My mother was not an animal lover. Growing up, her family never had pets. In fact, she had developed a fear of animals that, according to her, was only controlled by having them around. So that is why she reluctantly went along with the rest of the Clark family’s goal of turning 38 South Knoll Road into a suburban menagerie.
Naturally, we always had a resident dog, starting out with Missy, a Kerry Blue Terrier who developed such terrible skin allergies that she had to be shaved every summer and given regular cortisone shots. Missy was followed by a long succession of Keeshonds, who proceeded to fill the house with enormous balls of shed hair that might easily be mistaken for the dogs themselves. Our first experimental Dutch barge dog was L’il Dawg, who set the mark pretty high. Then my sister arranged for a couple of rescue Keeshonds to take up residence in succession: Candy, a hyper-active little thing who rode in the golf cart with my dad; then Fred (short for Fredrika), who was a rather rotund “traditionally-built” gal (for those of you who follow the Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency novels). The only exception to the Keeshond dynasty was Jennifer, an extraordinarily shy Sheltie. She was definitely not a “people” dog, but communed happily with others of her species, even taking on dogs many times her size, if the situation warranted aggression. Her one quirk was that she simply could not do her “business” if anyone was within fifty yards of her, which made taking her for walks uniquely challenging.
Of course, there was an assortment of mostly anti-social cats, the occasional guinea pig dying too-soon of some mysterious ailment, an iguana and various short-lived hamsters and mice. We somehow avoided parakeets, since my brother was allergic to feathers (or so my mother, the pediatric allergist, would have had us believe). But, in her wildest animal-filled dreams (nightmares?) I don’t think she ever contemplated having to contend with livestock.
As was typical of many houses in Strawberry back then, we had a large undeveloped lot both behind our house and the house next door, which we also owned. Each year, a new crop of oat grass would spring up that, by summer, had to be mowed because of very real fire danger. For many years, my father would take on this onerous task, which involved tilting the front of the mower high in the air and slowly lowering it down onto each patch of grass (this was before line trimmers). This was a dicey maneuver and absolutely guaranteed to hurl any stray rocks far and wide. We kids knew to stay clear whenever dad was in the yard on mowing day. Eventually, my brother John got big enough to take over the mowing responsibilities. And when he went off to college, I inherited this dangerous task. The potential for serious injury was always present while mowing on the steep hillside (my dad had even taken to wearing old golf shoes for traction), which was doubled by the fact that our old machine was made before the era of automatic blade shut-offs.
Finally, the summer came when I prepared to enter college and both my sister (who lived in the house next door) and I decided that we didn’t want my dad to go back to mowing. Instead, we hatched the idea of letting sheep take care of the grass. How cool would that be? With remarkable speed and energy, we drove in durbins (steel fence posts) around the entire perimeter of both lots, stretched sheep wire, built an open-sided shed and installed an automatic water supply. Soon, Joe and Clem were on the job, probably the first two sheep our neighborhood had ever seen. They did a bang-up job at keeping the weeds at bay, as well as the lower branches of the fruit trees and anything else they could get their teeth on. They were also quite popular with the local children, who liked to pet them and feed them tidbits.
Joe was seldom any problem, but Clem definitely thought the grass was greener on the other side of the fence, literally. Lacking the cleverness to escape the yard, he made do by forcing his head through the fairly small holes in the wire fence to reach the more elusive bits. Unable to reverse the process, his insistent baa-ing would soon prompt a phone call from a concerned neighbor. Since the only person at home was usually my mom, she would grab a pair of wire cutters and venture out into the yard, making her way across and down the slippery hillside to the trapped sheep, sometimes in the rain. She would cut loose Clem as he struggled and pulled, occasionally being knocked down in the process. Then she would repair the fence and make her way back up the steep hill, no doubt cursing the animal kingdom and her own offspring. I will say this: She did what farmwork needed to be done and never shirked.
Once we had acquired sheep, it seemed natural to extend the farm theme to poultry. I built a coop below Kathy’s house and we purchased six reddish-brown “sex-link” hybrid hens, who began providing us with a generous supply of lovely brown eggs.
Fortunately, my mother liked the fresh eggs enough to put up with having to collect them. And, since she was already out in the yard, it was nothing for her to throw a little laying mash into their feeder at the same time. This required actually going into the coop, which was not an issue, since the chickens were usually out foraging in the yard or brooding quietly on their nests. What she hadn’t counted on were the sheep getting into the act.
Now, if the grass was truly greener on the other side of the fence, the alfalfa hay that filled the chickens nests was pure ambrosia to Clem and Joe. They could smell it every time they passed by, but they normally couldn’t get to it. Unfortunately, one day when my mother went into the coop, the sheep were nearby. As soon as she opened the door, they charged. Thinking quickly, she jumped inside and slammed the door shut, thus avoiding being trampled and saving the coop from destruction. But the sheep were persistent and continued pressing against the door in an effort to get at the hay. Now my mother probably only weighed 130 pounds and the sheep were easily 500 pounds each, so it was a definite mismatch. She was stuck, wondering whether my dad would know where to look for her and whether she would be forced to spend the night with the “girls.”
Finally, after ten harrowing minutes, the sheep decided to graze elsewhere and my mother bolted. But, clearly, something had to change. The chickens were gradually left to their own devices, which mostly meant roosting in the apple tree at night instead of the cozy coop. This led to a natural reduction in the flock, courtesy of the local raccoons and skunks, and soon the chickens were no more. Clem was given away and replaced with Hamlet, a very personable goat, who got along fine with Joe and never got caught in the fence. He did, however, find ways to escape into the surrounding neighborhood, which presented its own hassles. But on these occasions, I was sent out with a rope to bring him home; my mother’s tenure as farmer having officially come to an end.
You know, I personally believe that wherever we go after this life, our animals’ spirits go, too. If that’s true, I hope my mother has her wire cutters.
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