The Dogs of Bedlam Farm : An Adventure with Sixteen Sheep, Three Dogs, Two Donkeys, and Me

by Jon Katz

  Chapter Four

  TEAM BEDLAM I HEARD A ROAR AND FELT A RUMBLE; THE DOGS WENT NUTS the way they do back in New Jersey when a garbage truck thunders by. Adam Matthews, my closest neighbor, went roaring past the house on his shiny yellow and green John Deere. An auto mechanic by trade, with a repair shop in nearby Rupert, Vermont, Adam had agreed to do some caretaking for me. It was an increasingly popular job in places like Hebron, where city people were buying property they needed help with. To guys like Adam, trucks and tractors arent weekend toys. Theyre almost extensions of their bodies, a part of their beings. These guys-who talk bolts, gears, and trannies (transmissions) all day-live by a different set of natural laws; they have a way with machines that sometimes seems to border on recklessness. Over time, though, I came to see they arent careless, just confident. Hills, trees, snowdrifts-these arent fixed objects, but things to be rearranged, taken down, or pushed back (except during hunting season, when the machines get a breather). Landscapes are transient. If runoff rainwater is overflowing a drainage ditch, you just dig a deeper ditch. If underbrush blocks the path to the well, you rip it out and haul it elsewhere. If mountains of snow barricade the barn, you move them. In fifteen minutes, as I watched, Adam cleared away an incipient forest behind the barn, gouging out weeds and bushes and saplings, clearing a path so that the sheep and I could walk easily to the artesian well. Under his hand, the tractor danced around the barnyard like a skilled boxer. Adam offered me a turn at the wheel, so I could put the tractor in gear and drive forward and backward. I was tickled to move the huge thing, but also wary of pushing my luck. After a few minutes I hopped down and Adam finished up. IT SOMETIMES DOES, IN FACT, TAKE A VILLAGE. LITERALLY. I needed assistance from a lot of people these days, more than Id imagined or required in the past. I was still incredulous at how many wonderful helpers mysteriously appeared. Adam was first, the grandson of the couple that had owned my farm for more than a generation, brought up four children there, chose the multicolored floral wallpaper in the living room, raised crops and animals. When Adams grandmother, who now lived in a nursing home in Glens Falls, sold the farm, she reserved a ten-acre plot on the top of the hill for him. It was a gift to me, too. When youre living alone on a windswept farm, Adam is the person you want living nearby. Like many Vermonters, he is a man of much action but few words. Hed grown up, in part, in this very farmhouse and knew the property well. Discussions were brief. If Adam said hed handle something, that was the last you spoke about it, no elaboration required. We didnt actually speak in person for weeks. I simply left messages on his cell phone: I need to get the barn ready for sheep, I need to take down a dead tree, I need someone with a snowplow. Adam loved doing things, but wasnt especially fond of kicking the details around with people from New Jersey. Even if, like many skilled craftsmen, he was partly earning his living from Flatlanders, that didnt mean he had to take their guff. He told me in one message that he would do things cheap and right, and so he did. When I finally met Adam, he was much as I had pictured him: in his early thirties, handsome, built like a boulder. He was legendary for death-defying snowmobile runs, disdained overcoats and gloves. I learned-not from him-that hed built the lovely, nearly completed house up the hill virtually with his own hands. He was reputed to be a hell of a shot, too. Like many men in Hebron, he was already talking about hunting season-the one time he couldnt handle things, even if the farm burned down. ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS ADAM DID WAS HIRE ANTHONY Armstrong. It was a great move. Anthony was Natty Bumpo and John Wayne all rolled into one. Adam was a friend of Anthonys father, another hardy Vermonter, and the two had known each other all their lives. The first time he pulled up the driveway in his black Toyota Tacoma, Anthony wore a snug Saratoga Raceway cap, a pencil lodged behind his ear, a vest over a cotton shirt. He was skinny, all muscle and sinew. The truck bed was stacked with ladders, plywood, and an arsenal of tools and hardware. He set a boom box on the hood to provide a country music sound track as he set to work. He gave me a discreet but appraising stare, taking in my Yankees cap, L. L. Bean walking shoes, and polo shirt. I suspect