BUSH-HOGGIN THE DONKEY MEADOW

justin bush-hogs the donkey meadow

 

This evening it rained after dark. Perfect timing at the end of a week of people working in the hay all over this region of the mountains. It was an ideal week for putting up the hay. It cuts so much easier when it is dry. It rakes better and bales better. Keeps better through the winter. Justin brought his step-dad's tractor and bush-hog today to bush-hog the two donkey meadows, mow down all the wildflower growth. I did not have it bush-hogged earlier for wanting to see the meadow flower through the whole season, from the spring flowers to the autumn flowers. The meadow was a flower garden all year. Last winter's hay spread wildflower seeds all over the meadow. Donkey droppings are loaded with wildflower seeds too. I won't let it go so far next year. It's impractical for grazing donkeys. They need as much to eat as they can find in two acres. Bush-hogging the meadow chops down all the big stems from beautiful purple asters, ironweed, queen anne's lace pods and stems, goldenrod, takes it down to the grass that is growing under all the taller growth. Dry from a few weeks of no rain, the growth was easy to mow with the bush-hog.

 

bush-hog

 

The bush-hog is a big, powerful lawnmower. A blade turns under it like the blade under a lawnmower, just bigger and heavier steel. It runs off the pto (power take-off) shaft that turns behind the differential housing. It runs balers and mowers too. It is not something you want to get a shirt sleeve caught on. It doesn't stop. Tractors and their working equipment are mortally dangerous. They require knowledgeable attention. Sometimes, no matter how well you know them or how much skill you have with one, the least lapse of attention can be fatal, the unexpected happens by surprise. I had two incidents on a tractor. I said there will not be a third and stopped working with one. It was time to leave the farm, anyway. I survived both incidents by miracle. Old man Tom Pruitt would not ever drive a tractor. He knew too many people in his lifetime who died by tractor. Doc Watson's son, Merle, died of a tractor incident. Tractors are unforgiving. They are powerful beasts made of heavy steel, heavy flywheels, wheels so heavy it takes more than one man to stand one upright to put one on a tractor. The tires are filled with fluid, not air. Tractors are brutes.

 

bush-hoggin

 

Dry in the late afternoon, the growth mowed easily and chopped up nicely, exposing the grass the donkeys like. The meadow is wet in the early mornings from the dew. Jenny comes to me for morning carrots, her face wet and legs wet after grazing in the wet jungle of wildflowers. Justin mowed the meadow the donkeys were grazing in first. Before he was done, they were running and playing on their new grazing ground, dancing, having a lively time, a donkey celebration. The rain is a good rain for dry ground, steady, not hard. The damp ground will give a boost to the grass in the meadow, keep it growing in this end of its growing cycle. Timing just right. The grass will be perked up in the morning, easily accessible to grazing donkeys. The shredded stems and leaves will be topsoil by this time next year. Justin mowed the places where the donkeys cross the creek to help them be better able to see where they put their feet. It is a good time to have the meadow mowed with Jenny's baby on its way. I want to be able to find Jenny's baby. In a jungle so deep I could only see the donkeys in it by their ears, Jenny could hide anywhere. I'm all for her having good hiding places, but she has plenty among the rhododendron. I want Jenny's baby to have meadow to romp in. The donkey celebration tells me they like their meadow mowed.

 

finishing the last of it

 

I was glad to see the field the hay came from. I saw all around the mowed meadow the wildflowers that have seeded the donkey meadow. Transferring seeds from one meadow to another. Anybody wants wildflower seeds, come get a bucket of donkey droppings, throw them out on the ground and you'll have wildflowers galore. Finished bush-hogging, Justin drove the tractor to the place by my mailbox where he parked his truck with the trailer behind for the tractor. He drove the tractor onto the trailer, strapped and chained everything down for the drive to step-dad's house. I drove out to Justin's house in Glade Creek where we watched the end of the race, a good, clean finish. Crystal and Vada arrived home from a round trip to Maryland with Crystal's mother and dad to see grandma. Vada was wired from being in the car for so many hours and "on good behavior" at great grandma's house. She showed me some new fart putty she had that isn't so gommy. She gave me a big sheet of yellow paper with blue paint on it she had done at pre-school. I loved it and she was happy I loved it. She told me I could take it. I said I would hang it on my wall at home.

