A Boy and His Calf

This one lucky shot has had me watching the skies at dawn, sent me back on a four-mile jog again and again, trying to replicate it. I have so far failed. One of the funny things about this photo is that while I was composing it, the Great Pyrenees who guards this farm spotted me, and began to bark. I get barked at a lot, since you very rarely see a person out walking or running on these roads, and as a result I am an object of much discourse among the dogs. Being barked at makes me nervous, so I began counting her thunderous borfs. One hundred forty-seven, until I was out of earshot. 

This visit was in the afternoon, and the light was completely different. I took another shot, and saw Rusty and his son Riley out and about. Luckily, Stella hadn't spotted me.

As I rounded the curve I grinned to see the UPS truck pull up. I began humming, "Wells Fargo Wagon" from The Music Man. The driver backed into the driveway, hopped out and instead of delivering a box, he popped the hood of the truck and asked Rusty to take a look at it. It was such a homey scene. Rusty's mighty handy with engines.





The driver had pulled away by the time I got there, and Rusty told me they'd gone to high school together. We got to talking. His boy Riley shyly asked me if I'd like to meet his fair calf, Tucker. "I would LOVE to meet Tucker! I thought you'd never ask!" I answered. Rusty and Missy laughed and off Riley and I went to the barn. First though, I asked if I might meet Stella, the Great Pyrenees I'd admired from afar. I thought maybe if she knew my voice I could calm her jets going forward.

 
She wasn't so sure about me. I looked a little sketchy in her opinion. GP's are superb guard dogs, always on alert and very barky.

 

She took a big whiff of my scent and checked me out thoroughly with startlingly beautiful bright nut-brown eyes.

 

I must've checked out all right, because her trepidation turned to unbridled joy. Wow! What an unexpected boost, to have a gigantic guard dog make a snap decision that you're not just OK, but fabulous!!

 
You haven't been smiled at until you've been smiled at by Stella.
 What a doll! What a good girl! I wanted to roll around on the ground with her, but there was a calf to meet.


 Riley slipped a rope halter over Tucker's head and led him up to the gate. It was best I stay behind it.



He put his little manatee snoot through the wire to check me out.

 

It was clear this little steer had been very well treated.
No fear there.

I began asking Riley questions about what it takes to prepare a calf for the county fair competition, and was so captivated by his pride in the little beef that I knew I had to make a video.

We were in the barn so long that Rusty came out to see what might be going on. Just talking cattle, that's all, happy as clams.

Riley and I talked about the elephant in the barn: the fact that, this coming Saturday, he would show Tucker at the Barlow Fair, and that would surely result in his sale.  In the video, Riley says he hopes someone will buy him so they can show him next year. But he knows deep down that's unlikely.

I like to get the whole story, and that takes time: that's why I cook these blogposts for so long. I would have been at the Barlow Fair with bells on, watching and shooting as Riley showed this beautiful onyx block of a calf, but Parents' Weekend at WVU beckoned, and I had to go see my boy. I came back refreshed and happy from spending a couple of days with sweet Liam, and I wondered how Riley and Tucker had fared in Barlow.

There were a few ways to find out, but I lucked into the best. I trotted back out the ridge the next time we had a sunrise, and lo and behold if I didn't find Riley's grampa Dale out sweeping his driveway. I'd never really had a conversation with him; just waved at him and his lovely wife as the kids and I would ride by on our bikes, grinning like fools and deliriously happy that we'd finally made it up Campbell Run's grueling hill to the ridgetop where Riley's grandparents live, just a half-mile from the beautiful farm.



We talked about many, many things. Cattle and weather and life on the ridge; responsibility and crime and fidelity and marriage and changing times. It was really cool. My favorite thing Dale said was when he talked about Riley and his big sister McKenzie. "They're my lights, my bright spots. They really are."

I felt so lucky to hear that, so lucky to have heard Riley talk about raising his calf.  Lucky to be able to share it with you.

 This is my Fitbit's hi-tech witnessing of the run I did that day. There's a green spike, which means a lot of footsteps, and then some red and yellow lines.  Green: Fitbit approves. Red and yellow: Caution. You're not getting enough steps in! Well, pooh. Those red and yellow lines are me taking photos of mushrooms in people's yards. Ha ha!!

 Now:  See that hour and twenty-minute hole in the middle of all the green activity? That's me, finding out how Riley did at the Barlow Fair. Ha ha ha!! I like the way I fidget a bit at the start  (tiny red lines); settle in for the long yak (flatlining); and then fidget a lot (more red lines) before I take off for home. Dale kept apologizing for "taking a bite out of my day." Perish the thought!




