Bear Soup

Winters, I like to make soup a lot. I can make a biiiig pot of it and parcel it out into various canning jars, freeze it, and just grab a jar on my way to work. Handy, especially for someone who rarely wants to fuss around before work. I like to get up, do the morning routine and high-tail it out the door.

My most recent batch has been bear soup. For some reason, this is how it's gone at work:

Co-Worker: Mmmm, that smells good, what kind of soup is that?

Me: Bear.

CW: What?

Me: Bear soup.

CW [looking confused]: Bear soup?

Me: Yeah, you know: Soup made from bears.

CW: [various expression from dubious to horrified]

Now, for the life of me I can't figure out why Alaskans have a hard time with this concept. If I lived in Miami or L.A. or Chicago or New York City, of course I'd expect people to be confused by this. I mean, how often do you see people barbecuing bears in Washington DC or Sacramento? (Okay, I'll grant you that there may be a certain amount of roasting of bears in Chicago from time to time.) But in Alaska… isn't this part of the gig?

I gathered – after some recon – that part of the problem was that some people have had fish-eating bears (which, since they've been eating fish, are not the best flavor and end up kind of … well, fishy.) Then there's another contingent who have not themselves suffered from eating a fish bear, but have heard about it from others. Evidently this is an event so severely traumatizing that the reputation of fish bears has spread far and wide, so that people who have never even been outdoors know all about it.

However, I must faithfully report that bears that have been eating grasses and berries are quite tasty.

So, in case you should want to try the recipe, here's how it goes.

First, start several years ago by making friends with someone who knows how to hunt – and (very importantly) knows how to handle the meat afterwards. Alternatively, you can learn how to hunt for yourself, and acquire the correct meat-processing techniques , but I find that making friends with someone who enjoys hunting is more enjoyable and not quite as messy – most of the time. Because sometimes you might end up getting sloppy drunk with them, and who knows what might happen then.

Next, if at all possible, get yourself invited to their Harvest Party, and luck into winning the bear meat in the raffle. This is quite easy and will only take several years of crossing all your fingers at the various parties until the bear meat falls into your lap. If you want my advice, you'll elect to take the meat that S has slow-cooked and jarred up.

Wait 'til it gets a little chilly out, because that's when soup is best. Get a large pot and a bunch of veggies and spices and stuff, and either make some broth or use chicken stock (because its flavor doesn't mask the bear flavor.)

Hint: Garlic is your friend, and there's no such thing as too many carrots.

You may also want to add things like onions, mushrooms, broccoli, cauliflower, etc. Personally, I am a fan of Brussels sprouts, but I know many people are so allergic to them that the mere mention of them here has caused their eyes to bleed. (Sorry about that… maybe you should wear sunglasses or other eye protection from here forward, in case I slip and say "Brussels sprouts" again. Oh! Drat. I said it again. Sorry about that.) Personally, I also like snow peas in my soup, but am not a fan of potatoes, noodles, rice or barley, all of which upset my stomach. However, if you feel like contaminating your soup – er – adding these to your soup, have at it.

You absolutely must add some spices. If you do not, the bear meat will rise up against you and maul you to death. Okay, it won't, but you really really should add some spices. Bear tastes (to me) somewhere between elk and moose, but if you haven't tried those, the best I can do is say it's closer to beef than it is to pork or chicken. It can handle thyme, oregano, basil, marjoram and spices of that nature. It is a particular friend to sage. And have I mentioned garlic? I have? Okay, then; I'll shut up now.

Once you get your broth and spices simmering (and if you like your veggies tender, throw them in there too, so that they have time to get that way) you should think about adding some cooking sherry. Personally I favor the giant bottle of Gallo dry sherry for cooking, but whatever strikes your fancy will do. When I say "some" I mean anything from "none" to "rather a lot, really", depending on your taste. I like to add it early-ish, because it seems to help the spices marry together, and (since I'm making soup I intend to eat at work) I'd really rather all the alcohol cook off so I don't go around hiccupping and smiling sleepily at everyone all afternoon.

Add the bear (and any remaining veggies) any time. In my case this means after approximately 7 minutes and 19 seconds of swearing and rummaging around in drawers trying to find the bottle opener to pop the vacuum-sealed lid off , but use whatever method works for you. Scoop the bear meat into the soup. Make sure you get all the fat off the top and stir it in. There's really not that much when you spread it out over a big pot of soup, and it bestows a rich flavor and a silky mouth-feel to the soup, as well as helping it stick to your ribs.

Since the bear meat is already cooked, you don't have to simmer it long for it to taste amazing. It will also be meltingly tender, literally so tender you can cut it with a spoon. A dull spoon, even. Basiscally you only need simmer the soup long enough to cook the veggies and let the spices blend together. Your best bet is to try it right away so you can be sure you added enough carrots, sage and garlic. Also because it smells so good that you might have a seizure if you don't try it soon.

Note: At this point you may begin to feel a strange burning sensation on the back of your neck. This is your dogs glaring at you in envy and hoping to cause you to spill your soup so that they can help you clean it up by means of judicious wolfing-down and licking-up. It is in most cases safe to ignore this and continue eating. However, in some cases placating the dog by allowing it to lick the bowl is a useful strategy.

See? Bear soup is easy to make. If you start now with the part where you make friends with someone who will hunt bears and share with you, you can have some in just a few years. That might seem like a long wait, but it's probably the fastest method, since I bet that'll produce results before bear meat shows up for purchase at your local grocer's.

Just saying.

Legends of the (Akaskan) Fall

Autumn again.

Last night was the annual Wildwood harvest party, an event I look forward to every year, and one of the two Fire Feasts Wildwood holds every year. As usual, it was a lovely time. The bonfire was exceptionally good, thanks in part to the good offices of one of the party-goers, a local businesswoman who appears to be a closet pyromaniac. That's Wildwood for you: Providing you a safe and socially-acceptable outlet for your more felonious urges. All part of the service.

The Wildwood Harvest Party is sort of their version of Beltane. It's a fire feast, and always slightly pagan in feel, as are most bonfire events. There's something atavistic about feasting around a big fire, watching the sparks spiral up against the black sky, points of fire against the cooler brilliance of the stars. It's something that reaches into you and grabs some part of you deeper than memory. And it's something that engages you physically in opposites: The fiery heat on your face opposing the chill press of October against your back; the brilliant glow of flames against the deep rich blanket of night; the tide of music and laughter against the gathering quiet of approaching winter.

There's something about fire feasts.

Wildwood, of course, has an Alaskan spin on it. This is when we have harvested our gardens, done our hunting, filled our freezers with fish and game, canned and preserved and smoked and dried the fruits of our summer labors. Our larders, if we've done well and been lucky, are full. We've got a bit laid by to get us through winter, and this is the time to celebrate the bounty. One of the traditions of this particular event is that, if you have something you've put by - berries you've gathered, meat or eggs or produce you've grown, wine or spirits or crafts you've made, or any what-have-you, you can bring it to the party. These items are arrayed temptingly on the tiers of hay bales stacked in the horse barn, and at the appointed time names are drawn out of a basket and you get your turn to go up and pick for yourself a little piece of the year's harvest. Now, if you lived in the lower 48, it might be a little different, but up here the items on offer tend to be things we've hunted, fished, picked, pickled, brewed, baked, built or grown (sometimes completely by accident). There might be hand-made crafts at such an event, but in Alaska - or at least at Wildwood - there's every chance that the jewelry will be made of the claws of the bear that is also the source of the chili you ate at dinner.

Of course, first things first: Fill your plate, fill your glass, catch up with friends you haven't seen over the busy weeks of the summer. Beg the recipe for those moose meatballs or the green chili with bear meat or the pomegranate and mint jelly (which will be recited willingly to your eager ears). Winnnow out the maker of the spectacular caribou liverwurst you had two weeks ago and pick the maker's brain so you can try it with lamb liver. Discover who's retired, who brought friends to the feast from Fairbanks or Seattle or other far points, who is changing jobs or properties or life circumstances. Play with the dogs, tell stories, sing at the bonfire (and play your instrument if you brought it), throw your paper plate into the fire, pet the horses, put your name in the basket for the drawing, relax.

Got all that done? Okay. Gather in the barn for the drawing.