 

loading the tractor

 

 

*

 

 

 

 



BETWEEN HERE AND THERE

helen frankenthaler

A little bit ago, I was looking for somebody in the obituaries, faces and names, some familiar. The most interesting thing about it was noting that most of the people died younger than I am now. I'm in that zone where peers drop like leaves from a tree, one at a time, each one by surprise, an unpredictable sequence. In younger years, I dreaded this zone. Now that I'm in it, and have been in it at least a decade, I like it. I wouldn't be so casual about it if I were one to see death in the conventional way of the Peter Tosh song, Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. I remember hymns in church, Won't it be wonderful there, having no burdens to bear. Joy bells ringing. What could be better? And what do we fear most? What it takes to get there, dying. I have to confess to some apprehension about it. I think I've come to terms with it some time ago. I remember when it went away. I've come to see this side of the veil is consciousness, the other side of the veil is consciousness. The self called I, the conscious self that sees our dreams, the self that never sleeps, consciousness, remains the same this side of the veil and the other side, if it can be called another side. I suspect it will be different. The ones who have been there and come back say when we start the journey there's no looking back, like finding a secret door, opening it and seeing everything you've ever wanted and more than that. The light of unconditional love embraces like the mother holding her baby. Whatever. I don't project by imagination onto what it might be. I think I'll know it when it happens. I want cremation to be sure the soul doesn't have a body to cling to. Not that I have much question of soul wanting to stay with this body. I don't believe it will. I've an idea that no matter what is happening when it's time to go to the light, I won't look back. 

This side of the light, I feel like I am in light, too, having an earth experience, but not outside the light. I have the light of the sun, the light of life within, On earth, we live in light. We seldom give it much consideration. We have switches in our houses. Cars have headlights for night. Flashlights. Cities put out so much light their nimbus outshines the stars. I am consciousness in a human form at this moment. The mind distract's attention from the consciousness within that is too quiet for mind that rages like a tree full of monkeys. It's so quiet, it's like the sky. We don't pay it much attention, it's there, but we have other things to think about, unless we're operating a sailboat. I've come to a place in my own life, in my everyday life, that I don't care when that line from this side to that side is crossed. I don't want to leave my friends who are dear to my heart, but that's not my call. And I'm not really sure we leave anything. I'm looking into the unknown and see nothing, like the dark in a cave, absolute unknown. There are scriptures from all ages that tell what's on the other side, though it's in language you almost have to have the experience to understand what it means. How can we tell about any experience in a way that really conveys the experience? A young woman lawyer is driving through Winston-Salem on her way home to the mountains from visiting the prison in Raleigh. She's pregnant and locked down with her office, husband, parents, relatives, made her choices. Depressed that she doesn't have a life of her own. Only her car is her own. Drives by a dealership of a place that has just the car she'd like to drive, stops in, signs the papers, drives home in a new car. This is a brief outline of her experience, but nothing even close to her experience as she lived it within. 

brice marden

I can say I don't have fear of dying, but if a SWAT team broke down my door, big machine guns pointed at me, my hair would stand straight up from fright. I don't think I'd sit here calmly and say, "How you fellers a-doin?" Walking in the mud by the donkey den, I slipped and went down faster than thought. I know when falling not to put my arm straight out to catch the fall. I can be aware of that when the fall is slow enough I can think. When it's faster than thought, the automatic response is to put arm out. With time to think for a flash, I'll tuck arm in and roll. Maybe I can say when I have a split-second to think about it, I have no fear of death. Without that time for thought, I believe my automatic reaction would be fear. I don't know. Probably. Whether or not I'm afraid of dying is something I don't think I can know for a certainty about self. If I fell out of a helicopter, I'd probably yell all the way to the ground. Or maybe not. Might be too scared to yell. I think I'd more than likely at the same time be saying, "Oh shit, this is it," and start praying to open the door, here I come. From where I am now, death and dying is a big question. From the point of view of the ones who know the secrets of life and death, it's nothing, nothing at all, the blink of an eye. I think about it and I don't think about it. Going through the obituaries earlier, I was struck by mortality. I'll be featured there one day. Somebody will do like I did today, see somebody whose face I have known over several years, but never knew who it was, and say, "Oh, him. So that was his name." My neighbor, Allan, asked me one day to write out what I want done and said at my memorial. I said, "What? What do I give a shit? It's none of my business." I have not been able to get my mind around that. 