he was considering several labels that were not compliments: Flatlander was the most politic, yuppie was worse. Although I had only come from an adjacent state I might as well have journeyed from Neptune. Id never hunted, driven a snowplow, replaced a tile, or raced a snowmobile. But then Anthonys eyes went right to Homer, Orson, and Rose, and he sunk to his knees to greet them, wanting to hear all about them. I love my kid, but I could not live without a dog, he told me. Soon, in the way of dog people, we were chatting about our dogs, their habits and foibles. We hung around talking dogs for an hour while he sawed and planed a sliding door for the barn and told me about his Cleo, an English mastiff the size of a small pony. The things that hit you first about Anthony are his watchful gaze, his quick smile, always close to the surface, and his electric energy. He carries a piece of paper in his wallet that he got from an Air Force sergeant: Integrity is doing the right thing when nobodys looking. He lives by it. Yet theres an elfin quality about him; he exudes mischief, and is fearless about speaking his mind. It was good to have Anthony around. The laws of gravity were different for him. I never felt older than when watching Anthony, twenty-seven, bound over a gate I struggled to unlatch, toss hay bales around effortlessly while I huffed and puffed, or tote heavy armloads of firewood like matchsticks. Anthony could fix almost anything-leaky faucets, cracked windowpanes, dangling doorknobs, stalled engines. For now, he liked to work on the small stuff, the tasks people couldnt get contractors to do. But the big stuff didnt seem to phase him, either. Even before Id moved in, hed put in Plexiglas to cover the gaping windows in the barn, hauled out tons of moldy hay and farm debris, fixed a balky electrical outlet, shored up sagging walls and floors. His work ethic was simple but rare: attack continuously and ferociously until the job is properly done. I soon nicknamed him Rocket Man, because minutes after Id leave a message on his machine, or with his wife, Holly, his pickup would come flying up the driveway. He doted on his fourteen-month-old daughter, Ida, whom he brought along on jobs whenever he could. In fact, one reason hed become a handyman, he said, was so that he could spend more time with her. Descended from many generations of farmers, Ida toddled all over the farm, passing fearlessly through the barn, among the sheep. She had already logged many hours on snowmobiles. Ida, honey, I heard Anthony warn one night on the phone, please dont eat the shotgun shells. The gunpowder isnt good for you. Anthonys rule for injuries was: If its not bleeding, dont bother me. But that was just tough talk. If Ida got too close to a donkeys rear legs, Anthony would zoom over to pluck her out of harms way. Like many gifted kids who couldnt quite fit into the conventional educational system, Anthony was a born teacher. He loved inducting a Flatlander into some country ways-how to read animal tracks or stir the hay feeder, how to shoot safely. Like my other neighbors, he shared the conviction that I would need a rifle at some point. You better have a gun, the Agway driver told me. Believe me, there are things that go bump in the night out here, and when one comes after you, your dogs, or your sheep, you dont want to be standing there with just a flashlight and your bedroom slippers. He got my attention, since I could hear such things almost nightly, and they werent far away. Although I was reluctant, the presence of some aggressive feral cats, and those coyotes, convinced me to buy a .22 rifle, just in case. A .22 is a small-caliber gun, used mostly for target practice. Still, it was a gun. In New Jersey, only the bad guys had guns. In Hebron, everybody I liked had one, or several. In a former life Id been a police reporter; I had seen what bullets could do. And Id promised Paula-no firearms. But it was odd, the difference between herding sheep and owning them. I felt an enormous responsibility for these animals. They faced real dangers here, and there was no one to protect them but me. I told myself nothing was going to hurt them, not on my watch. Anthony gave me several lessons, showing me how to hold the rifle and sight it, to always assume it was loaded, to check for unseen buildings or people behind any shot, to use the safety each