This year (and I'll try to get everything in, but might miss something here or there) we had the following: Moose, caribou, lamb, kid, deer and bear (canned, frozen, and/or ground, roasts and legs-of and sausages, etc); salmon, both smoked and fresh-frozen; halibut; various preserves; berries picked and immediately frozen; eggs from happy little hens who've spent the summer eating bugs and poking around the gardens and stock pens; Grand Marnier (home-made version, which is doubtless superior); various home-made wines; assorted houseplants; three separate bouquets of peacock feathers (courtesy of the Wildwood peacock, King Strut); a live rooster (for someone's lucky hens); jewelry, including the afore-mentioned bear-claw necklace; assorted produce (apples, carrots, various squash and cruciforms); breads made with local veggies or berries (highbush cranberry, blueberry, pumpkin or zucchini); and various spreads, dips and condiments.

Myself, I had an eye on the bear meat. And lucky for me, I managed to snag a jar of it, cut and cooked to string-meat, cut-it-with-a-spoon tenderness, which will be suitable for making soup or chili or bear-meat enchiladas, or something else that will doubtless make people follow me around sniffing at my plate and asking what that is, and can they taste it?

After the drawing you're not allowed to leave - well, or not immediately. If you bail out right away, the Wildwoodians will never hold the drawing again. Or so they claim; personally I think generosity is so much the foundation of their every cell that they won't be able to help themselves. But there is another advantage to staying: Song and conversation mimic the fire. The bright, crackling energy of the earlier evening has given way to stronger, hotter coals, burning steady and warm. This is the part of the evening when you can marinate yourself in the incense of wood smoke, letting it perfume your hair and clothes so that tomorrow, as you ruminate on the conversations of the evening, the scent of the fire lingers faintly around you, reminding you of fellowship, of food, of peace.

One of my brothers, after hearing of the bear-heart and caribou-liverwurst menu of one recent Wildwood evening, asked me if he could be me when he grew up. He's a fine cook in his own right (and married to another), but I can understand his angst: Bear and caribou and moose are likely in short supply at the local A&P or Acme. One of my cousins asked if she could open a Wildwood franchise in California, where she lives. Personally, I think that's an excellent idea. If there was more of the Wildwood ethos in the world, we'd all be a hell of a lot better off (in my Extremely Humble opinion). It would mean more thoughtless, knee-jerk kindness, more generosity, more laughing and playing, more self-sufficiency, more celebration after hard work, more consideration and open-heartedness and fellowship. It would mean more harmonious mixing of people who you'd think would have nothing in common, more driving people home or putting them up for the night if they've been too merry in their celebration that night. More music and gratitude and deliberately taking the high road. More acknowledgement of the deep and inexorable rhythms of the earth, more shaping one's life to fit peacefully in with the land and the seasons and the animals. It would mean more looking up at stars undimmed by city lights, more dark, gleaming eyes and silky warm fur pressed companionably to one's leg, more gently thumping tails. It would mean more marking of the cycles of life, be it with fire or feast, with fasting or with contemplation, with companionship and music or the deep quiet of solitude. Or, like at the harvest party, with some combination of the above.

There may be better ways of welcoming Autumn, but right at the moment, I can't think of any.

Hay Dude

So this morning - and a beautiful morning it was, too, sunny and warm, with a light breeze and deep blue skies - I went over to the farm in anticipation of the delivery of two absolutely enormous round bales for the sheep. As usual the dogs gave me an escort up the driveway to the house, thoughtfully announcing my arrival for Rae. Rae pops out and scolds them ("Don't you know her truck by now?!? She lives here!" - Well, yes, nearly.)

Rae is slightly at loose ends (well, as much as anyone is ever at loose ends on a farm), since half of Wildood is east, attending a quarter of Wildwood's college graduation (and you know I'm talking about you, girl!) By consequence Rae is in need of some help finishing the morning coffee.

"Got any milk to put in it?" I ask her, with an innocent grin. Rae gives me a disgusted look.

"Do I have any milk?" she repeats, in tones of incredulity. This is, realistically, a pretty stupid question; one of the goats is producing at least a couple of quarts a day, which Rae, all on her own, has no chance at going through without help. Even though she's freezing everything she milks at this point, there are still jars of the stuff in the fridge, as I discover when I poke my head in there. So many, in fact, that I'm not sure which one to use.

"Okay; just checking," I say, picking a likely-looking jar and helping myself. We make ourselves comfortable, looking out at the pretty day, and chat for a few minutes until the dogs announce the timely arrival of the Hay Dude. He has arrived promptly at noon after church, as promised, with his wife riding in the cab beside him and two gigantic round bales on his flat bed. We go on outside and meet the Hay Dude (a lean, compact and suntanned fellow who appears to be in his sixties and who bears a facial resemblance to a younger Gene Kelly - with whom he also shares a certain adept economy of motion, as I am soon to discover). He volunteers to drive the flat bed down the back hill to the sheep pens and offload there. Rae seems keen to use the tractor to move the bales, which I can understand: Using the tractor is one of the most fun things you can do on a farm. But our Hay Dude is quietly insistent, evidently concerned about safety issues, and prevails. He trundles his truck down the steep hill and backs it up parallel to the pens. There is a certain amount of clanking and rattling as the heavy chains holding he bales are released. The backmost bale is hanging nearly as much off the back of the bed as it is on the bed, but the Hay Dude ducks fearlessly underneath it to release the chain. Since this is not a Poe story, the bale does not fall on him and crush him. He clanks out from underneath the bale, dragging chains. From the cab his wife watches while he and Rae shove the bale and roll if off the bed, where it falls with a resounding thud and rolls a few feet. Rae climbs up on the flat bed and Hay Dude follows. They unchain the second bale and stand on the roof of the cab, heaving hard against the bale. Since I'd estimate their combined weight at about a quarter of that of the bale, they really have to put their backs into it. They rock it twice, three times, and it starts to roll. Rae jumps down onto the bed to push. Hay Dude braces one foot against the roof of the cab and the opposite knee hard into the bale, straining against its bulk. He is stretched out like a college hurdler going over the jumps, but just as he reaches what looks like the disaster point he hops agilely down onto the flat bed and keeps the momentum going. The second bale thumps heavily down next to the first.

There. That was easy. For me, anyway.

We go back on up the hill; the truck, in the way of diesels, belches a small cloud of exhaust. Walking behind the truck, I ask Rae, "Is it totally sick and wrong that I like the smell of diesel exhaust?"

"Yes, it is totally sick and wrong. And I like it, too," she tells me. I laugh; at least I have company in my sick wrongness. That's probably the best I can hope for, since I doubt I'll get over many of my quirks between now and death.

We re-emerge into the sunshine at the top of the hill, where I am going to write Hay Dude a check. He has quiet, smiling eyes, dark blue under brows like gull wings, white and graceful against his tanned skin. I whip out my checkbook, accidentally flinging a credit card to the ground.

"Oops," I say, retrieving it and blowing the grit off it. "Don't want to be throwing that around."

"I lost one of mine last week," he agreed. "I knew it was in the house, but I couldn't find it for the life of me. Turned up in the fridge." That makes me smile. "Do you milk the goats?" he asks me then in his quiet voice, having apparently inspected them as he drove by their pen.

"Yes; well, the owners do," I amend. "I just board my sheep here." He nods in a satisfied way. I think maybe this is a farmer thing: You like the animals for their own sakes, sure, but it's somehow viscerally satisfying to know that they are doing their part to drive the cycle of life. "So we said, what - three seventy? Three eighty?" I ask him; I've forgotten how much he wanted for delivery.

He frowns. "It can't be that much, can it?" he asks himself. "One seventy-five a bale, which is three fifty for the hay, plus delivery - yep, three seventy," he agrees. "Just make it for three sixty, though," he adds.

"You sure?" I ask him, and he nods firmly. "Okay, then," I tell him. I'm not sure why he's amended this; maybe some sense of chivalry? An older way of doing business, harking from a time when things were done on a handshake? Satisfaction that his hay is going to feed production stock? Just good old-fashioned decent farm guy-ness? Whatever it is, it seems to warm me slightly, along with his quiet, level-eyed cheer.

He takes the check and turns his truck around. Rae stops him; he has a lightweight step-stool on the bed, doubtless used to help him get the chains over the tops of the bales when he was tying them down. He's not much taller than I am, and the bales are about five feet thick. Rae has noticed that without the bales to wedge it behind, it's at risk for flying off in the breeze as soon as he hits the highway. She weights it down with chain and the Hay Dude gives her a nod of thanks and a wave as he trundles off into the gorgeous Alaskan day.

"Good eye," I tell Rae. She snorts.

"Girl, I've lost so much crap out of the back of my truck that way it's not even funny. I've learned my lesson. I need a break after pushing that hay around," she says. "Let's go sit on the deck in the sun and finish the coffee."