sol lewitt 

Come to think of it, there is one piece of music I've requested be played, Dvorak's String Quartet in E flat, Op. 58, by the Alban Berg Quartet. I keep the cd case attached to the will by a rubber band. the reason I chose this particular piece of music is it resonates with me, feels like I feel inside. I feel in touch with my inner self when I hear this thirty minutes of music. Everything I hear by Dvorak sounds just right to my ear. It's playing now. Pulls me into it like Prince. It's not background music. Puts itself right into my foreground. I may sit with it soon and do a visualization, see where it takes me. The few times I've done a visualization to classical music have been unforgettable. I start where I want to be. It's always sitting in the donkey meadow. Be still, hear the music, let something visual happen in the music, flow with it and see where it goes, not directing it, but following it like a leaf on a mountain stream. Good music, good humor keeps us going. Though I do very little physically, I have a full life going all the time. Even when I don't leave the house for days I never feel like I'm lacking experience. Too much experience is overwhelming. I get plenty of social experience on a trip to town. Today was one of the most beautiful days of my life. We had wet snow that stuck to the tree limbs that were cold, and melted on the ground and the road. Driving up the mountain, the leaves on the ground were wet reddish brown on the forest floor, and all the trees and branches, the pine needles were like spray-painted white. And a mild fog. Didn't have camera along. Had to remember it. I'll never see this again.    

robert mangold

*

MYSTERY IN THE DONKEY MEADOW

Something creepy has taken up close to the house. I think it is in a patch of ironweed just below the donkey shed. This morning Jack was running toward me from the other end of the meadow. He suddenly looked over to the ironweed patch and steered away, changed his direction, veered around making a half circle, watching it. He seemed spooked by whatever it was. I thought possibly the bear was in the meadow again licking the mineral block and crossed the creek through the stand of ironweed and Jack didn't see it go out the other end into the meadow the other side of the creek. The only thing I could think of. I didn't believe a bear would take up here. Or that anything would take up with donkeys. Jenny did not seem to be spooked like Jack was, but in Jenny's non-Alpha role she lets Jack take care of lookout duties. Later in the day, driving back to the house, a deer was in the road in front of the house. It ran down the road and jumped the fence into the meadow the donkeys don't go into, full of tall grass speckled with white and yellow wildflowers. She stood knee-deep in the grass watching me park. I turned off the motor and watched her for awhile. Such a beautiful being. The essence of grace. Big donkey ears standing up, tail switching, about the size of a donkey, only slimmer. I watched until she walked out of sight behind some trees. I suspected she got separated from her baby when I drove up. I looked around for the baby walking to the house. No baby. I wondered if the deer might have made a bed in the patch of ironweed, but didn't believe Jack could be spooked by a deer. I've an idea the donkeys know all the deer that pass through and around their meadow at night and drop in to lick the mineral block.

 

 

