The Dogs of Bedlam Farm

by Jon Katz

  She was standing her ground, not intimidated in the least, barking and nipping at Nesbitt’s nose, backing up, charging and nipping again. He looked ticked off but also a little rattled.

  It was quite a spectacle, this twenty-pound pup holding all these three-hundred-pound animals in a tight clump while staring down an enormous belligerent ram. Between nips, she circled the ewes, keeping them together, bobbing and weaving in a manner that would have made Muhammad Ali proud. Nesbitt tried a few more feints, then retreated back into the herd.

  It was great that Rose had found the sheep, and miraculous that she’d held them for me, but now we had to walk nearly a half-mile and ease them back into their fenced pasture.

  I wasn’t entirely sure how to proceed, but I knew the nervous sheep would move toward the safest thing. Of this pair, I was preferable to the ferociously focused dog stalking them.

  Keeping a close watch on Nesbitt—I clunked him on the head with the flashlight for good measure—I turned and began walking back up the trail. Rose kept circling, but when I held up my hand and yelled, “Get back,” she dropped to the rear, keeping the group moving toward me. Instinctively, she began “wearing”—shuttling back and forth behind the flock, a move Homer hadn’t mastered in two years of training.

  But Rose seemed to grasp the technique without ever having been taught. She kept the sheep trotting along while I walked ahead with the flashlight. After a while, I could see the farmhouse lights ahead and recovered my bearings. We didn’t proceed in a direct line—the herd zigged and zagged—but we kept moving steadily back toward the house.

  It took us about fifteen minutes to reach the road. I started walking backward and holding up my hand as Rose circled the herd like a bumblebee. She had a big bark for a little dog. When the sheep saw the open gate, they broke for the pasture as maniacally as they’d left it, Rose in pursuit. She chased them to the top of the hill, then turned and came racing down to me, her tail wagging wildly. There can’t be too many dogs who’ve ever gotten more joyous or heartfelt praise from a grateful owner.

  “Great girl, great dog, thank you!” I burbled, as she slurped at my face and squirmed all over. She seemed quite proud of herself, and she was entitled to.

  So much for serenity. We headed back into the house. “Welcome to Bedlam,” I told her.

  Chapter Two

  BEDLAM

  O I remember when a lad,

  The people here were very bad;

  They fought, they swore, they guzzled rum,

  And Bedlam it was called by some.

  “West Hebron in Song!” by Lafayette Smart

  and the Rev. John Fisher; sung by students of

  the West Hebron Academy, March 31, 1874

  THE BEDLAM’S CORNER VARIETY STORE SITS AT THE INTERSECTION where Route 30 from Salem hits West Hebron and comes to a T.

  It’s been there for several lifetimes. In 1878, I read in a local history, it carried its owner’s “celebrated steel-pointed handmade potato hooks,” along with parlor stoves, agricultural tools, clover seed, and groceries. In 1911, crowds of farmers gathered to see its new electric-powered lights; lemonade and ice cream were served. For a while, the store housed the local post office.

  West Hebron (as opposed to North or East Hebron, all of them part of regular old Hebron) lies about an hour northeast of Albany, the kind of small town that’s vanished from general consciousness—but which is full of small dramas nonetheless. The ferocious survival struggles of its embattled and dwindling farmers are wrenching to witness, and so is the inexorable exodus of the town’s children. The population of the larger town of Hebron peaked in the early 1800s at about 2,700; it’s roughly half that size now.

  Bedlam’s Corner—gateway to West Hebron—is important to the town, a tiny, dark, cozily atmospheric shop, its front window decorated with an American flag and a neon beer sign.

  Inside, the row of counter stools, tin ceiling, and ancient globe lights don’t seem to have changed for decades. Its shelves and narrow aisles are crammed with what used to be called “sundries”—milk, local papers, groceries, and chewing tobacco, with a closet-sized hardware department in the rear that sells nails and automotive supplies. You can arrange to have your dry cleaning picked up and delivered, or to have your film developed. You cannot, however, find skim milk, whole-grain bread, or anything containing soy.