Well. That sounds just perfect to me.

We take the pot and a jar of goat milk out and settle into deck chairs. We chat about how we should position the bales; there are two pens, Trinity's and the main ewe pen, and since I don't want to keep buying separate hay for him, we try to figure out a way to set the bale up so that he can have access to it at the same time as the ewes. As we talk our neighborhood-resident eagle flies by, low enough that I can see his (her?) feet curled underneath him. Five minutes later one of the cranes circles just as low overhead. I can see its red crown, the places where feathers have dropped in molt from its wings. The crane soars in a wide oval above us, coasting; it drifts back down to the horse pens, then beats its wings to regain altitude and soar over us again. It makes a third pass, circling the opposite direction this time. It hangs its legs in its own slipstream, ruddering right, threading adroitly between a spruce-top and the crown of a birch tree. The spruce top passes just under its right wing, but the crane tips neither wing nor leg against its reaching branches and executes a neat turn around it, figure-eighting a glide back into the horse pens to rejoin the other cranes.

The cranes are allowed in the horse pens but not up on the lawn, because they like to kill and eat baby chickens. Unfortunately they tend to stick their long beaks through the chicken wire and grab the chicks by their heads and pull. Unable to get the entire chick back through the wire, they end up with just the head - and Wildwood ends up with a lot of decapitated baby chicks all dead in their pen. Kind of grim to come home to. This, not surprisingly, is Seriously Not Okay with Wildwood, so the dogs have been encouraged to run around and bark madly any time the cranes fly low over the lawn. They - and the cranes - have an understanding about this: In the horse pens, the cranes are welcome. On the lawn, near the chickens, they are not. This works well for the Wildwood crew - and evidently for the cranes, because they come back year after year, stalking elegantly around the horse pen, picking up stray bits of grain, hopping up and down, wings a-flutter, in their social displays. Flying overhead in pairs, crying their strange, compelling, warbling song to each other.

While the crane flies, we debate whether or not they're graceful on the wing. I think they are; Rae thinks they're not. It turns out that what I see as a peculiar grace strikes Rae more as just peculiar - and perhaps she's right. But I can't help it: When I see them, I think of grace.

For a while we talk of writing. Rae is herself a published author, and has plans for some books after the spring chores are lined out a little further. I talk about a work of fiction my agent has suggested I write, a story I started at her behest and in part from curiosity, but one which has caught my attention now. (And, sorry to say, distracted me from the blog and my other book. This is temporary, I assure you. And besides, I have no idea if this story is any good. It's in the hands of my proof-readers as we speak. They are tasked with telling me if it's crap or not: Not much point in continuing, if it it is.)

After the Wildwood Writer's Conference concludes, Rae fixes me with a stern look.

"I'm pretty sure that you left here last time without milk and eggs," she scolds me.

"Oops, sorry," I say, grinning. "Have to send me back for retraining."

"I should say," Rae agrees, gathering up the empty coffee pot and her cup. I take the milk and my own mug. I swap them for a dozen eggs and about one and a half quarts of fresh goat milk. Hmm. I'm not quite sure how being offered coffee has morphed into me taking home fresh eggs and milk, but there you are. It's a strange alchemy, but not an unusual one at Wildwood. I plan to randomly seed their kitchen with empty Ball canning jars and see what happens. It's not quite spontaneous generation; more like some kind of transformative magic involving benevolent elves.

So now I'm reawakening my blogging muscles, giving them a little stretch. After all, I have to limber up a little before I'll be ready to regale you with some of my less dignified visits to Wildwood of late.

We can't all be as self-possessed as the Hay Dude.

Ain’t Misbehaving

So last night was the Wild Women of Wildwood Farm Wine-tasting Festival 2010. It was all very nicely set up by S&R, who procured seven wines (three white and four red) for us to try. Rae had all the bottles shrouded in plain brown wrappers, marked with a letter designation. Susan made up little wine notes for us, listing the reds and whites separately. There were spaces for us to rank our favorites, make our personal wine-tasting notes, and indicate which wine we thought corresponded to which letter, and another space to print in which grape it ACTUALLY was, so that we could score ourselves – because there was going to be a quiz, and there was a prize for the winner. Each varietal represented was listed – in random order – with a description if available. In addition to all this, there were various snacks and savories – not to assuage our gluttony, but to cleanse the palate between tasting, I assure you. (Hey! Was that a skeptical look I just saw?!)

About an hour after I arrived, the various guests were assembled: all women, all congenial, all in a festive mood. We collected a few tasting glasses each, dutifully marking them A, B and C. As is sensible, the whites were first. Now, I'm not typically a white wine drinker; as a rule, I prefer the dry reds. I love the dry complexity and strong oaks and smokier, more sensual tones they offer. But hey – I'm always game for a challenge, a little education of my palate, a chance to try something new. The alcohol content has NOTHING to do with it. I swear.

Accordingly, we all parked ourselves and took a little tot of each wine: a pinos gris, a cardonnay, and a viognier (of which I had never before heard – but hoped I might identify by a process of elimination).

Now, I don't know about you, but I'm really quite the amateur when it comes to serious wine tasting. I know the basic steps – you know, tilt the glass, inspect the color, sample the bouquet both before and after swirling, take a wee sip (ditto), chew, inhale, all the usual jazz. Personally, I am too frugal to spit the wine, however, so I will unfortunately always be a complete amateur and a hopelessly gauche provincial with no sophistication whatsoever. Personally, I believe in a little taste of smoked salmon in between tastes, or maybe a sip of water or a Greek olive or a sliver of red bell pepper, to cleanse the palate. (See? I'm telling you: a complete rube.) In between noshing, raucous conversation with my fellow tasters and lots of laughter, I made my rankings and my guesses as to which wine was which. Then – and I swear this is only because I'm frugal – I finished all the remaining wine in my glasses while I waited for the tasting to finish so I could find out how truly I suck at determining which wine is which.

Amazingly – the more so given that I rarely drink whites - I scored three out of three. Huh. That was weird.

Next came the reds. Here I was pretty sure I had my work cut out: I like red wine, but while I have some favorite varietals, I'm really not very sophisticated about it, and I was fairly sure I would embarrass myself by really screwing this one up. This would be less embarrassing if I didn't actually make my own wine, which you would think would educate me a little (although I was fairly sure it had not.) Also, I figured that since I DO prefer the reds, I would like them all and therefore be harder pressed to choose between them. This in fact turned out to be the case. I had one very clear favorite, which I felt sure was the pinot noir – well, okay, I wasn't sure. I hoped it was, as pinots are one of my favorite varietals, and I thought it would be way too embarrassing if I got that one wrong. There were, however, some varietals I rarely drink (shiraz and malbec), and one that was new to me (a carmenere). Oh, well. Time to punt.

So, I sipped and I chewed and I inhaled and I squinted at the color. I giggled at the antics of some of my compatriots, and admired the combat photography technique of the woman sitting next to me: At various intervals she would extend her (very nice) camera above her head, aim it at the center of the action, and take a shot. Because it was a digital camera, she could immediately inspect the results and regroup for a better shot if needed. I milled about the delicacies on offer (two kinds of salmon, one kind of salmon dip, tangy home-made goat cheese, home-made duck sausage, some kind of rumaki-like creation, chips and guacamole, spicy devilled eggs on French bread, various kinds of really delectable olives, sliced bell peppers with some kind of tasty white dip, two different kinds of brownies – I can't recall what else.) Susan – a teacher – came around and inspected our tasting notes. Those who were spending too much time tasting and not enough time on their notes received - in red pen – a notation that they need to stay on-task. Those who had been more diligent got commendations. (I got "Good describing words".) Oooh. Now I'm all proud and stuff.

Eventually it was time for scoring. Yup, I did just as bad as I expected: one out of four. I WAS right on the pinot noir – thankfully proving I'm not a complete philistine and that while largely wasted, my 6 years of wine-making experience were at least not a total loss – but everything else I screwed up: The malbec I thought was the carmenere, the shiraz I thought was the malbec, and the carmenere I thought was the shiraz. Oh, well. At least I had enough taste to enjoy drinking them.

Now it's time for the overall scoring. Rae made everyone who got one right out of the seven put up their hand.

"Okay, how many got two right?" she asked. A few hands went down. "Three right?" Down go a few more hands. "Four right?" Just two hands left now, mine and one other. "Five right?" Both of us put our hands down.

"Ooh, a tie-breaker!" Susan exclaimed. She polled us all to find out which wine was the favorite; turns out I was in good company, as the one I personally ranked first was the overall favorite. "Okay," she said. "As the tie-breaking question, what is the percentage of alcohol content in the pinot noir?"