time and to check the chamber whenever I was done. The seriousness with which he took safety stuck. We drove to a remote junkyard where he set up some targets about a hundred feet away. To my amazement, I shot well. I had no intention of using the gun, and no desire to hunt. But I found I also had no qualms about using it if I had to, and I practiced on empty cans at the top of the pasture. Shockingly, considering that the last time Id used a gun was in basic training with the National Guard, thirty-odd years ago, I hit almost all the targets. Afterward, I put the rifle in its holder and hid it in a closet, stashing the ammo in a cupboard elsewhere in the house. WHO KNOWS WHY PEOPLE BECOME FRIENDS? ANTHONY AND I could hardly be more different; yet the friendship we struck up that first afternoon-another gift from my dogs-is one of the most important things thats befallen me in Hebron. Like me, hes never had a lot of friends, relying on his family and dogs for companionship. Unlike me-and Im amazed, maybe even envious at his clarity-he sees his life quite accurately, even at so young an age. I need to work for myself and stay close to my family, he told me one warm afternoon in early fall. It had taken me a couple of decades to figure that out. Hes figured out other things, too. Ive got three rules when trouble comes, he advised me one day when I was, in his words, freaking out about some farm crisis or another. He had learned to ignore me when I got excited. Anthony Armstrongs Three Steps: Number One: Take your head out of your ass. Number Two: Calm down! Number Three: Pay attention. As somebody whod spent much of a lifetime with his head up his ass, this seemed like promising counsel. I typed up the rules and taped them to my computer. We talked for an hour or two that first afternoon, a rare thing among men. As he realized how late it was and began to pack up the truck, Anthony turned to me. He had heard, he said, that I knew a lot about dogs. He was thinking about getting a ride-along dog. His family didnt think he needed another dog, but seeing the look in his eyes when he talked about Cleo, I knew it would be only a matter of time. I hadnt heard the term before, but I would hear it a lot upstate. Ride-along dogs accompany the men in trucks everywhere, as they go to work, go hunting, plow snow, stop for coffee with other men in trucks. You see them around Hebron, these proud and lucky dogs, dozing in truck beds or sticking their heads out open windows, working dogs in the most literal sense. They accompany busy but sometimes lonely men and women on tasks that make the world run. Because they are with their human companions so much, they are usually calm and well-trained dogs. They couldnt be ride-along dogs otherwise, exposed as they are to strangers, tools and noise, new places. Anthony was thinking of adopting a dog hed seen at the Shaftsbury, Vermont, animal shelter, a mixed-breed husky-shepherd puppy. Would I consider driving with him to take a look? In the past few years, Ive spent endless hours researching, thinking about, and talking with people about their dog choices. Its an endlessly fascinating topic-why people select the dogs they do, why they love the ones they love-and one with enormous consequences. In my experience, dogs get into more trouble because the wrong dog was chosen for the wrong person at the wrong time than for any other reason. These are the dogs left untrained, grown neurotic and aggressive, returned to shelters. Dogs chosen out of impulse, because a kid saw one at the mall or an adult saw one in a movie. Or because parents didnt realize their cute little Christmas gift would soon become a rambunctious, furniture-devouring sixty-pounder. A shepherd-husky mix didnt necessarily strike me as the best ride-along dog, I told Anthony. Possessed of an independent streak, Anthony bristled a bit. Like many locals, he didnt believe in paying money for a dog. Almost everyone he knew had gotten a dog from a shelter or a neighbors litter. He didnt particularly cotton to purebreds; he thought they were goofy and obnoxious, prone to health problems like allergies and hip troubles, likely to pile up big vet bills. Still . . . I dont think its a good idea, I told him. We ought to talk about it first. Why not? Because its probably a great dog that deserves a home, but that doesnt mean its the right dog for you. The last thing I wanted was to deprive a shelter dog of a good owner, but the dog Anthony wanted would need to possess some very particular traits. This was probably the most important decision in the life of any dog and human, and Anthony, I feared, was on the verge of a common mistake. For all the noblest reasons, he wanted to save a spirited puppy-one, the shelter said, that didnt get along well with other dogs. But a shepherd-husky mix combined two very active, restless breeds, while its future job required, instead, a dog that was patient, genial, and trainable. A