Sylvia's Farm

by Sylvia Jorrin

  There are two and a half other ways to go down there. One involves no stairs, except ones from my kitchen to the basement. It does, however, involve several doors inside the house, one farm gate copying an English one, first built in the sixteenth century, a long slope, and a door leading directly into the barn. The system is on the north side of the house. There is very little between my house and the North Pole on that side. One could say there is nothing between my house and the North Pole except the curvature of the earth. It is all covered with ice now. My water line runs there as well, of course.

  The other way to go down there takes me down my steep porch steps, around the carriage house on the south side, down a gradual slope beneath massive pine trees, and down only one flight of icy stone stairs to the barnyard and the barn. The half bypasses the tiny garden gate and the icy stone stairs and uses, instead, a twelve-foot farm gate I had copied from a book written in 1884; it crosses the barnyard diagonally, only to lead me to the former milk house, now lambing room. It is the longest way into the barn when one is carrying things.

  There is a third way, as well, to go down there. It entails going up. The main door to my barn is directly behind the back door to my house. In a straight line, it is about one hundred feet away. But it opens beyond the barn bridgeway, which is an uphill slope. The doors are massive. And heavy. They used to blow open with mighty crashes. And equally mighty regularity. They don’t anymore. After seven years of “farming it,” I found, in an old book, a way to build an ingenious lever system that traditionally held such doors in perfect accord. And shut.

  I love going through those doors, and I love working the huge lever. But I use them as a last resort. Hay blocks the entrance to them at the moment. Even worse, some straw, now frozen under a hole in the roof, blocks the stairs down to the mow that leads to the ladder to the barn. I have to sit on the rounded pile of icy straw and slide toward the opening to the stairwell, hoping that one foot, at least, will hit the top stairs and that I will not fall down the whole flight.

  This method doesn’t work very well while carrying stainless steel milk pails filled with warm water for the new cow. When the barn bridgeway is covered with a sheet of ice, there is a twenty-foot drop on either side.

  And so, tonight, I climbed down the ladder from the dark haymow. The snow blew in where the battens had fallen off. The wind howled, carrying the edge of fear in its wake into the soft lights of the barn’s night. With faces looking up at me as I came down. The wooden shutters Art Hilton so skillfully made, kept all sounds of wind and fear from entering, and a great deal of the cold as well. I took off my hat and jacket and hung them on a tree twig coat hook. And walked throughout the barn, looking for signs of newly born lambs. A tiny little tin horn sound came from the north wall. The familiar announcement of a most recent arrival. I approached slowly. Any sudden movement could startle a sheep and that in itself could cause her to abandon her lamb.

  There in a dark and cold corner were two lambs, huddled together in a small pile. Their dam had left them. The orange coating on the body of the bigger one told me she had had a very hard time delivering those two and wanted to have nothing more to do with them. Ever again.

  Suddenly, there was another tin horn sound coming from beneath the hay chute. Cold air was whistling down on a very small lamb, it legs still partially encased in its placenta. I rubbed it down with a feed sack and some straw, trying to encourage it to stand. It wouldn’t.

  The twins continued to call out to the mother who had so abruptly abandoned them. Their voices were weaker. I put all three in the feed sack, slung it over my shoulder, and made my way up the ladder to the midlevel of the barn. Its door would lead me to the shortest way to the house. I got as far as a set of stone stairs. They were too icy to climb with the sack of lambs in my arms and no handhold. I circled behind the carriage house. It, too, was surrounded by ice. I once again slung the sack containing three very wet, very cold newborns over my shoulder, got down on my hands and knees, and, one hand holding the bailing twine tying it closed, crawled to the stairs of my front porch. They, too, are of stone, but there are only three of them. I got us all into the living room and shook the contents of the sack on to the floor in front of the fire. All three wet, cold lambs were still alive. We had made it.

  DAYS OF GRACE

  JUNE HAS arrived. It is both a gift and an obligation. While it is the sixth month, and the year cries out it is half over, in fact there are thirty more days to the halfway mark, a grace period, in more ways than one.

  Spring did not really happen until yesterday, the last day of May. Warm breezes, sunny skies, mixed with haze. In a matter of the space between late morning and midafternoon, the lilacs in some friends’ yards burst into bloom, filling the air with their astonishing sweetness. For a few moments this morning, I thought the year was half over, and it could have no hope of a redemption. All that had been left undone this year presented itself with a burden of guilt that was too much to bear. I like my house well scrubbed, spring cleaning done before the spring is even halfway through and the winter’s debris and clutter gone from my mind and house. A tall order for one person. These past few months were more difficult than I had expected. While I thought I’d make a quick and easy adjustment after the five years I spent at a full-time job in addition to the farm, I didn’t. And that in itself became disheartening.

  The end of May is the first time in months that life seems possible again. That is, possible if I get up a little earlier, walk a little faster, write a little clearer, pick up scrap wood and kindling from the ground every time I pass some, take off my shoes every time I enter the house, put the laundry away immediately as it leaves the dryer, trim two, no three, no four, well, maybe six sheep’s hooves a day, enjoy the day the Lord has made, and in all other ways, become perfect.

