun shines. Calf 21 wanted a chew this morning. Now, instead of two and two, it is three. The calf has become Jack and Jenny's friend. I'm glad to see 21 has them to comfort her. I called today to ask about 23. Still has not stood up of its own will. I'm wondering if it is feeling lonesome, taken away from its friend and the donkeys, solitary confinement in a stall with heat and plenty to eat. It doesn't know what is happening. Another abduction, taken again into the unknown. What kind of will to live could it have? It doesn't know that if it gets well, it will be reunited with 21. I'm so bad that I have become acquainted with their personalities to the place I see them people. The stockyard is the same to me as a slave market. I can't talk about this. I live in a world of people who see no value in the person in the animals, same as slave-holders don't value the person in the human.

 

jenny's profile

 

One day talking to Jenny before I realized she understood what I was saying, I mentioned I'm glad I bought her, and she reacted to that word with a brief turn inward to her sorrow. I told myself never to talk about buying her. It was a reminder that she is my slave. Though I don't think of it like that, I don't see how she could think of it any other way. I tell Jenny I'm glad she came to live with me. I'm happy with what I got from the luck of the draw. The better I know Jenny, the better I love her. Her disposition has calmed down so much in the last week or so that I'm suspecting she might be with child. I like her walking beside me while I carry the hay out into the meadow. Jack is close behind and the calf follows Jack. Jenny, being obviously the head donkey, wants her hay first, her grain first, and she wants to be the one next to human. Jack gets too close to me, Jenny's ears go back and she gets a streamlined face that says she's ready for action, face-on like a wolf. She has a fierceness about her she wears well. She's gentle naturally. She's a donkey. It doesn't mean she's going to take any old thing that comes her way. I would not be able to see how fierce a donkey is. I started to write can be. But a donkey is fierce. They have access to their most ferocious self at all times. If you've ever seen on tv wild horses fighting, they have some power in their legs and some power in their jaws. They stand and walk all day and they munch grass and hay all day. Equines are powerful beings. They are gentle by choice.

 

jack's brow

 

Jack has had a quiet about him recently, side by side with Jenny's quiet. It's a restful quiet. I'm feeling they are possibly in process of bonding. Carole's suggestion was that Jenny might be pregnant, going by the recent change in her behavior. I'd say it is a pretty fair likelihood she may be. It takes a year, so she'll have he baby just in time for winter. It happens every winter. It's nothing new. By then, we may have a little better shelter for them. Recently, I have been feeling a safety among the four-leggeds. I feel like Jenny is not going to kick me. I've walked close behind her a few times when she'd turned her back end to me, just to see if she'd kick. It's like swinging her rump around is an automatic defensive move, whether or not to kick is a conscious choice. I think Jenny is learning to trust me. I am learning to trust her. The change in her feels like she is more relaxed with me now. We are not so mutually apprehensive. She has a pesky streak in her nature and likes to play tricks on me. Simple donkey tricks, like biting my shirt tail just to see me jump. It makes her laugh. I like to see a four-legged play and I like it when they play a trick on me. I feel like being included in their play is the best form of communication with them. When one plays a trick on me, I feel like I've broken through the language and all that goes with it barrier. That's when they tell me we are indeed friends. I no longer reach out to touch them. I just walk with them and talk to them and laugh at their tricks. I feel safe with them in their trust. I have always been gentle and humble with them and they are the same to me in return. I'm told that I spoil them. Whatever. I'm safe among them. That, for me, is the main thing. I'm safer among them in gentleness and humility than I am by threatening and hitting. Me heap big Alpha Male! Not. Just somebody who recognizes that they are beautiful people in horse bodies.

 

jack and jenny

 

 

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THE CALF IN THE CREEK

the other side of waterfall road

It's not very often I have what I call a hell day. It's one of those days when you know even going back to bed won't prevent anything. Besides, once you're up, it's too late, hell day is on. This morning I forced myself out of bed at 8 to walk into the meadow to cut the strings on a new round-bale of hay and peel the outer layer of hay soggy and rotten from the weather and the ground. Made it to bed around three. I did not want to get up. It was cold, below 30. Yet I have this stronger force within that sat my mortal frame straight up and started forcing on outdoor clothes; sweat-pants, sweater, thick socks, shoes, hat, gloves. Though I felt like all my joints were fused such that I was about the same as a day-old corpse, I stepped out the door into the wind. It was cold, but not worrisome. I've lived with mountain winters 37 years. Kinda used to it. This was the morning before the day the forecasters predicted a drop in temperature all afternoon unto minus seven by morning. I walked out the meadow to the round-bale, a hundred yards, thereabouts. The wind was at my back and I was glad, dreading already the walk back to the house with face into the wind. No big thang, I told myself. If I cant stand five minutes of cold wind in my face, I need help desperately. I walked over the meadow covered with tiny white pellets that fell in the night, a kind of granular snow. It wasn't even ground cover. It gathered in the bowls of last year's leaves on the ground and on the blades of grass lying down drained of chlorophyll. It looked like the Green Bay stadium during yesterday's game with San Francisco. The view of the stadium from the blimp showed a pastel ochre rectangle in an oval and snow all over the cityscape outside the stadium.