"Twelve percent," said my 'opponent' after a moment's consideration.

"Fourteen," I said without hesitation. I don't know why; it just popped into my head.

"Thirteen and a half," Susan replied. "You're closer."

Well, what do you know. I never win these things. Quite a shocker.

We divided up the winning present (it WAS a tie, after all); my opponent got a wine caddy (a tote internally divided into separate compartments so that you can carry six bottles at once); I got the game Wine-opoly, a variant of Monopoly. This looks like a riot, and also somewhat educational: there are wine quizzes on some of what would be the "community chest" cards, and the "deed" cards have information about different wines. Of course, how educational it really is may depend on how many glasses of wine you drink while playing the game. I'll let you know, at any rate: I have a feeling I'll be breaking this game in at Wildwood.

Just a guess.

Bawdville Act

Author's note: Okay. I'm apologizing for this post in advance. For any of you who are of a sensitive temperament, this is your warning that the following post is of a lowbrow and earthy nature, and may contain references to the sexual habits of various livestock. I'd try to be delicate about these things, but it's way too late for that. Maybe I could be more circumspect if I hadn't groomed racehorses for a living... nah. Probably not even then.

It's breeding time at Wildwood farm. This is the time of year we run the boys with the girls in hopes of initiating next year's crops of chops. Naturally, this always occasions a certain amount of ribald talk from the wild women of Wildwood. It's a pragmatic, earthy kind of business, running a farm - or being a vet, come to that. People who might in the ordinary course of things shy away from frank discussions of the sexual congress of sheep and goats suddenly find themselves quite absorbed with the subject, and eager to discuss it at length. After all, it's not coming as any surprise to any of us how next year's baby sheep and goats are being made, and none of the livestock are going to be offended if we're a bit indelicate about such matters. Of necessity we do need to converse about the ins and outs (so to speak) of who has been bred when, and what that means for next spring's lambing season. Speaking euphemistically takes too long and leaves room for misunderstanding, so we tend to just cut to the chase... apart from which, life is more fun if you have a sense of humor about these things, so we tend towards the bawdy in the fall.

However, if you're shy, maybe you should just skip this post. The tone isn't likely to improve, given the subject matter. I'm just saying.

I decided to get a marking harness for Trinity this year, to limit the amount of guessing necessary to bracket my lambing dates. S&R needed new crayons for their marking harness, too, so I ordered everything together. It arrived in due course - a day later than I wanted it to, unfortunately; we like to start breeding November first, and so S&R duly ran Trinity into the ewe pen that day, since it was not certain when exactly the marking harness and crayons would arrive and time was a-wasting.

The next day, a Monday, my box of goodies arrives at the clinic. I find it, open, on my desk chair. The office manager sees me looking into the box and says, "Sorry about opening that. There were four boxes on my desk, and I just cut them all open before I realized that one was yours. I didn't go through it or anything, " she adds, as if concerned she's invaded my privacy.

"That's okay," I tell her. "Although it would've been less embarrassing if it weren't sex toys," I add, frowning thoughtfully. I glance up in time to catch her look of pop-eyed astonishment. "For the sheep, I mean. Why are you looking at me like that? What did you think I meant?"

Luckily, Mary is getting used to me by now. Rather than being horrified, she eyes me speculatively.

"Have you been into the caffeine today?" she asks.

"Only a little," I say, with an innocent grin.

"Uh-huh," she says in tones of deep skepticism, while I do my best to smile angelically.

Later, during a lull in the appointment schedule, I decide to have a look at the harness. The one S&R has is black, composed of narrow nylon webbing, and doesn't look half as pretty as this one does. Mine is made of wider, thicker, halter-grade webbing, smooth and silky and bright blue. All its myriad rings and buckles are shiny with newness. Having only once used a marking harness - last year S&R used theirs on their buck, leaving Trinity without - I am not entirely familiar with the arrangement of all the straps. I take it out of the shipping bag so I can have a better look.

"What's that?" J asks me, happening by.

"Bondage equipment," I tell her. "For my ram," I add - because J is used to me too, and there's a small risk she'll take me literally.

J laughs. "What is it really?" she asks me.

"It is bondage equipment - kind of. It's a marking harness. I'm trying to figure out how it goes," I tell her, lining it out til I think I have it right. Fortunately I am certain that S&R can figure it out if I've made any mistakes. Meanwhile another tech walks by and also asks what that is I'm playing with. When I tell her it's bondage equipment, she just nods - without the slightest look of skepticism or astonishment, mind you - and walks off. I'm telling you. It's bad when people you work with aren't shocked to hear that you've ordered bondage equipment. Maybe I've been working here too long.

After work I go to Wildwood to drop of the harness and the crayons. R answers the door.

"Come on in," she tells me. "Want a glass of wine?"

"Umm... well, just one; I should go do chores before it gets too late," I say, kicking off my shoes.

"Look, she brought presents!" R says to S.

"Just the marking harness and crayons," I demur.

"Okay, good," S says. "Unfortunately we've just eaten dinner," she adds.

"Don't worry about it, I'm fine," I say. "A glass of wine will be plenty. It smells good, though, what was it?"

"Roasted kid, with Chinese spices," S tells me. R is fishing in the roasting pan and locates a chunk of meat, which she spears on a fork and hands to me. I taste it. It's delicious: exotic and slightly sweet with hints of cinnamon and mace and nutmeg. Mmm. Have to get me some of that Chinese seasoning.

"Well, we have exciting news," S tells me, gleeful. "Our new buck bred JoJo, and Trinity bred Jacinto today."

"You saw him?" I ask in some astonishment, since Trinity seems never to be seen breeding anything, although everything he's put to comes up pregnant.

"Yep," S reports. "We were feeding. Trinity's attitude toward breeding is to go over, do the job, and then immediately shove his way into the grain pans for something to eat."

"Nice," I say, ironically.

"Here's Jacinto's attitude toward breeding," S adds, leaning toward the counter and miming eating.

"Oh, that's nice. Doesn't even stop eating," I say in mock disgust. "Trinity is going to get a complex."

"I think we're fairly safe there," S says with a laugh. "It'd take a lot more than that to hurt his feelings this time of year."

Well, fair point there. Trinity is not easily offended. He's a methodical ram, systematically checking out his ewes and philosophically accepting any demurs as a hint that he would be better served to seek affection elsewhere. There are, after all, other ewes in the pen. If this one isn't ready, maybe that one over there will be.

As it happens - and here put on your surprised faces - one glass of wine turned into two. And then there was ice cream. And there was kind of a lot of laughing and some injudicious remarks about various things, followed by more laughing and escalations into even more injudicious remarks. And pretty soon it was 8:30 and I still hadn't done my chores. Which is how I found myself still doing dishes at what should have been bedtime.

I'm telling you. I'm giving up on sleep. Between days of howling winds banging around my house and being on call, I've barely had one good night's sleep in two weeks. So how on earth is it that I am doing dishes at midnight, when I should be sleeping? When it comes to beauty sleep, I need all the help I can get. I'll be lucky if I can cobble together an appearance for work tomorrow that doesn't frighten small children and cause adults to ask timidly if I've been feeling all right.

I blame Wildwood for this.

Going Around in Circles

So yesterday I had to take sheep feed out to the farm. I arrived there, limp and tired, after a crazy day at work. But somehow, time at the farm is like a little tiny vacation. I have only to step out of my truck and hear the thin, nasal bleating of the goats, underlain and punctuated by the deeper counterpoint of the sheep, and the coils of the day start to loosen and fall away. Suddenly my spine straitens just a little and I draw a deeper breath, and the shuttered prospect of my world opens up a little, giving a larger vista; a little perspective.

S and R are on the deck, leaning back in lounge chairs, basking in the Alaskan sun. I am immediately mobbed by their farm dogs - two adult Aussies and a Border collie pup, who is completely charming in the way of Border collie pups. An addict of the breed myself, I am of course enchanted by this one, and I pause for a minute to cuddle and pet her, admiring the way her ears have gone from silly to ridiculous. They have not decided which way they want to go - up, down, tipped, folded, sideways - and trade off frequently at this stage. Nothing could be cuter or more engaging, except for the rest of the puppy. She's a lovely thing, leggy and coltish right now, with a long slender head and an alert eye which misses nothing.

R comes around to be sure I've noticed they are out on the deck, and mentions that S is in need of another Mike's Hard Pomegranate, and hopes I'll help her by keeping her company. Well, all righty then. That sounds just peachy. R has a meeting, but makes sure we're well-supplied before taking off.