  But there is indeed a grace period, before time becomes closer to winter once again. There are about thirty days to get ready to try and beat it. I have some theories about beating it that bear testing out. I have nothing to lose and everything to gain. One of the theories entails getting ready for it now. Today. Every day do something that will make next winter all that it could be. Put away small sums of money, for example, to not be in want. Gather pinecones for starting fires. Bring in the wood for my bedroom stove. Quilt some fabric for drapes. Plant lots of tomatoes for sauce to capture summer for my winter table. As easy as it sounds to me simply to make a list and cross items off, the days get swept away with all the requirements of running this kind of house and trying to bring prosperity to the farm. The task at hand is to remember that list and be certain to accomplish something on it each day.

  Goslings are about to arrive on this farm. They’ve been ordered from Stamford Agway Farmer’s Co-op. Pastured Geese are the last business here at Greenleaf. Now that the “Pastured Poultry” chickens are beginning to behave properly and lay eggs (they wouldn’t until I changed their nesting material from second cutting to straw), I’m on to “Pastured Geese.”

  The chickens live in a pretty spectacular movable chicken coop out on the field and have actually put on a little weight as well as deciding to lay again. The theory is that in their movable house, they eat grubs, bugs, and grass in addition to grain, mash, and oyster shells, and fertilize the soil at the same time. While Pastured Poultry are reputed to eat less grain, mine are eating as much, if not more; they are healthier, lay better eggs, and reputedly taste as good as free-range chickens do in the fall, should you not want to winter them over. Some of mine have been in the portable coop for almost two weeks. They seem to have adjusted well.

  I must say, while the eggs are as delicious as they were when the chickens were free-range, the chickens themselves look a lot better. Their view of the farm is different each day. Their diet varies according to every new positioning of the coop. The ground from which they are moved looks awful, but I’ve been assured that their droppings will do wonders to the acidy strawberry-covered patches that they have covered. Somehow, I b
elieve it will work. Next shall come the goslings. As fond as I am of pâté, I love a Christmas goose even more. But this enterprise has a bit more going for it than that. Symbols have a way of enduring in one’s life, sometimes hovering in the back of one’s consciousness for a long time before seeing daylight and opportunity to become a reality rather than an idea. The second cookbook I owned as a young bride, recently married to an Air Force man and drafted into the role of cooking for him and his Air Force buddies, was Elizabeth David’s French Country Cooking. It was an ideal book for a novice cook with three hungry young men at the table most evenings, because French food or, rather, French country food is highly flavored and very, very cheap to prepare. I won’t mention how long it takes to create those recipes, however.

  One of the dishes that became a standard in my repertoire was a Cassoulet de Castelnaudary. In it was something called confit, goose preserved in its own fat. Meats have been preserved that way for centuries. I couldn’t find confit in any store, however, locating it attained monumental symbolic status in my mind. If I had a crockery jar of confit, I would be a real cook!

  Hence, the imminent arrival of a respectable number of goslings. Oh, not all are for this winter’s larder. Some shall go to New York to Dean and Deluca, a store that is interested in having both livers and confit. Some shall become gifts for the family. And one shall fill a stone crock in my larder next to the metal bread box and the bottles of elderflower vinegar.

  One of the nicest things about having the chickens outside is that they bring me out into a field I don’t frequent much. I pretend that I go to check on water or mash or grain. And they do have to be moved. But it really is to look at them. I get to see the brook and the apple trees in bloom and look at the new fence, still intent on being built, and in other ways be grateful for the day.

  The goslings shall add still another dimension to the dream that is Greenleaf. Should the weather ever improve with any consistency, I shall have them out on the pasture as well, in a large movable coop. My daughter will research what to feed them to fatten their livers. And we shall have our own pâté as well as some to sell.

  In today’s mail shall go the first installment of cash for my dear brother to use when buying me some books for the next winter. The fabric for covers for the pillows in the library is being washed in the basement as I write. But there must be still another dimension to this day of grace. Winter skies will come soon enough. Each task done needs bring its own joy. And the day requires being lived well without fear of tomorrow. It is in gathering the beauty of each individual moment that one, in truth, gains strength for what the future holds. June. Days of grace.

  THE STORY OF THE BARN

  THE SUNSET last evening held every variation of color and form that I have ever seen in a July sky. Feathers and stripes, combs and tails leading to nowhere conspired with the light to become all of the July evenings of my life, New England, New York City, and Central New York all in one dramatic display. Colors ranged with names such as hyacinth and cornflower and steel gray and purple, each touching the cloud formation in a way unique and glorious.

  The sheep were well onto my neighbor Tom Connelly’s second hill when I came down the back porch stairs into the evening. I sent Steele and Samantha out after them, all the while calling out to them. “Cahm ahn, cahm ahn.” On command, the sheep turned on a dime and went rushing back home through the pink gate. Steele and Samantha didn’t pick up fast enough and so were not behind them to drive them in. But I was glad of it. I wanted to watch them, graceful, single file. The flock slowed down before the bridge and proceeded to cross it with decorum born of necessity and good sense.

  I was standing by the great main gate to my June grass meadow, hoping to guide them to the pasture of my choice. The geese, all twenty-seven of them, followed.

