Tag Archives: English Shepherds

Jack Frost

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An early morning walk down the lane behind the house, a small woodlot of a few acres on my right. On the left, screened by a copse on the edge, runs a long steep pasture. At the far end lies a fallen oak straddling the two worlds. I sit on the trunk with Tip and watch the sun rise on one of my favorite views.

The pasture is smooth, clear of any obstruction, rock or tree. The grass is short and green, covered with a thick sheen of white crystals left from Jack Frost’s nightly visit. The pasture has folds and hills as it rises up the ridge. A starkly sensual sight as the sun rises and illumines through leafless trees selective contours of the land.

The blankets of frost quickly disappear in streaks where the sun touches the hill. In minutes the pasture is rippled with stripes of green. It will be another hour before the sun will vanquish the frost from the pastures. Another hour yet before all the remains of a cold night will be the skim of ice on water troughs and crunch of grass in shade of the porch.

From my desk, as I write, the view is of the chicken yard and coop. The light has crested the hill and hit the coop window, a window of ancient and honorable pedigree. A large rectangular piece of zinc lined glass, each pane four inches square of distorted lines from a pre-mass production furnace. The window, one of a handful rescued from the Jacobs Agricultural Building at Chilhowee Park when it burned around 1900. A grand palace of a now vanished agricultural heritage, its relic gives reflected light to our hens on their roosts.

Robbie

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Robbie, our six-year old English Shepherd, was put to sleep yesterday. I picked him from the veterinarian’s office packed in a box and drove home. I started digging a grave in the middle of the garden. Cindy came out and got a spade and joined in the work. In very little time we dug down three feet a tidy rectangle.

Cindy went back to the house. I opened up the box and took Robbie out, such a beautiful dog even in death. For a working breed he had lovely quiet disposition, sometimes too quiet and easy going for his job as farm dog.

He was the classic “lover not a fighter.” The exception was with Becky or a strange dog; from time to time they would without warning tear into each other. Just last Sunday as we walked in the woods, Becky and Robbie sparred for a full ten minutes, leaving each other bruised, bloodied and ready for more.

On Tuesday morning well before dawn, we let Robbie and Tip out of the mud room; Becky stays out all night. By the time we had coffee and Cindy left for work, Robbie had traveled the quarter-mile to the road, been hit by a car, walked up the drive twenty yards and collapsed in shock.

Cindy spotted him curled up in the grass at the side of the driveway and rushed back to get me. Using a blanket, we wrapped him up and put him in my truck and took off to the vet. Not Robbie’s first rodeo: a fractured tibia from catching his leg between metal slats jumping off a hay wagon, a severed artery of unknown cause.

The x-rays showed a smashed pelvis and hemorrhaging in the chest cavity. Two nights and three days in the hospital and he came home. The internal bleeding had stopped, but they couldn’t do anything with the pelvis. Cindy took Robbie to a vet on Friday that specializes in surgery on dogs. They did more x-rays. This time they discovered that the pelvis was worse than originally thought, but they could fix it for around $3000. No guarantees, but a reasonable prognosis with a long recovery. Surgery was scheduled immediately. First, though, bloodwork in response to Cindy’s observation of urinary incontinence. The vet discovered that Robbie’s bladder had ruptured. Repairable, with more surgery. In the blink of an eye, we were now looking at vet bills totaling $5000. A decision had to be made immediately.

What is the value of a loving and loyal pet? Do we love our pets more or less when we make decisions based on cost? There is no easy or correct answer. Cindy, who was back at work, would probably have opted for the surgery. In a hurried, emotional phone discussion, I suggested it was time to let our much loved Robbie go. We made the choice, and I called the vet and asked them to put him to sleep.

He was still warm when I pulled him out of the box. I held him for a few minutes before laying him on the dirt. Shoveling dirt, gently at first until covered and then faster, until the grave was filled and mounded over the top. Cindy went out later and spent time at the gravesite.

He now belongs to the future as much as the past.

Drought, Rain and Death: a normal week on the farm

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Like a desert after the rains our farm has erupted into mid and late summer growth. June was dry and hot, then July above average in rain and now August with five inches of rain to date. I recently returned from a trip to Iowa to find my neat and manicured vegetable garden a veritable rain forest of foliage, some intentional and some opportunistic. How pigweed can appear and grow into spiny three foot plants overnight I’ll never know? Jack’s beanstalk ain’t got nothin’ on pigweed.

Concurrent with the explosion of growth is the discovery of our tomatoes by the chickens. Reaching through the dense tomato vines I clutch a beautiful two pound Brandywine only to find it hollowed out and empty. I chase the chickens out only to find they have additional partners in crime hiding under the ever expanding pigweed who then dash out to resume their tomato festival after my departure. Will their flesh be tomato flavored?

Our new pond has filled 1/3 full with the rains and seems to be holding. The hard work of putting down grass seed and hay, what seemed to be a folly in 105 degree heat and in the middle of a drought, now seems Solomon like in wisdom and forethought. Sometimes best laid plans work out.

And sometimes they do not. In June we lost three ducks in gruesome attacks to a snapping turtle. An early morning stalking session by one of the ponds and I was able to send the turtle to the afterlife with the assistance of my double barrel 12 gauge. Our beautiful Saxony ducks, a heritage breed we have long wanted: Cindy wanted for their beauty and elegance and I for their possible contributions to the table had been ordered in the spring from a hatchery in Oregon. We had nursed them along from hatchling status. Then watched them feather out into beautiful mature birds.

Thursday, while we were gone the flock disappeared. Cindy looked unsuccessfully on that night and was unable to find them. Arriving back from my trip on Friday evening I called our neighbor Lowell to see if he had seen the flock. He had. I put my boots on and Cindy stayed at the house. Walking up the big hill a few hundred yards I climbed over the gate into Lowell’s hay field. It was another hundred yards until I found the site where our neighbor had spotted the flock the night before. I found them just as he said. Spread out over a large area, were our Saxony’s… all dead.

We can only hazard a guess. And that guess is death by canine. The ducks mostly had been killed from the back consistent with our herding dogs. It is possible that the ducks had moved up the hill while grazing and Robbie tried to herd them back. Frustrated, he may have started to bite. He may have had help. Or it could have been a neighbor’s dog. We will never know: a death by misadventure.