Later, I was about to get the writing started and Allan from the next house up the road came in. We talked for a few hours, hadn't had a visit in quite awhile. His dog Martha was with him. He left soon after the stars came out. We stood outside looking at the stars and night sky continuing our talking. Martha went running in the direction of the donkey shed. I thought she was going to go after a donkey and thought: You're on your own with the donkeys--you know they kick. I came back to the house and Allan called for her. About the time I reached the door I heard Martha from the direction of the ironweed patch barking, squealing, sounding like she was fighting something that was fighting back and winning. It sounded like it was hurting her. The barking and squealing went on and on. The tussle ended and Martha ran by me, a black streak in the night, toward Allan's car. Then I was spooked. I came in the house. I was thinking maybe a big coon, but a coon would not spook Jack. The donkeys probably know the coons of the area too. The animal world comes alive at night. I'm sure the donkeys know all the critters living on this mountain. While Allan and I were sitting in here talking, he was sitting beside the open door and said he heard something that sounded like a scream. That memory brought bobcat to mind. I can't see a bobcat taking up this close to a house. My mind went to small bear. A couple days ago I found some bear scat on the side of the road in a place with a 180 degree panorama. It was from a small bear. Bears mark that place every year. This is the smallest one I've seen there. I wondered if perhaps it could be a small bear Martha tangled with. A big bear could have destroyed her, a small bear too. Whatever it was, Martha sounded like it nailed her several times. A small bear stays in my mind, a young one looking for some place in his territory safe to sleep in from time to time. 

 

 

Jack would be spooked by a bear. It's the only animal around here solitary enough to take up below the donkey shed. It is a place free of my scent. It is close to the creek. In the middle of the ironweed patch is a patch of grass just big enough for a bed.  If it is a bear, my feeling is it' is passing through, checking out the place. The ironweed patch can be seen from the high place in the road where a small bear left its territorial marker. Possibly the bear sees the donkey meadow a part of its territory, wants to get to know it, found a good spot to curl up, out of sight, close to water, meadow patrolled by donkeys. Bear already knows about the mineral block. I know where the bear comes into the meadow and goes out. I'll make no effort to fix the fence so bear cannot get through. No need for that. A bear would only attack a donkey if starving so much it's ready to risk the consequences. I don't mind a bear licking the mineral block. The bear is my neighbor. It's no danger to the donkeys. If my little spot of ground is a comfortable place for it, all to the good. It's no danger to me. It's no danger to Caterpillar. If it is a bear, I wish it the best. I want my bear neighbors to know I am a peaceable human, not a threat, bear is welcome. Whatever it is, it's welcome here. I did not hear it making any sounds. I think it was only Martha I was hearing. Leads me all the more to suspect bear. Martha would not have taken on a big bear. Maybe in a few days I'll get some signs of whatever it is. Maybe in a few days it will be gone. My feeling was that Martha chose the moment to retreat. She was not winning the battle and she sounded scared, going by the tones in her squealing characterized by intense fear, while charging anyway. Martha was perhaps being territorial on my behalf. Or she may have just found something by scent and wanted to pursue it.

 

 

Whatever it is may explain why Jack and Jenny are staying at the far end of the meadow the last few days. If it's a bear, I don't believe it will take up there. It may stay a few days and nights, maybe. I don't see it staying on and on. If it is a comfortable place for my feral neighbor, welcome. I don't have garbage cans. I throw apple cores out the front door for the squirrels. I spread coffee grounds around the rhododendron. I don't know that it matters to the rhododendron, but it seems to me like coffee grounds are better to let seep into their own namesake, the ground, become earth again, than to take them to the landfill in a plastic bag for future anthropology students to unearth and catalogue. At certain times of the night when I open the door I hear a couple of scurrying possums. They have some power in their legs they can run with and they have hands at the ends of their legs. They walk on four hands, like a raccoon. Most of my experiential images of possums are seeing them in the road at night and avoiding them. Even in the day, they mope around in the road like they don't know which way to run, and the closer you get, the more frantic they become, they take off in any direction and sometimes the wrong direction. I tend to forget that possums do anything besides walk around on highways at night. Inviting the birds, the squirrels, the chipmunks, the crows, to supplement their diets here, letting the saplings that came up grow into trees, shelters and homes for my feral neighbors, the squirrels don't run from me anymore. The birds don't fly far. It's looking like I have made a comfortable place for some critter that can make Martha sound like she was being killed and run like for her life. Whatever it is, I'm glad it's there. It tells me my home is a safe haven for the four-leggeds and the winged. It won't do me any harm. It knows I live in the barn. I'm part of its territory, too.      

 

photos by tj worthington

 

 

*