  June grass is a most beautiful color of rosy quince at this time of year. The field is covered with it, wild strawberries and clover beneath its canopy. The sheep’s fleeces assumed a rose cast. They followed me as I led them to the center of the pasture and sat on a blue-gray lichen-covered rock. Some came close, surrounding me, others wandered off. I sat for a while watching the sky, the sheep, and the ripples made in the rose-colored June grass.

  A day or two before, the haymow of my barn collapsed. It was filled with a winter’s worth of food for the sheep. A beam broke and 1,850 bales of hay crashed down upon the sheep. All ninety-one of them, blocking their exits along with the goats and two of the cows, were caught underneath, trapped by broken beams and floorboards, bales of hay and shards of wood.

  A series of incidents, small and large, had compromised the barn and all who lived within it. A gate placed in order to keep them from danger had trapped them. A gate placed to keep them out had let them in. With the exception of Lady Francesca Cavendish, all of my livestock was trapped inside. It was she alone who remained outside of the barn.

  I came home on Friday from a trip to the village only to find hundreds of bales of hay spilling out onto the barnyard. The front wall of the barn was missing two thirds of its face.

  I ran around to the north side door and went in. There were five sheep trapped in a corner. And the floor of the mow was down. All I could see was hay, beams, and broken wood. And those five sheep. Staring. The barn swallows were silent. There was not a sound. All was absolutely still. I was certain all the rest of them were dead. Two or three, in my now hazy memory of what I saw, seemed to be in the aisle, but I am no longer certain. There was no possible hope that I could free the five trapped by beams and a collapsed wall by myself.

  I ran to the house and called everyone I could think of up and down the creek. I never told anyone who I was. I simply shouted, “Please come if you can. My mow collapsed with 1,850 bales of hay in it. My flock is trapped inside,” and hung up the phone. I called the Sheriff’s Office, which called the Fire Department, and the great whistle went off in Delhi. What happened next is housed in my mind like images on a Polaroid, fading in and fading out, and in the sounds of men’s voices. A laughing one saying where is everybody. A worried one saying this is dangerous. Colors and blurred edges. Sounds. Voices. And the sight of the first sheep coming out. I called them by their own names and by sweet names. And they kept coming out, but not enough of them. I ran to the south side. The firemen had pulled out bales from a corner that had few intact boards remaining. They made a tunnel from which more came on through. I ran back to the north side. More sheep kept coming out. Some stayed close to me, looking deep into my face. Others went to the corn that was on the ground. I heard someone say they’re all out. My knees went out from under me. I held on to the door and started to slide down it. I don’t want to faint when the Fire Department is here, I thought, and let myself down slowly, grateful no one was around at that moment to see me. I had been so terribly frightened.

  People left more quietly than they came. I barely had time to reach out and thank them. Before I had turned around, several others had slipped away. And then more suddenly than it all had happened, I found myself alone with two good friends, my flock and herd and dogs. As if anyone could be alone with two good friends, a flock, a herd, and dogs.

  I have had some very hard times in my life. And during each one people have said to me, “It could have been worse.” Those words never brought me comfort. Until now. Standing, looking at a simple clearcut disaster, I knew from the deepest part of my soul that it could have been worse. That it wasn’t was an equally simple and clearcut miracle. Had I lost my life I wouldn’t be knowing it right now. Had I lost but a single animal I would be feeling it forever. No one died. My beloved barn, home of the best part of my life in the winters, has been ravaged. But the remaining three sides stand a proud testimony to the men who built her. The corresponding wall can be a pattern with which to reconstruct the one now lying on the ground. I’ve listened carefully to suggestions and am accepting some innovations and sound advice. Good friends have come through with help and offers of help. Some sheep have become a lit
tle bit clingy, and I am aware of the same need in me. Or perhaps they are simply reassuring me and I don’t understand.

  The barn shall be rebuilt. We shall be housed for the winter. I still can’t begin to know how it shall happen, but it shall. Over and over again I go inside and look at the ceiling that collapsed on my flock. I go closer to the damaged ceiling each time. Today I even reached out my hand and touched a broken stanchion. There will be a moment when I will help to move it all away. Oh, it could have been worse. Much worse. And for that, I am deeply grateful.

  FIONA MACDONALD

  THIS IS the first morning I can remember in a very long time that I’ve woken up feeling in my heart that life is possible. I don’t know if it is because Fiona MacDonald has turned up or because of the kindness of friends about the barn or because the weight sitting on my chest for so long has felt its purpose and has finally been outlived. The joy I’ve always known that keeps one here and lifts each burden has returned. The day is spelled out with its own version of glory and stands before me, crystal clear. For the past few months a cloud had obscured my vision and erased intent from my vocabulary. Where I once used always to do two things at once, I had begun to do only one. Or more often half of one. Yesterday, to compensate for the past two months, I did three things. At once. It can be possible, although even I found it hard to eat lunch (bread and butter) while carrying grain to the chickens and water to the cow. But three things at once it had to be if I am to make up for the stretch of spring and early summer when hardly anything was accomplished at all. Something for the mind. Something for the body. Something for the soul.