Funny Farm

My daughter calls it the funny farm, this acre or so where she and her family have been living for the last eight years. Most places come with refrigerators and maybe a washer/dryer set at closing. Katy’s place conveyed with two mouser cats and a couple of pampered goats. Since then, their back pasture has been home to as many as three alpacas, one three-hundred pound hog, at least seventy-five chickens, one or two unwelcome roosters, a failed turkey crop, and two beloved dogs, one of whom now rests in peace near the barn.

Currently, the combined population of Dan and Katy’s little farm stands at thirty-three. There are ten ducks, nine plucky chickens, three little pigs, four used sheep, two dogs (including one of mine), three mouser cats, one introverted tortoise, and a bossy tom turkey who thinks he’s a people. The whole menagerie co-exists on about half an acre of irrigated pasture, but they’re not quiet about it. Especially the turkey, aka, Thanksgiving Dinner.

This has been a soft place to land after all the heartache and loss I’ve experienced. There’s a sense of simplicity in this pastoral sanctuary hidden in the desert. It’s healing to my wounded soul. I knew if I could just get off that mountain and get to my daughter’s place, I’d get well. Sunshine and quiet, shady breezes, happy voices of children, and especially the tranquility in being surrounded by farm animals.

It’s just what the doctor ordered for this recovering widow. But it’s not quite as tranquil as I thought.

I may look like a city girl, but I’ve always wanted to wear overalls, milk a bunch of cows, and gather eggs. Don’t let these fake nails fool you—I was an expert on farm life long before I got here. After all, I visited my great-uncle’s pig plantation in Kansas once when I was ten, so I know farm life is just one big 4-H exhibition after another. Get up at the crack of dawn, feed the livestock, tend the garden, wrastle a stray coyote or two, shoot a vagrant viper in the back pasture, drink you some homemade sarsaparilla, and clean out chicken coop poop.

Sigh. That’s the life. That I never had. Until now. Except I’m too citified to clean up poop in the coop. Gross.

Katy and the family headed up to their mountain cabin last month, and I thought, why should they ask a neighbor to take care of the animals when I’m living here and perfectly capable of doing it instead? Though they looked a little skeptical at my offer, they decided to give me a chance. After all, they’d lost chickens to coyotes before. Animals are replaceable. What harm could come by leaving me in charge of all the livestock for three days?

My tutor granddaughter, Jules, gave me a one-day crash course on animal husbandry right before they left, followed by a quick pass/fail exam the next morning. Make no mistake—the herd in the pasture belongs to this ten-year-old, aptly nicknamed the animal whisperer. When Jules opens the door to the chicken coop, all the fowl residents rush outside and spend the day in the pasture dutifully devouring the bug population. At night when she re-opens the gate, every chicken and duck lines up single file and marches inside for supper and safety.

“Now you do it, YaYa,” she instructed. Feeling her expert eyes bore into my soul, I nervously opened the gate, standing back where I couldn’t be pecked to death by hungry hens. “Very good,” Jules said, reveling in her position as the yard boss. I tossed pellets to the sheep and pigs, watered the ducks, ignored the turkey, made the cats happy, and locked all the gates behind me. I was pretty satisfied with myself. Following my every move, Jules agreed I’d gotten the hang of it and earned my overalls.

Then they left town.

And I was on my own.

With thirty-three wild animals.

“Don’t worry about doing everything the way Juliet does,” my daughter furtively whispered as she climbed in the car. “Just try to keep them alive. Call if you need anything!” And they roared off.

Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by déjà vu. That’s exactly what the doctor said the morning we left the hospital with our newborn baby.

I stood there, alone, shaking in my chicken poop boots.

The day evaporated quickly, and soon it was time for me to put away the animals. I headed to the barn to scoop up alfalfa pellets and dry cat food, reviewing the order of chores in my mind. Throw some pellets to the pigs to distract them while you open the gate and wait for the poultry to head inside, but don’t forget to lock the gate behind you. I realized that made me a prisoner and potential target of a herd of stampeding livestock. I cleared my throat in case I needed to yell for help. Not that anyone could hear me, trampled to death as I’d be, lying in a pile of duck doo doo in the middle of the pasture. Gross.

The pigs were delighted by the barrage of pellets I threw their way, while all four sheep forced their way into the pigpen, competing with the swine for snacks. That wasn’t supposed to happen. It’s not that big an enclosure. They didn’t act all selfish like that when Juliet was here, I thought in frustration. I’d already opened the gate to the chicken coop and watched in relief as the hens scuttled inside, but the ducks, recognizing my inexperience, immediately broke rank from the rest of the poultry and headed west to the opposite end of the pasture just because they could.