I make myself comfortable in a deck chair, opening my drink and feeling my shoulders loosen and my heart slow just a little. The dogs - the Wildwood three, plus Pepper - are nosing around on the deck. Pepper is inclined to stare intently at the parrot (out on the deck in its cage for a bit of sun and a change of scenery), but before long she has located a moose bone under the deck and takes charge of it. S and R have been on a horse-packing trip (with S's oldest daughter, up from college); the tack, tents and other gear, recently scrubbed, are basking on the deck with us, drying in the sun. I ask how the trip was.

"Amazing," says S, and tells me this story.

They went to a place called Horse Pasture Pass - which, although up a little in elevation, is (unsurprisingly) like a big horse pasture at the top of the pass. They had been seeing caribou here and there - little clumps, twos and threes - but in the pass, all of a sudden there are more like three hundred. The caribou come running towards them; the riders hold their mounts, who are alert and slightly tense, but not alarmed. The caribou veer around the riders, then circle them, flowing around them like the ox-bow of a river. The riders can hear the soft muffled thump of their hooves on the springy tundra, see the liquid gleam of their eyes, hear the soft snorting breaths of their effort, their grunting calls. The entire herd swirls about them counterclockwise, looping them almost completely before veering off to the right and continuing on their way, intent on caribou business that somehow has included a little roundup of a handful of women mounted on horses.

After this rather astonishing event, the riders continue on. There is a storm now ringing the meadow, low above their heads, with thunder rolling. But there is no lighting overhead, so rather than taking cover, they ride. When it begins to rain, it is with a vengeance. In seconds they are soaked to the skin, their rain gear failing, no match for the torrential downpour. It is like having someone empty bucket after bucket over their heads. They return to camp, where the nearby stream is swollen and rough with runoff; but they judge that it is low enough and far enough away that they elect not to move camp. They crawl into their tents, stripping out of wet clothes, every stitch drenched and sodden.

After perhaps an hour's rest, with the rain abated, Susan hears her daughter, C, and a companion stirring out of their tents. Suddenly there is swearing and cries of alarm. Everyone bails out of their tents; the stream has broken loose of its banks and is flooding; their campsite is now an island. A milk crate full of beers, secured in the shallows of the river for cooling, has broken loose of its moorings and is drifting down stream; other gear is in peril. The women start to scramble; only a small rivulet, almost narrow enough to step across, divides them from drier ground on one side. They start pitching gear across this, yanking up stakes and casting the tents across like fishing nets, gathering jumbles of gear and rescuing it from the waters. The ground, of course, is muddy, but they set camp again as the water starts to recede a little. Meanwhile one of the women goes out and starts picking up fish. Because fish are just laying there, startled and flopping, brought ashore by the flood and stranded by its retreat.

Well, if the waters cast you fish, you should not ignore the bounty.

So that night they feast upon grayling and trout, handed to them by the storm. One of the company has a fascination with fire (an easy thing to be fascinated with). Not content to merely stare at and tend the campfire, she has put her boots near it to dry. I gather that this sometimes pretty much takes the form of putting her boots IN it to dry, and has resulted in the untimely demise of more than one set of foot gear. But fascination is like that, drawing one back over and over to the source, coaxing one to play (in this case literally) with fire. With the not unexpected result that there are soon burns to contend with.

S, an accomplished outdoorswoman (and holder of a medical degree), suggests brewing a tea of cinquefoil to soothe the burns. This is quickly done, as cinquefoil is readily to hand, growing wild nearby. The burns are quickly (and successfully) treated with the astringent tea - but what to do with the rest of it?

Well, that should be obvious, think the assembled riders: We should all bathe our feet in it.

So, while R laughs and shakes her head at this silliness, the rest of the crew bathes their feet - one foot (or sometimes only part of one foot) at a time, as the pan is quite small. I don't know if it helped, but hey: It's not going to do any harm, so it's probably worth a try. I'd've done it, if only to say that I had.

Back on the deck at Wildwood with a cold drink in my hand, I am thinking in circles - the circling caribou, the stormy crown like a halo overhead, the encompassing flood ringing around their camp -and my mind circles back to camping trips and hikes of days gone by for me: Times I've been caught out in storms, places I slept under the stars, people I laughed with until I cried, for no real reason that I can remember - because what has remained with me was not the reason for our laughter, but the joy of it. I am smiling at S's story, picturing it, feeling for a moment the spring of the turfy ground under my feet, the grit of riverbank silt on my skin, the cold trickle of rain over my scalp after it has penetrated the thickets of my hair and made it down to flesh. I am thinking of my fantasy horse (and of the fantasy money which would allow me to support it), and of going on such a ride next summer....

Well. A girl can dream, can't she?

Springtime In Alaska

We might actually get one. Who can believe that?

Up to now I've been skeptical. It has been SO cold this spring - following an unusually cold winter and an unusually cold summer the year before (which was in fact so freakishly cold that I didn't even attempt to garden... not even sweet basil, which grows for me as if nuclear-powered, and for which I have many uses and much demand). The weather was just so chilly and unpleasant that I couldn't bring myself to make the slightest attempt; I love my sweet basil plants and I would've felt like I was torturing them, trying to get them to grow in that weather. Even arugula - which grows like a weed - would have been faint and timid in the chill. And attempting tomato plants would have been cruel and unusual punishment. At any rate, as a result of all this, I feel like I've had winter for about the last 19 months.

Mind you, I love my winters. But even I don't love them 12 months a year. I don't tolerate hot muggy weather very well (despite the fact that I used to make my living grooming racehorses on the east coast, where hot and muggy are de rigeur. Somehow I managed not just to tolerate that, but to tolerate it whilst doing a manual labor job 50 hours a week. Don't even ask me.) I spent most of my youth in Colorado, where the summers are often quite hot, although very rarely are they muggy even for a short period of time. I'm no longer accustomed even to that, however.... since moving to Alaska I've grown used to cooler summers. Nowadays, I (and many of my cohorts up here) have been known to whine and complain if the temperature approaches 80 degrees. My friends still in Colorado (when coaxing me to visit) are inclined to try to tempt me down by saying, "But it's a dry heat." To which I usually reply, "So's the inside of my oven, but you don't catch me wanting to spend the summer in there, either."

At any rate, you know it's bad when I, of all people, am craving some hot weather. But here I am, wishing it would pop up 30 degrees over night and stay there until fall. I assure you I never have such thoughts - but this year, I catch myself thinking this all the time. It's very strange.

However, this week there has been a wee glimmer of hope. All last week - and early this week - I had temps 20 to 25 degrees colder than normal at night (and only slightly less unseasonable in the daytime). But in the last few days - and I hesitate to mention this, lest I jinx it - the night time temps have been nearly normal. All afternoon I've been hearing loud thuds as the ice accumulated on my roof is finally starting to slide and fall. Yesterday afternoon, coming home from work, I drove with my window rolled down. The air had a round, fresh, balmy feel, tender and sweet as a ripe peach, as if we might in fact experience spring this year after all. In addition to which - and here I know you'll think I'm being rash - I am starting to hope that my lambs won't instantly flash-freeze as they are being born.

There's still snow on the ground, of course, but Sunday we rotated the ewes to their lambing pen, in which there is a nice barn for them to birth in. By "we" I really mean S&R, since I spent the wee hours of Sunday morning in the ER having a kidney stone, and S&R were pretty certain that I didn't need to be trying to help. Apparently the combination of exhaustion and a dilaudid hangover combined to make me sound truly alarming on the phone, so by the time I got over to Wildwood (after a nap), S&R had taken matters into their own hands and had already moved the ewes. It was rather dear, actually; I had brought over a large cooler to be modified for use as an insulated stock tank, which had necessitated me moving a dog crate from the bed to the cab of my truck temporarily. I would start to move the cooler or the dog crate and suddenly I'd be staring at my empty hands, thinking: "Wow, it just evaporated! How did THAT happen?" since S or R would have stepped in and quickly plucked the offending item from my grip, tsk-ing and telling me I didn't need to be doing THAT right now. They do take good care of me, I must say.... and at any rate, I was still too bemused by sleep deprivation and a faint narcotic echo to protest; by the time I could formulate any sort of demur, it was already too late: The job had been done.

So now I am looking forward with cautious optimism to the possibility of lambing in reasonable temperatures. The first calculated due date would be this coming Saturday, although normally you allow a fudge-factor of five days either direction, so it could be as early as NOW, or as late as next Thursday.