 I loved every minute of our chat, which became a conversation, which became another treasured connection. Long story short: Tucker brought the third-highest price of any calf sold: $2100. Now, that has to be amortized for the feed and equipment that is purchased for readying such a calf for show. And that's darned expensive. But still. I wouldn't have known what a check for $2100 looks like at Riley's age.  That's a powerful lesson in work, preparation and reward right there.

Dale said that Tucker acted up quite a bit on the way out of the ring, and it was clear to me that the calf was right at the point where he was getting too big and strong and opinionated for Riley to handle. A fractious 600-pound Angus calf tossing his head around is a battering ram with a big bony sledgehammer at one end. I pushed away thoughts about why Tucker might have acted up, and thought of Riley, saying goodbye to a calf he'd cared for every day for the last six months.

If 4H teaches a child anything, it's that he* must let go.  He must push away thoughts. He must put all that love and care into an animal and then, when the time comes, walk away. It's a relationship he enters willingly, knowing all along that it's going to end. Knowing that this calf who loves treats and eats shirts and likes to have his soft brisket rubbed is destined, in a few too-short months, for the human food chain. He's not a dog, not a horse. He's a steer. And steers don't get to hang around. A few lucky bulls do (witness Buck the Bull), but it takes only one bull to service a herd. So all the males get cut and sold for beef. A lucky few of those get the deluxe treatment, the relationship with a human that enriches both their lives. In cattle terms, Tucker was a lucky steer, if a steer can be lucky.

*of course girls participate in 4H; I just don't want to clutter up the wording with (s)he. 

The rest of the herd (in part). Lone bull to upper left. Big cow getting up. I felt bad about that. I try not to make them get up.

I never talk with a 4H-er without picturing myself in their boots. I chuckle just thinking about it. I, who as a kid wept torrents and held funerals for every fishie that went belly-up in my 5-gallon aquarium.  I, who, grown up but no better at letting go, stared fixedly out the window for seven months while I recorded every move a hand-raised blue jay made. Who still watches for her, every day.  If there is anything I am horrible at, it's letting go when I should.

And yet as I look back on 2017, the lesson the Universe kept hurling at me was: Let Go or Be Dragged. From my beautiful kids, who were bound to leave and make their own way no matter how good the food, loving the mama, or soft the bed; to my sweet Chet Baker, who had to leave too soon; to Jemima, who went when she got the call; to my husband, who finally made the long-awaited move away just over a year ago. 2017 was all about letting them go. All of them. And I have come out of it, and I'm looking back on it all now, and I never thought I'd be able to say that. And not only am I still alive, but I'm actually feeling happy again. I knew that I would be, eventually, but it's still such a nice surprise to be level. I get out of bed in the pitch-dark morning thinking, "Well, what am I going to paint today? Where will I run? Will there be a sunrise?"


 

And the answer is: Sometimes. Get dressed and be ready for it. Get out and savor it when it happens.

  

After the enduring connection with my family and friends, it's the savoring, the land and the sky, the flowers and the birds and the insects and animals and clouds that keep me going. 



 

That, and the light.

The lights.







Riley's going to raise a heifer next year. That way, when he falls in love with her, he gets to keep her, watch her raise her own calves.


For more on cattle:

Buck the Bull

My NPR commentary on Buck's greatest moment

I'm Back! Where's Jemima?

It's been a week, but I feel like I've just now returned from 12 days away, ten of them spent in the Ecuadorian Andes and foothills. I left on Opening Day of our weeklong gun season for whitetails, so I missed the whole bang-bangy thing.  It was very wet and not warm in the Andes, so these frigid Ohio temperatures weren't much of a shock. I had an 18-hour journey home, getting up at 4 AM in Quito and finally walking in the door, loaded down with luggage and fresh groceries, at 10 PM Friday night, December 8. The trip was incredible, awesome, fun as all getout, full of fabulous birds and wonderful friends who were all grooving on it together. I'll return. I have to!! There's so much more to experience!

 While I was in Ecuador, I dreamt of birds every single night, except for the night that I dreamt of my DOD. All the birds needed me to care for them. They kept getting into trouble, losing feathers, breaking wings.  Obligations, things I wasn't taking care of, birds that needed me--the theme of every night's dreams while I was away. I may have been having fun as a bird guide all day, but at night the birds reminded me of my true work. Finally, I was home.