Who knew ducks have such bad attitudes? I decided I’d deal with them later and turned my attention to the crowded pigpen which had been overrun by the entire cast of fluffy sheep. Somehow, I had to convince two hundred pounds of wooly mutton to leave through the narrow opening they’d run into—without the aid of my four-foot-eight granddaughter.

“Here, sheepy sheepy,” I called in my friendliest farmer voice. “Let’s go. Come on, girls. Outside.” I had no idea sheep could be so stubborn, but as we locked eyes, I wanted them to know they’d met their match. There was no way they were gonna trick me into going in after them in my chicken poop shoes where I’d end up sinking to my ankles in piggy poo.  

I guess I called their bluff because three of them turned and sauntered back out through the open gate, rolling their eyes as they did it. Snobs. But the fourth sheep, looking panicked, realized she’d been left there alone—the sacrificial lamb. I tried to reassure her that she’d be happier if she’d just follow the crowd. Using that same, unappealing farmer voice I’d created, I leaned on the fence outside the pigsty and tried negotiating with her.

“Come on, Ruth,” I encouraged. “I’ve got a nice pizza here for you. You know you’re hungry.” But her name was Abbie—sheep all look alike to me—and I wasn’t really holding a pizza.  Instead of accepting my offer of amnesty, she backed up against the fence railing, and calculated the distance between me and the two-foot-wide opening on my left.

It was a poorly executed maneuver.

Launching herself straight up in the air, she aimed for the exit, slammed into the post, and fell headlong into the pasture. A curly swath of wool on the fencing fluttered in the breeze, but she lived, and that’s all Katy had asked of me.

This is so much harder than it looks, I thought, as I closed the gate on the pigs.

“Okay, little ducks. It’s your turn now,” I announced to a gaggle of uninterested feathers. I knew if Jules were here, she’d run over to the plastic pool where they were all hanging out sipping from the massive martini and gossiping about the city girl in overalls who was trying to boss them around. Then she’d chase them all the way across the pasture until they ran into the coop of their own free will.

But I don’t chase.

Across pastures.

Where I could fall down in ducky doo doo.

I was beginning to lose my patience. My knees hurt and my feet hurt and it was hot outside and the turkey stood at my heels making fun of me. Those gobbles of his were really getting on my nerves.

“Come on!” I yelled at the uncooperative flock. I pointed west to the open coop door. “Get in there where you belong!” One of the ducks—Penelope, I think—slipped into the muddy pool water instead, splashing around with absolutely no respect for my authority.

“Fine,” I muttered, exasperated. I knew how to handle this. I’ve raised two children and three dogs, after all. There wasn’t an animal alive who enjoyed being sprayed in the face with a water hose. I limped over to the spicket, turned it on, and aimed the stream full force, right at that herd of waterfowl.

Who loved it.

“Ooh!” one of them quacked. “A little more to the left.” Ducks are so sarcastic.

Soon there was a mudhole the size of a Volkswagen full of filthy, flapping criminals and at least a dozen blackbirds who crashed the pool party. If I didn’t get this under control, Jules would find out and take away my chicken poop boots. I knew that snoopy turkey would turn tail and rat me out.

I racked my brain for another brilliant plan and suddenly remembered how Katy handled a potential drowning in the same duck pond. Penelope—remember, I told you about her earlier—had been hogging the play pool when she was joined by an innocent bystander who just wanted to join in the fun. Penelope jumped on her back, grabbed the intruder’s neck in her beak and held her head under water while the other bird fought for her life.

I stared at the murderous scene in horror and glanced at Katy. “Is that bird going to drown the other one?” I asked. Katy sighed and reached for a downed limb on the ground beside her. “I don’t know,” she said in resignation. Then she threw the branch at the pair who immediately skedaddled out of the pool and waddled off, side by side, as though nothing untoward had happened.

So, I picked up a branch and threw it at the sunbathing ducks. They scattered across the pasture in an explosion of wet feathers. I picked up another branch, limped toward the surprised flock, and threw that one at them, too. The same thing happened. In two poorly executed pitches, I’d managed to force those dirty birds two-thirds of the way back to the coop where the chickens watched, safely hidden behind the fencing, fascinated. By the time I’d picked up a third branch and sent it sailing toward the last stragglers, every duck and chicken had scooted into the coop where they knew they’d be safe from the crazed city girl standing in animal poop in the pasture.

I slammed the gate behind them, locked it up tighter than a teenager’s bedroom window, and glared at the turkey who'd been standing behind me watching the entire spectacle with judgy eyes.

“One word of this to Jules,” I growled, “and you’ll be stuffed with Chestnut Dressing faster than you can say ‘Plymouth Rock,’” I warned.

He didn’t even gobble at me. He just turned around and walked off.

Don’t let anyone kid you.

Turkeys are a lot smarter than ducks.

With thanks to Samantha Durfee for permission to use the above photo in this post. The original can be viewed at the following link: ducks | Samantha Durfee | Flickr