I used to feel like spring was here when I saw robins, or when the lilacs started to bloom. But any more, I feel like it's spring when the first lambs are on the ground, peering from behind their mothers' woolly flanks, gamboling about on their long cunning legs, shaking their little floppy ears, pronking about with the other lambs - of which, I sincerely hope, there will be many. The goats are due about the same time, so Wildwood will, if all goes well, be inundated with little four-legged babies starting in less than a week.

I love spring.

The Love Shack

Well, it's another sunny day here in the Greatland. Sunny means clear, and unfortunately, as it is November, clear means cold. Not too cold today - zero this morning, 20 or so now - but chilly, at any rate; enough that my truck wishes I'd remembered to plug in the block heater last night. Oh, well.

Things are seeming MOST cheerful and wonderous to me today. This is in part due to the sunny morning, and in part becuase the Purple Toes of Doom are now a little more like the Mostly Flesh-Colored Toes of Anyone Else, my 3X ankle is now down to a 1.5X version, AND I can flex it through its full range of motion. This is not a pain-free endeavor (particularly in the shin-ly area), but it's a lot more pleasant than it was even three days ago. My shin is still a nice mottley shade of grape, but the back of my calf is fading to a pretty rose-violet, and the top and sole of my foot are back to the usual color.

Regardless of all that, however, I'm pretty sure that at least 60% of my extreme cheer this morning is that I am WAY over-caffienated. I went over to Wildwood this morning with 150# of sheep feed, and this of course resulted in an hour or so of sitting on the deep, cushy leather couch, chatting in good company, with the sun streaming over my face and a mug of coffee steaming gently in my hands. A mug which was magically refilled at the halfway point by the good-hearted and ever-helpful YS. As I'm normally a tea and/or decaf sort of person, this has resulted in a sort of extra-happy zing to my behavior. I know I'm not the only one who acts this way with a random excess caffiene load. The other morning (for instance) Dave, the BF, came in to the clinic (he was dropping his dog off to me on his way to work; he's flying all over Asia this week.) Normally, in the interest of speed, he'd just pop Pepper into my truck and zoom on down the road, knowing I'd be out shortly to bring her in and set her up a cushy bed in one of the runs, but the other morning he came bouncing in, saying "Hi! Ooh, surgery, neat! I have to use your bathroom, I had a little too much coffee this morning! Hey, that's a cute dog! Is it getting its teeth cleaned? [short pause whilst sequestered in the bathroom] I left the seat up for the next guy, har har! Hey, is that one of the new vets? Nice to meet you! [pause while he kisses me] Okay, gotta go! I'll email from Asia!" My nurse, J, looking somewhat bemused, watched him go steaming out the door and then looked at me, a grin on her face. "Who put the coin in Dave?" she asked.

"Well, he is a bit lively this morning," I agreed, grinning back. But now here I am, in just the same state, so I'm not pointing fingers. Much.

At any rate, after taking on WAY more caffiene in 45 minutes than I normally would in a week, it was time to go inspect the goings-on in the sheep pens. Trinity the ram and Truffles the buck (now nick-named Horny and Stinky, respectively, by YS) have been in with their respective girls since yesterday afternoon. S has elected to put the marking harness on Truffles, because the minute all her does are bred she's going to castrate Truffles in hopes of sufficiently de-stenching him that A) you can draw a clear breath within 50 yards of his pen, and B) he can, eventually, be eaten. This means that we have to just observe Trinity to see if he's doing his Manly Duty by the ewes. (Yes, we could have gotten a second marking harness, but it didn't occur to any of us prior to running the girls in with the appropriate boys. Apart from which, Trinity is a proven sire, so we have less to wonder about with him.)

S and R and I walk down the hill to the sheep pens to see what's going on. Gigantor (who I plan to keep open this year, in view of her youth) is in with the goats. She seems reasonably content with this arrangement, despite the occasional speculative eye-roll from Truffles, and does not appear particularly offended by his aroma. (This, I will note, is somewhat damped down by the cold, but still quite distinct.) One of the does, Peanut, is dappled all over her fawn rump with red chalk from the marking crayon. She's also spotted here and there on her sides and legs, as it appears that Truffles is none too discriminating with his aim. She's beginning to get annoyed with him, and will make occasional feints with her horns at him (which he foolishly ignores, given that Peanut has already hooked him once in the groin, and he's still limping by consequence). If this threat doesn't work, she will trot over to a small framed-in wire cage (originally meant for moving pigs, I believe) and duck inside it, defending the low entrance with narrowed eye and menacing head-thrusts. This causes Truffles to stare at her longingly for a few minutes before shrugging off his heartbreak and going to insepct the other does, all of whom are evidently less sexy in his view - even the new doe, Jewels, an absolutely gorgeous Nubian. Her sides are a glossy black, pointed up with deep chestnut markings and emphasized with white dapplings on her head and ears. She is a big, substantial doe, and to my eyes quite beautiful, with an aristocratically arched nose and long, gracefully-lopped ears. Truffles, however, has eyes for no one but Peanut, despite her jabbing horns. Well, he would know more about what makes a doe sexy than I would - or care to. Perhaps Jewels will rise in his favor once Peanut is settled.

Trinity, meanwhile, had been romancing Mesquite all of yesterday afternoon, but this morning has developed a distinct yen for Olivia and Priscilla. Olivia walks haughtily away from his advances, but Priscilla can't decide if she's in love or not. She puts her tail up for him, and then down, or else holds it at an uncertain half-mast, twitching with indecision. When he sidles up to her and gives her a stiff-legged tap with his front leg - testing her interest and willingness - she sometimes walks away, and others turns rump-on to him for a moment before declining his advances. She is content to let him rest his head on her woolly back, but walks off if he tries to advance his suit. Trinity, for his part, is philosphical. He's done this before, and appears supremely confident that his moment will come. Last year he settled 100% of my ewes, so I trust in his - and their - judgement. I'm content for him to be conserving his energy until such time as the ewes are ready for him; he has twice the work to do this year than last, and there's no reason to get his metaphorical shorts in a bunch. No need to rush, he seems to be thinking: Eventually they will all succumb to my woolly charms. Beh-heh-heh-heh-heh! (Since, in the absence of human facial anatomy, "Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!" is hard to say.)

I don't know why, but there is something deeply relaxing about seeing all the goats and sheep together. The ewes are rounding up with wool and feed (this is the time of year we bump their food up, to encourage ovulation), and they have their shed to snuggle up in should it get cold. The does - thinner of coat - are less weather-resistant, but they have a snug, heat-lamped little barn to hide in if it gets too chilly. Neither of the males seems in the least interested in the weather, and it is perhaps this intentness of focus that is so calming to me. They are settled into their work, driving the circle of life, making sure that there are more sheep and goats coming in the spring.

S and R and I walk back up the hill. At the top of the path there is a post. I look at it thoughtfully.
"You should put a sign on this post, with an arrow pointing down, saying 'Love Canal'" I tell them, thinking that Truffles' smell and unfortunate caprine urinary habits might qualify as a metaphor for the pollution of the New York version of Love Canal. R chuckles.

"Love Shack," she counters.
"Love Grotto," I say, thinking of the secluded nature of the pens amongst their embracing woods. We have reached the chicken pens, which S is opening to allow the residents out into the sunny morning.

"Want some gloves?" she asks, pointing to a pair laying on the front step of the hen house. "They're free," she adds, with a sidelong look at me. This arouses my suspcions.
"I don't think so," I say doubtfully, alerted by her lurking smile. "What's wrong with them?"
"We used them to handle the goat yesterday and we forgot to put them in the wash with everything else we were wearing at the time," she tells me.
"Hmmm, no, that's okay, thanks anyway," I tell her, making gaging faces. We are moving to the next chicken pen, the one that also houses the peacocks. This one doubles as a greenhouse in the summer, and S lets the birds out by cracking a window. They pour out in a feathered stream, hopping onto the sill and then down into the pen in a steady procession. Ironically, the exodus is led by the peacocks, birds that originate in the sultry climes of southern Asia - yet they seem perfectly thrilled to go out into the paltry twelve degrees Fareheit that the morning had to offer at that hour. The chickens don't hesitate to follow. Some of these are chickens of S's own carefully-considered breeding program, and I am amazed to see how big they've gotten. They are particularly beautiful, with gorgeous feather patterns in rich colors, some with deep red combs, some with feathers so glossy and iridescent in the sun that they mesmerize the eye. Here too I am calmed by the abundance of the birds, their industrious inspection of the frost-blighted remains of the garden, their bright-eyed energy as they strut and peck amongst the sere remnants of the summer's harvest.