 ,

jenny and jack

 

Jesse brought a new round-bale yesterday to replace the other one that was eaten down. He chose to put it the other side of the creek, wanting the calves and donkeys to cross the creek, which they don't like to do. I wanted to walk out there as soon as I woke to peel the bad hay off the good. I wanted them to have some nourishment as quickly as possible after a cold night. The curious thing about myself is I am having a good time going out early in the morning, whatever the weather, to feed my dependent friends. It's visitation time. They had watched me walking over the meadow the other side of the creek. They gathered in a line of four, two donkeys, two calves, watching from the bank the other side of the creek. They wanted to cross, but it was the worst place to cross. A few donkey lengths either direction would have been easy to cross. Calf 23 stepped into the creek and started up a bank that was maybe three feet high and a steep grade. 23 got sprawled on the bank, front forelegs folded under, stuck, unable to move, on knees in front and knees in back. I was looking at it while pulling chunks of hay off the bale, wondering what I could do to help it. I couldn't find anything I could do that would matter, given that the calf is around 400 pounds and I know my own limit. It never gamboled and played as a baby calf. It's legs are sadly uncoordinated to the point I've seen the calf walking and the front legs suddenly folded, dropping the calf to its knees, and then it unable to get up. I was hoping it would stand up on the back legs and step backwards. That, however, is approaching it rationally, remembering cow has no capacity for reason. This is human projection. The calf did what a bovine would do. It tried to stand up with its front legs and fell over backwards into the trough of the creek.

 

23

 

No time to think about it, jump down there and get the calf at least off its back. Tom Pruitt told me in my first years, working the farm, when a cow rolls onto its back, it cannot get up on its own. They have to be turned upright fast or they die. I found one that had rolled onto its back and its spine fell into the trough of the cow path that ran through the meadow. I attempted to roll it with its back legs, and might have but for the trough its back was in. I drove over to Tom's house, told him what I'd found. He was up and out the door almost in one move. One of us took the back feet and the other the front. We rocked the cow back and forth for the momentum to roll it beyond the hump of its belly on either side. We made it. Cow stood up and walked away to join the herd. What a time I had with the calf. All four legs trying to swim in the air. I couldn't get near the back legs that were going like a windmill. Front legs were in motion, but they're not as powerful as the back legs. I was able to take ahold of them. The calf was upside down on its back, head back. I pulled the legs and pulled. It was like the legs belonged to a water-logged sack of grain, head dangling, eyes rolled back showing whites. Nose never went underwater. I pulled the front half of the calf out of the creek onto the soft bank. The creek under the front of the calf was two or three inches deep. The back half of the calf, the giant basketball belly, fell into a hole a foot and a half deep. Its rear end completely underwater. I pulled until I realized that if I kept at this I'd be giving myself a heart attack. No point having two dead cows in the creek.

jenny

I somehow managed to pull the calf more or less onto its side and headed for the house just short of a run, reminding myself that if I fall down dead, the calf will die for sure. I walked steadily and went to the phone. Justin's phone did not get a response. I called Crystal's number and Justin was with her. I told him the situation, saying that it will be dead by the time anybody can get here. I stayed in the house unable to do anything outside. The calf was in place. I figured the water was warmer than the air, though the water probably felt colder than the air. I was stumped. I called Carole and voiced my frustration being unable to help the calf. I looked out the window from time to time to see if a truck had arrived yet. When I saw the truck, I left the phone and went out the door. Jesse had pulled the calf out of the hole in the creek and packed a mound of hay over it. When I arrived at the scene I saw a small haystack with the calf's head sticking out. I would not have thought to do that. Maybe, eventually, after puzzling over it awhile. I saw that if I'd got the calf out of the water, the wind would have probably given it pneumonia immediately. Jesse's little girl was with him, around eleven or twelve, watching everything. Jesse put a five-gallon bucket to the calf's face with grain in it, letting the calf eat as much as it could. The calf was dazed. Jesse put his hand on the calf's side under the hay and said it was like ice. Justin arrived in his truck, his little girl with him, Cheyanne. School was out today due to the weather forecast. Both guys are good daddies. Their little girls adore them. It was fun to see the kids so happy to be with daddy, showing it in their self-confidence. Both had about them an air of feeling completely safe.

jack

Jesse and Justin dragged the calf to another place about ten feet away, a bit less damp, where the ground was frozen, propped it kind of upright and covered it with hay again. He said he was going to go back to the house, pick up a trailer he has that is low to the ground to make getting the calf in and out easier. He would take it to the barn, put a heat lamp on it and a space heater, and give it a shot of some antibiotics. Jesse went off with the trailer. Justin and I took five square-bales of hay in the back of his truck from the barn to the place I stack them under a tarp by the gate for the morning deliveries. I've not yet heard about the calf. Will find out some time tomorrow. My feeling is that it will be all right. Jesse is one of the reasons I am grateful I took an interest in understanding mountain people, in appreciating them from inside their culture instead of from outside. Jesse and Justin, in my estimation, are as "brilliant" by the standard of their culture as I believe Rachel Maddow is brilliant by the standard of her culture. Jesse's and Justin's experiential knowledge impresses me. Jesse and Justin are the new generation of mountain people. Both appreciate where they live. I have stressed it to Justin since his childhood that his culture is valid, it is good. Never  be ashamed of being a hillbilly. Hillbilly is a good thing to be. They are thirty this year. Both did their wild thing for a few years after school. In the mountains, wild is the real deal. Some survive it, some don't. About the time Justin was starting his Wildman time, I made only one request, that he survive it. Both found super-fine women to marry them, Natasha and Crystal, who were and continue to be attracted to the Wildman in them. These are women who feel safe with their men, whose reputations are known all over the county. And when it comes to true human beings, I respect Jesse and Justin like I respected their grandparent's generation and their parent's generation. I feel good among them, knowing mountain culture lives in them.

 

 

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