  The store matters for the obvious reasons—it’s a ten-mile drive for a roll of toilet paper otherwise—but it’s also the source of almost all important town news and gossip. In the morning, the Big Men in Trucks stop by, leaving their trucks idling while they grab some coffee; if they have time, they plop down at the counter to yak about the weather, hunting, or the trials of raising kids. More than one elderly widow or widower comes in at some point during the day to make a tiny purchase and find some company, which the store’s staff generously provides.

  This is the sole surviving business from West Hebron’s heyday as a thriving commercial and agricultural center. Newcomers like me, inquiring into its history, are startled to learn that a century ago this crossroads and its immediate surroundings supported seven stores, a hotel, an opera house, three blacksmith shops, two mills, a railroad depot, a power plant, a cheese factory, a meat market, wagon and harness shops, and two barbers. Hence the nickname, which lingers years after the reasons for it have vanished.

  The name Bedlam comes from Bethlehem, specifically the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem in London. Originally dedicated to treating the poor, it began to admit the city’s growing number of “lunatics” in the late 1300s.

  Bethlehem got shortened, over several centuries, to Bedlam. In the late 1600s the hospital became a bizarre tourist destination, as audiences came to witness the spectacle of the mentally ill. By the eighteenth century, visitors paid a small fee to enter the building and laugh at the patients, many chained in their cells. The crowds grew so large and unruly that Bedlam came to stand for chaos and disorder.

  There’s nothing chaotic in the hamlet these days, a tribute to the impact of the automobile, the decline of the family farm, and the way jobs migrate to coastal and urban areas.

  But the sleepiness has its appeal, at least for people like me, who aren’t looking for work. West Hebron sits along the Black Creek, a meandering stream fed by a potent waterfall. I count about fifty buildings now, stretching in a line from the store: modest old millworker houses, a few grander Victorians, the two churches, the town clerk’s office and the headquarters of the Hebron Volunteer Fire Department, a few trailers and shacks.

  From my farmhouse porch on warm fall Sundays, I can hear the hymns wafting up from the Presbyterian church below, and see the volunteer firefighters converging when the siren sounds. I missed the town’s bedlam period, but I’ve imported some of my own.

  MY THREE PUREBRED BORDER COLLIES CAUSED QUITE A BIT OF discussion at Bedlam’s Corner, where they often waited outside in the truck as I picked up a few cans of dog food or (Sundays only) The New York Times. People admired their sleek beauty and, thanks to cable television, often had seen dogs herding. But they were a curiosity in a town where dogs lived very different lives.

  Ellie, for example, a shaggy brown Disney-cute mutt, was the West Hebron town dog. She wandered from one house to another, escorting an elderly couple on their morning walk, greeting visitors, monitoring traffic in and out of the variety store. Sometimes she napped in the middle of Route 30. People here make a point of tolerance—what you do in public is everybody’s business, and what you do on your own property is nobody’s. But there was an understanding about Ellie: when she dropped by, you were expected to be hospitable, to offer food and water and a warm place to spend the night. You also understood that she would never stay. She belonged to everyone and no one, a Ruby Tuesday of dogs.

  Ellie reminded me at the outset that the dog culture upstate is very different from the one I knew back in New Jersey. Almost all Hebron dogs are mixed-breeds, and I’ve never seen one walked on a leash. Peopl
e often let them out when they leave for work in the morning and bring them in when they come home at night. Dogs are never trained in the formal sense, at least not beyond housebreaking; they learn as they go. When they misbehave, they can generally expect a swat or kick in the rear.

  Missing from the lives of local hounds: gourmet treats. Doggie day care or playgroups. Agility classes. Obedience trials. Competitions of any sort. The whole idea of a “fulfilled” dog. Even, sometimes, basic veterinary care.

  People in town comparison-shop when their dogs are sick enough to need a vet—and mere lameness, vomiting, or droopiness doesn’t qualify. “The vet in Salem wanted a hundred and seventy-five dollars to neuter my dog,” a mechanic explained to me. He found a clinic in Granville that would do it for $125, so he went there. A lot of people wouldn’t have bothered at all.