Hmm. Maybe there's something about farms; or maybe there's something about THIS farm. Either way, it's somehow viscerally satisfying to see all the animals going about their buisness in their robust good health and single-minded focus on the work at hand.

S emerges from the bird pen with a handful of eggs. We mosey back toward my truck, conveniently parked near the garage where the grain is stored. I should stop dawdling and unload the sheep feed, I figure, with some reluctance, still wallowing in the peacful satisfaction of animals. However... I have laundry to do (amongst other chores) and I know the inhabitants of Wildwood do as well. But at my truck, I discover that YS has been there before me and my 1.5 hundredweight of grain is already stored away. That's it, then: nothing for me to do but finish my coffee (which I discover has again been mysteriously topped up) and take my leave.

So now I'm back at my own house, dogs napping in the sun. Laundry is chugging away in my washer and I'm contemplating errands and chores with such goodwill that it's something akin to delight. Not sure if that's the delerious intoxication of caffiene combined with sun - or if it's the lingering, visceral peace of watching the animals at Wildwood, and the anticipatiry glee of knowing that there are Goings-On happening there, Goings-On which will (if all goes well) result in a crop of bouncing baby lambs (and even bouncier baby goats) come spring. On balance - as the caffiene is starting to level out - I think my cheer is due to the Love Shack, a little old place where sheep can get together, Love Shack, Love Shack ---> baaaaybeeees.....

A Fool's Progress

So today was sheep chore day. This is something that really should not be attempted without a working stock dog, but mine is in training just now in North Carolina, so I'll have to do it the fool's way - without a dog.

First I went to Wildwood, to meet up with S and R, who have a stock trailer that we'll use to go get the last two ewes. R greets me with a cheery smile.

"Want to come see our new goats?" she asks. The answer to this is Yes, I really DO want to, since they've just that morning gotten a new doe and a buck. Now, I've been hearing for months how truly stinky the bucks are. At different times, both Dr. P and Dr. J have independently regaled me with the story of how they went one day to a farm to castrate a boar. A six hundred POUND boar, mind you, an enormous smelly kind of beast, who was kept in a barn (which does tend to concentrate the fumes.) There was also a buck in the barn. Both Dr. P and Dr. J - each without the other there to put words in their mouths, nor to egg each other on - told me that the smell actually burned their eyes. Literally an eye-watering stench. They also both said that the goat smelled so bad you couldn't even tell there was a hog in the barn, even if he was 600 pounds.

Anyway, at Wildwood we go on down to the pens. I can see the buck, but I don't smell a thing. Oh, wait a minute. I DO smell something, and I'm still 30 or so feet from the pen. Upwind, I might add. Urk. He does kind of stink. He smells like some kind of really rank, stinky cheese that has gone off - so not only is it even stinkier, but it's a really revolting sort of stink. And there's also an undertone of something else, maybe slightly sewer-like, or perhaps.... well, it defies description. Oh, well. He won't be around long (just long enough to breed the does), so I figure it's not really THAT bad a thing to deal with.

We climb back up the hill and S and I load up to pick up the last two sheep I'm adding to my flock for the winter. These are two moorits, so now, quite by accident, I have two of each of the colors I own: two moorit, two silver, two black, two white. The white are Trinity, the ram, and Gigantor, this year's ewe lamb. The moorit are Chanel and Olivia. The two black are Jacinto and Mesquite. The silver are Priscilla and (unimaginatively, perhaps) Silver.

I will defend the choice of "Silver" a little, though it's akin to naming a black dog "Blackie". I decided to name the three dog-broke ewes after towns in Nevada (in honor of the person I bought them from). Mesquite is near the Utah border, and perhaps not an inappropriate name for a ewe that's black as charcoal. San Jacinto is the name of one of my all-time favorite Peter Gabriel songs, so I named my favorite black ewe that (favorite because she's calm and pleasant, and is missing a little sliver off the edge of her right ear, which for some reason I find endearing.) Silver is for Silver City, which may not be creative but it'll be easy to pick out who I'm talking about (in part because Priscilla is a dark sooty grey, and Silver is really - well, silver.) But I digress.

S and I drive to the farm where my last two ewes await. The owner gathers the ewes up in a pen, and I help her and her son hoik them over the fence. The new ewes don't want to go into the trailer. They try to lay down at the threshold, folding their knees and trying to wedge them under the back of the trailer (or maybe that was just coincidental), requiring us to lift them up into the back. Once there, they're highly motivated to escape, and squirming yourself out the gate whilst leaving the ewe in the trailer isn't as easy as it sounds. These ewes are fast and a little wild, and extremely opportunistic. They're also fairly small, being Shetlands, so they don't need much of a gap to get out of the trailer, and once they hit escape velocity, they're not easy to hold onto. But the trailer is divided, so we use the partition to hold one ewe secure while we wrestle the other.

Loaded up, we trundle on back to Wildwood. Here's where it gets interesting. It's snowed recently, and the driveways are a bit slippery. I'm going to have to walk my ewes down the hill to the pen (S not wanting to take the heavy trailer backwards down the steep hill, and I can't really blame her.) I have Dave's partly-trained stock dog with me, but these sheep are not dog-broke in the slightest degree, and I can just picture them rocketing off in opposite directions into the woods, never to be seen again. It seems wiser to have them under some control, and we have a little stock halter. They won't lead, precisely -they're no more trained for that than they are dog-broke - but with a person in front and one behind we can pull and shove them down the hill. Probably. In my mind I'm picturing the ewe darting forward, slamming into my knees from behind, running over my prostrate form and then - if I haven't managed to drop the lead - dragging me on my face down the hill.

I'm SO looking forward to this.

As I contemplate my fate, I pause. What's that smell?

Oh, yeah. The buck. Now that the light breeze has died, it becomes apparent that his powers of stench are vastly superior to anything I have imagined them to be. In the time our trip took, I have forgotten the exact aroma, and moreover, I have seriously underestimated his ability to Make His Presence Known. The very air seems faintly sludgy with his rotten-cheese scent. No wonder S and R are eager to have him move along... or else to castrate him, once he has put his testicles to the use which God intended.

Oh, well. At least it's taken my mind off of my imminent demise: Death by sheep.

I manage to get the halter on the first ewe, Olivia. Olivia is strong and canny, and a willful wee bitch, and makes several attempts to escape during this maneuver. She is thwarted by the fact that I have a death-grip on her wool. We quickly apply a topical wormer while I hold her against the side of the trailer, and then we open the gate and point her outwards. Naturally, as soon as the halter is on, the very LAST thing she wants is to leave the trailer, but we shove her out unceremoniously, slipping on the thin ice on the drive. I find a patch of exposed gravel lickety-split and dig in while we adjust the halter, which is showing an inclination to slip off over her right ear. Now we make a halting, lurch-and-stop sort of progress down the hill, me on the lead rope, S's daughter YS pushing from behind, and S (who has injured her back and should probably be lying down) coming along to operate the gates.

We manage to get Olivia into the pen without either choking her to death by accident, hyper extending any joints, falling down or letting go. We release her into the pen, where she immediately joins the other sheep, seeking comfort. Back up the hill. Next is Chanel, who is calmer, and once caught, less inclined to try to rocket away. She is, unfortunately, less inclined to move at all, and in self defense we try using Pepper to see if she'll push Chanel forward. But Pepper wants to head her, not drive from behind, which isn't really helping us (unless we intend to walk her backwards the entire way). About this time R comes to the rescue, roaring up on her six-wheeler, and we heave Chanel into the bed, where YS holds Chanel balanced up on her woolly rump, all four legs pointing uselessly out, thwarting escape attempts. Resistance is futile, little sheep. You are becoming a member of the hive. Er, flock.

Well, that wasn't too bad. However. Now we have to worm the rest of the sheep. This means we have to catch the rest of the sheep. I did mention something about March hares, didn't I?

We have a strategy based on the combination of greed, guile and Pepper. We have food, and the dog broke sheep are (relatively) easily caught and wormed. That just leaves us Priscilla and Giagantor in the ewe pen. Unfortunately, there are five other ewes and four does in the pen, and they all want to split up and go different directions. YS and Pepper and I start quartering the pen, pushing Priscilla into the small enclosed area. She escapes at least twice, but we finally get her (and about 6 other animals) into the enclosure. Priscilla has been there before, however, and she makes a running start from the back of it, knocking other animals aside like tenpins. I run to the exit (this hasn't been that easy, and if she gets loose it'll be that much harder) and make a dive. At the same moment, Priscilla, now going approximately fast enough to escape the atmosphere of the earth, tucks her head into ramming position and puts on a last burst of speed. I grab wool just about the same instant as her skull makes contact with my shin. That pretty much drops me on the spot - but it drops me on Priscilla, and I don't let go.