After a fitful night full of dreams of--get this--living in a house with glass-free windows, where birds kept getting trapped-- blue-gray tanagers**, cedar waxwings, and hummingbirds that kept getting into trouble, all of which I had to help--I jumped out of bed, wanting only to see Jemima, at 6:30 AM. I hadn't had nearly enough sleep, but before it got fully light, I filled all the feeders and washed and refilled the bird bath and put all the best food out. Whole corn, cracked corn, sunflower hearts, black oil, peanuts in and out of the shell. And in the Secret Studio Window Feeder, diced cooked chicken thigh, walnuts, pecans and unsalted cocktail peanuts. Yep, got 'er covered. I was sitting vigil at my usual post when along came Flag!

**This is a cool thing the brain does in dreams. Blue-gray sounds like blue jay. So when I'm dreaming of blue-gray tanagers, chances are my brain is substituting them for blue jays. It's always about Jemima!

 Flag still wears her wide white eyerings, her surprised look.

She was closely followed by Aunt Buffy, a stout little dachshund among whitetails. I love Buffy. She looks terrific, considering that she may be nearly as old as Ellen. Her eye, while still squinty, isn't weeping any more. Progress!

 My two wee does made it through hunting season! Not surprising. That's why I let myself fall in love with scrawny little does. The big bucks? I look, I admire, but I try not to let them take my heart, because they're all marked for death. If they make it through the bloody first week of December, well, that's a bonus, gravy. Good for them.

And that morning of December 9, I watched and photographed an armload of blue jays, but not The Blue Jay. I amused myself photographing them, gathering data, trying to tell one from the other in the flock of seven. I felt rusty, out of practice. This is Darko. He's had three different nicknames, until I realized that I was lookingat the same bird the whole time.

That super white face, contrasting with the dark breast and sides, is one good marker. Also his broad black eyebrows.

This is Lilac. Notice anything about this bird's overall color, especially in contrast to Darko? Yep. Pale. Lilac. Low-contrast. Even the lower throat is lilac-colored. Thin eyebrows. You see the subtlety I'm talking about. These are two extremes in coloration. Most are barely discernible from each other. I have to see a jay a bunch of times and take a bunch of pics before I can identify it with any confidence. I'm a real beginner at this.

But even as I watched and waited and wondered where she was, I knew she was here. I could feel it. My heart was happy and full of anticipation. Liam and Bill had been faithfully putting her chicken and peanuts, corn and sunflower hearts out each morning. At 9:07 AM she finally comes in. I photograph her without knowing it's her at first. Only when she takes several hops and jumps up onto the trunk of a birch do I figure out it's Jemima. These are little things a normal jay wouldn't do. A normal jay would spread its wings and fly. But she's here and Hallelujah! she's made it another twelve days without me around fuss over her! The boys had reported that her meat and peanuts were completely gone every night. The pessimist in me figured that the chipmunks must have defeated my homemade baffle around the tree by her feeder, because Jemima had never finished her meat. Surely something else was taking her food.

  Jemima grabbing corn to cache, Dec. 9

Pigging out on chicken, Dec. 11

But the Jemima I saw on December 9 was a different bird. She was ravenous, taking gullet after gullet-ful of meat. And what was different about that was that she was carrying it away and obviously cacheing it in the woods. When I left in late November, it was still warm--60-degree days. I was intrigued to see that, while she cached large amounts of corn and seed, she always swallowed and ate her chicken. If she did carry away a big gob of chicken, she'd fly to a nearby tree to process and eat it all. She knew that, when it was warm outside, she couldn't hide meat without losing it to decay. It was a different story now. I filled her meat bowl four times, and thrilled to see her visit at least ten times. She was in and around the yard from 9 until nearly 2 pm. At evening every scrap of chicken was gone, and I knew that Jemima had taken it all.

When she flew out the driveway, I followed her. I talked and sang to her. She turned around and flew toward me. No sweeter welcome home. If she could have said MAMA'S HOME!! I think she would have. She showed me how she uses the tangles to navigate to her feeder. Tree to tree she flutters. 

She was here with me for two days--December 9, the morning after my return, and she was back on December 11. And then she vanished again.  I haven't seen her or Maybelline since then. Is it driving me nuts? You bet your bippy it is. But Jemima taking off for a week at a time is just another thing in the great continuum of Things Over Which I Have No Control.

This continuum includes pretty much everything in my life. Jemima is here to teach me more about letting go. It's the one thing I'm worst at. My pitbull tendencies serve me well when it comes to writing my column, finishing books, getting that last illustration done under the deadline, and just generally persevering in the face of obstacles. But letting go of the people and creatures I love is a real challenge, because there inevitably comes a time when you have to. I think I'm programmed to love and hold onto them forever, no matter what. Jem's working on that in me.

I've held vigil at the studio window for six days. Maybe she'll be back on Day 8. Stay tuned. Until then, I'll be editing Ecuador photos. And you're gonna love 'em!!