  It isn’t that Hebronites don’t love their dogs; they do. But their view of animals in general, and dogs in particular, is more philosophical. Dogs are sweet, but they come and they go. They live at the periphery of family life, not at the epicenter. They aren’t best friends or soulmates, and they are definitely not children. They may not even sleep indoors, or want to.

  Backyard doghouses are common, and one brown mutt—maybe part wolfhound—would only sleep in the back of his owner’s red pickup, no matter how cold it got. “We feel bad,” confessed his owner, “but he goes crazy inside the house. If it’s below zero or raining or snowing, I make him a sort of lean-to, with a sawhorse and a tarp. Sometimes when I come out in the morning, the whole thing’s covered in snow.” The dog didn’t seem to mind.

  There are some serious breeders tucked away here and there, but purebred dogs are still exotic, a city guy’s way to acquire a dog. When people in town want a dog, they call the county shelter, or find a stray at the back door one day, or pick out a puppy when a farm dog has a litter.

  For all these differences, Hebron has plenty of dogs, and they look both happy and healthy, if on the scruffy side.

  I’m sometimes embarrassed when I open my pantry cupboard and see the stacks and bags of bones, biscuits, and dentally approved rawhide chews that my dogs gnaw on, supplementing their diets of lite dog food. My crowd, admired as they were, came from a different solar system, from the planet Flatland.

  IN THE WEEKS BEFORE WE COULD MOVE IN, I’D BEEN BUSILY preparing, meeting my neighbors, finding the helpers I’d need, from vets to handymen, laying in supplies.

  I’d need a farm truck, for instance. You wouldn’t want to befoul your primary vehicle with hay, sheep poop, or (if bad luck hit) carcasses. So I was on the lookout for something sturdy and—mindful of my wife’s admonitions about the state of our finances—cheap.

  On a drive to Argyle, down a long dirt road miles from anywhere, I came across Sheldon’s Used Trucks, a two-trailer complex with several trucks in various stages of decay, three of which had goats tethered to their bumpers. They ranged in price “from $886 to $4,823,” as Sheldon explained to me when I stopped, intrigued. He explained his marketing strategy: “You put a round number, like three thousand, on it, people think it’s expensive and give you a hard time. But you put a real specific price on it, then they think there’s gotta be a reason.” He seemed proud of his technique.

  Sheldon’s newest truck was a 1993 Dodge Ram with no front tires. The others had broken axles, cracked windshields, scraped paint, and a crayoned slogan on each windshield: “We Are Negotiable!”

  “Just out of curiosity, if you don’t mind my asking, how many trucks do you sell in a year?” I asked, noticing the empty acreage on each side and the sparse passing traffic.

  Sheldon, his big belly bulging out of a T-shirt, a John Deere cap framing his ruddy, bearded face, gave me an appraising look. “Marlene,” he yelled toward one of the trailers. “There’s a guy here who wants to know how many trucks we sell in a year.”

  “Is he from the IRS?” came a voice from the inside.

  “You from the IRS?”

  I told him I wasn’t.

  “He says he isn’t,” Sheldon yelled. “And he’s got some of those sheep collies in his truck.” There was a giant satellite dish behind the trailer. Another Discovery Channel watcher, I guessed.

  “If he’s from the IRS we sold four trucks last year,” the voice answered. “If he isn’t, we sold five.” I wrote Sheldon’s phone number on a scrap of paper, but decided to broaden my truck search.

  Next on my scarily long list of things to do/buy/contract for before Bedlam Farm was operational: fencing. You couldn’t have fifteen sheep wandering around town. I solicited names.

  Some of the best craftsmen lived just across the border in Vermont. I was still learning how to talk Vermont. As when I called Shane Becker, a highly regarded fence builder near Bennington.

  “Yuh.”

  “Is this Shane Becker?”

  “Yup.”

  “My name is Jon Katz, and I just bought a farm over in West Hebron. I need to fence about ten acres for some sheep.”

  Silence.

  “Do you do sheep fences?”

  “Yup.”

  “Could you do mine?”

  “I guess so.”

  More silence.

  “So, what’s the process, Shane?” I ventured. “How does this usually work?”

  Silence for a good ten seconds as he digested the question.