"Son of a bitch!" I exclaim. "MAN, that hurts!" [Here I should perhaps point out that, having groomed race horses for several years - not to mention having hung out with pilots for a lot more years - I have a mouth on me that would make a longshoreman blush. Mostly, I keep it in check, but every once in a while you really need a good, pithy curse to vent your feelings. "Oh, golly!" wasn't going to cut it.]

"I know," says S, applying our topical wormer as quickly as possible. "It's amazing how much they can hurt you, isn't it? I got kicked in the shin by a sheep one year - and that doesn't sound like anything, does it, just a little kick from a sheep. They're not that big. It hurt for a year." She finishes with the wormer and I let go of Priscilla, who hops up and canters jauntily away. Me? It's two minutes before I can stand.

I go limping out to help corral the last of our ewes, little Gigantor. (Okay, she was giant as a lamb, but she's not even a year old, so she's littler than the other ewes.) Several times we have her trying to go into the protection of the enclosure, only to have Peanut - one of the does, with a pert little set of parallel horns sticking strait up on the top of her head like antennae - drop her head and make menacing thrusts with her horns, convincing Gigantor to pass the opening of the enclosure and race perilously by me. At last we manage to scoot her on in there - with almost everyone else. YS - an intrepid lass - wades in amongst the animals, trying to strategically place herself to corner and catch Gigantor. She's doing a good job, too, but at the last second Gigantor makes a quick feint to the right and YS's fingers just miss a grip on her. Luckily, other animals block her from veering left again and I manage to dart in and field her neatly, just as she's making a leap to clear the goat blockade. Once caught, she gives in with good grace and we worm and release her.

Phew. That's all the girls done. Now it's just Trinity. He, however, is a piece of cake. He's as greedy as they come, and he trots right up to YS when she arrives with a bit of grain. He's also conveniently equipped with handles - two large, beautifully curved handles - and once we have his horns in hand he stands placidly while we worm him. I don't trust him this time of year - he's a bit of a bastard lately, and his testes are about twice the size they were a month ago, hanging like a large woolly persimmon, impressively large and low now that they're reawakened to their mission, with the fall rut - so I make sure everyone is behind him before I let go. He ignores us all completely and walks calmly over to eat his dinner.

We walk past the buck, Truffles, to go back up the hill. The air seems thick and unbreathable with his rank scent. S tells me he started urinating on his face immediately on arrival (this is a normal, if completely disgusting, behavior), and described him choking while he was doing it. I theorized it was from the smell, but S disabuses me of this notion, because he was urinating up his own nostrils.

I am SO glad I am not a goat. But evidently the does are enchanted by him, pointing their noses skyward to catch his scent (as if they could miss it), flipping their upper lips backwards the better to funnel his stench - I means, his aroma - into their nostrils. I think I'll take my sheep, thanks. Even in rut Trinity doesn't stink, and he's never urinated up his own nose.

So now I am home, ice packing a rather spectacular bruise (which I dread to look at tomorrow). I have a probably-related cramp in that calf, and my hands smell faintly, and not unpleasantly, of sheep. However, everyone is wormed and de-loused, I have 30 bales of hay in the shed, I did not have to toboggan down the hill face-first at the end of a shank with sheep heels flying inches from my eyes, and all is more or less right with the world. However, even though I didn't actually touch the buck, my clothes smell faintly of rotting cheese, and something else I can't quite describe. I'm almost afraid to wash them with any other clothes, lest they all come out smelling like that.

Oh, well. I think I'll go make some tea with honey and whiskey in it - strictly for medicinal purposes, you understand. But meanwhile.... what is that smell?

Swan Song

Snowing this morning.

Autumn is starting to fade, yielding her throne to winter, a slow graceful bit at a time. The leaves are mostly down now - which has the paradoxical effect of making the days brighter, since the light is no longer muted by foliage.

It's been warm for October. Last night I was at the annual Harvest Party held at my neighbors' farm, Wildwood (where I keep my sheep). As always, there was a varied buffet (barbecued pork, smoked salmon, roasted kid, kim chee, roasted squash, carrot soup, stuffed grape leaves, baked potatoes, wine, home-brewed beer, raspberry shrub, ice cream, cobbler - it goes on). There was also, as always, an excellent bonfire, made of dead-fall from the last year, blazing cheerfully, flinging spirals of sparks skyward, crackling and rich with the scent of burning spruce. It was an overcast evening, starless, but with a molten silver lake where the moon, just off full, lurked above the clouds. Even though it was about 40 degrees, I will say that eventually the heat of the bonfire was welcome; luxurious even, as the chill of deep night came on and a light thin breeze came up, sharp-edged enough to make me huddle up to the heat radiating from the embers. But it wasn't until late that it was needed, and when I left there (at 1:30 in the morning, redolent of the incense of fire) it still wasn't really what I'd call cold. Today when I got up it was raining, and though it's chilled down enough to fall now as snow, it isn't serious, here-to-stay snow. This will be gone by tomorrow afternoon, but for now it frosts the branches of the trees and muffles sound, making the very air somehow more intimate than before; somehow personal.

The first snow of the season fell a few days ago and, as I expect this one will, melted off a day later. The lakes are still open, the water growing chill and slatey under the grey skies, but still harboring the water birds for a few more days, offering them the last of the year's bounty before they fly.

One of the pleasures of living here, in a neighborhood riddled with lakes and marshes, is the water birds. I love the sound of the cranes as they fly by in pairs, eye-level to me on my balcony, their long necks undulating with their measured, powerful wing strokes, their slender elegant legs trailing in their own slipstream as they wing over the lake, calling to each other. I love the fast, powerful flight of the ducks, short-winged and sturdy as they rocket past my windows. I love the wheeling dips and dives of the Bonaparte's gulls and the terns. This year for the first time I had a kingfisher on my lake, a vivid, electric midnight blue as it perched, scanning for fish; then making hard, slapping dives into the water. That was exciting. But maybe best of all are the swans.

Every year, twice a year, the swans visit my lake during their migrations, north in the spring and then south again in the fall. I think it's the same pair (and their descendants), over and over, though of course I can't be sure. Some years they come down from the north with three or four or five cygnets; other years they have one or two or none. They circulate over several of the lakes around here, searching out the last of the food, visiting the houses where they know they are likely to find snacks in the offing.

There were five swans this year, some obviously still in the fading ash-grey plumage of youth. I didn't get a good opportunity to photograph them this year - I always saw them when I was on my way somewhere and didn't have 20 minutes to spare - but Dave had a better shot. He heard the swans calling to each other on the lake, dropped what he was doing and grabbed his camera and the end of a loaf of bread, and scooted on out to the shore.

Amongst other things, Dave is an excellent mimic, and he can call the swans in by honking to them in an echo of their own voices. The swans always come when he calls to them.


As beautiful and graceful as they are, swans are powerful birds, and pretty bold with it. They know their strength, and are not especially reticent around people. This is partly habituation - they know that, on the residential lakes, no one will try to catch and eat them, and some people will give them food - but it's partly that they aren't especially afraid of the dogs and people on the shore because they know that they can take most dogs, and can escape most people. They have a long migration ahead of them, and if someone offers them a few extra calories against the effort ahead, they aren't especially averse to venturing on-shore for them.


Pepper, of course, cannot resist the swans. She is too well-bred as a stock dog to chase or harass them, but she can't resist going down and staring at them, creeping along dock or shore to flank them, laying down to fix them in the force of her Eye. Unlike the JRT belonging to one of Dave's neighbors - who, like most of his kind, is absolutely convinced that he's tough enough to take on a rhinoceros, let alone a few birds - Pepper never dives in and swims out, trying to take on the swans in their own milieu (a fairly suicidal move, as the JRT discovered when they started pecking him in the head and pushing him under water. Naturally, this didn't really deter him much, but the combined efforts of his owners yelling for him to come back, plus the swans forcefully expressing their displeasure at his invasion, eventually got him back on shore.) Pepper will not go after them.... but she can't help watching them, intent, ready for action, honed to a sharp point of focus.

The swans have gone on now, to their southern environs. They'll be back in the spring, but for the moment they have departed on the trailing hem of autumn, leaving behind the rising breast of winter... and the echo of their song.