  “Well, the way it works,” he said, “is I build the fence, and then you pay me.”

  “Okay,” I said, giving up. “Whenever you’re ready.” Apart from a chat about sheepdogs, this was the longest conversation Shane and I would ever have.

  On my own side of the state border, getting anything done is likely to involve the Great Rolling Conversation—a.k.a. Country Bullshit. Even the simplest tasks involved a ritualistic series of exchanges: information gathering, anecdote relating, strategizing, reminiscing, arguing. I loved it, and was getting good at it. To me, bullshit has always been an art form, a skill to hone and celebrate, one of the few gifts I’ve had from childhood.

  Take hay. It might seem a simple thing to order enough hay to see a small flock through a tough winter, when the grass could no longer provide nourishment. It wasn’t.

  Step One in getting the Great Conversation rolling: you either stopped in at the nearest Agway farm-supply store, or raised the topic over sweet-potato fries at the Burger Den in Jackson, or went early in the morning to any Stewart’s coffee shop/gas station/convenience store, the favorite stop of the Big Men in Trucks.

  Country Bullshit encompasses many issues, from weather to trucks and guns to tales of silly Flatlanders moving in from New York and doing stupid, inexplicable things.

  “Get your deer yet?” is one way to kick off plenty of bullshit during hunting season. Among my other favorite sayings is, “It’s been here long before you were born and it will be here long after you’ve gone.” An all-purpose phrase, it came up a lot while I was trying to figure out how to prop up my flock’s future shelter.

  It seemed to me that my tottering barn, which was here before I was born, would stand until it didn’t—which could happen at any time, and I didn’t want to be inside it when it did.

  But that kind of sentiment is dismissed as Flatlander anxiety. Country Bullshit values calm and stability; it takes the long view.

  To find hay, therefore, I started the process at a Cambridge coffeehouse called Bean Heads. I loudly told Bill, the proprietor, that I was looking for hay. Before he could respond, three customers were already sidling over, chiming in.

  I was grateful for advice. People upstate have spent a lot of time explaining things to me. The trick, I’d found, was to concede ignorance. If you admitted you were clueless and threw yourself on their mercy, the locals were happy to help out. To do otherwise was to be branded arrogant and hopeless, and then you were on your own.

  “Not so fast,” said a grizzled farmer, evidently dragged away from Stewart’s by his coffee-loving son. He’d sized me up instantly as a dumb-ass Flatlander, and h
e was eager to get things rolling. “You want round or square bales? First or second cut? How big is your barn? How many can you store?”

  An argument instantly broke out about whether I needed the big round bales or the smaller square ones. The round bales lasted longer, but they were impossible to move around without a tractor. “First cut” meant the hay of late spring, “second cut” meant hay from late summer (and sometimes there was a third). “More nutrients by far in the second cut. Hold out for that,” the farmer announced. Disagreement, though, erupted from the other two guys. Bill, who used to sell farm equipment, muttered that he’d never found two farmers who agreed on anything. The discussion soon ranged far afield to include the dietary habits of dairy cows and the outrageous price of everything, feed in particular. The talk left me and my hay far behind, so I took my coffee, slipped out, and drove over to Stewart’s, just down the road.

  The farmer and his son pulled in right behind me. In seconds, about a half-dozen men in trucks had mysteriously convened and were peppering me with questions: How many sheep? How big a barn? What other feed was I thinking of buying? Oats? Corn? Did I have water access near the barn?

  People coming out of Stewart’s joined in, recognizing people in the crowd, adding their own horror stories about bad hay or wet hay, the dangers of ordering too much or of getting caught short and having to scramble. Soon, to my amazement, a truck pulled in stacked with hay, as if summoned by the gods of bullshit, and the farmer offered to sell it to me on the spot and drive it “right on up to Hebron.”

  But the old farmer wouldn’t hear of it. “What? You gonna sell him first-cut hay for sheep?” And he was clearly skeptical of this hay, anyway. He pulled a handful from a bale, pinched it, chewed on a few strands. I could almost hear him thinking that this Flatlander was just foolish enough to go for it. I politely declined.