ride-along dog has to wait quietly for hours in the truck while his human works. Hell encounter all sorts of strangers every day-people old and young, other dogs and pets, farm animals. He has to stay where hes supposed to stay, ignoring temptations and intrusions. Dogs love routine, and for Anthonys ride-along dog, the routine would be constant change and stimulation. Give me a couple of weeks, I asked. This could be a great home for the right dog, complete with a devoted owner, a dog-crazy family (Anthonys wife, Holly, loved dogs as much as he did), and the thing so many dogs crave, company 24/7. I started calling shelters and vets, explaining what I needed, describing Anthony. The vets and I all had the same thought: a Labrador, or a Lab mix. Bred to hang out quietly with hunters in forests, hour after hour. Because Labs have gotten so popular-and so many are inbred and poorly trained-its easy to forget the extraordinary temperament of this working breed. Properly bred and trained, they are good-natured with people, accepting of other dogs, eager to please, capable of great calm. They wouldnt be much help with my sheep, but I greatly missed my yellow Labs, Julius and Stanley. After two weeks of calling around, I heard from Dr. Mary Menard, a great vet-smart, warm, direct-at the Borador Animal Hospital. A breeder in nearby Shushan, she reported, had a beautiful, mellow, black Lab puppy; if Anthony didnt want him, she just might take him herself. The dog, a male, was ten weeks old. When I drove over to see him, the dog waddled over and crawled into my lap. He was striking-looking, perfectly proportioned, with as sweet a disposition as Id ever encountered. He was so trainable that I got him to sit on command after only three or four attempts. I even tried driving him around Shushan in my truck, where he contentedly gazed out the window. I could picture this dog spending happy years toodling around upstate New York and southern Vermont with his handyman owner, visiting hardware stores and homes, then setting out on weekend hikes and swims and hunting expeditions. It wouldnt be an easy match, though. Anthony and his friends and family see Labs as elitist, obnoxious, Baby Boomer dogs, symbols of the Flatlands. Some people argue that its wrong to ever purchase a purebred when so many dogs languish in shelters, but while I sympathize, I cant agree. There are plenty of abandoned children in the world, too, and adopting one is a wonderful thing, but we still like to have our own kids. The dogs I know tend to fare best when their owners do some homework and find the right dog for them, wherever it comes from. The other problem was that a purebred Labrador is expensive. Anthony didnt have that kind of money, and would resist spending it on a dog if he did. Yet this seemed as fine a dog-human fit as Id ever seen. I thought about it, called Anthony, and announced that Id located the perfect dog. But it would cost some money, I warned-as much as two hundred dollars. Its a runt, I lied. Ugly. You probably wont want it. I could hear he was intrigued. We agreed to go to Shushan the next day. Then I told the breeder I had the perfect owner, but would she tell Anthony the dog only cost two hundred dollars? Of course Anthony was too savvy not to figure out that this wasnt a two-hundred-dollar dog, and way too proud to let me pay the difference, but we could sort that out later. My strategy was to put him and the puppy together and see what evolved. Driving over the next day, he was excited and curious, peppering me with questions about the dog. He had a roll of twenties in his jeans pocket. This was just a dry run, I reminded him. This dog had already been in several homes, I said, and might be beyond redemption. Only a serious dog nut would be interested. As we pulled up to the small red farmhouse, even before we got out of the car, the Lab mother and this pup, last of the litter, came bounding out. It was almost as if this dog had read the script. Anthony, c
onfused, perhaps thinking that his ugly runt had yet to appear, kneeled down to see the puppy, who bounced into his arms. You could almost see the bond between these two, it was so instant and palpable. What sight could make any dog lover happier? In five minutes, the two of them were rolling around on the ground. I started writing a check to the breeder, who beamed. Anthony and the breeder exchanged papers and information, he handed me his roll of twenties, and the three of us-the dog was named Arthur on the spot-climbed into Anthonys Toyota. On the way back, Anthony berated me for tricking him, though he allowed as how hed suspected there might be a Lab involved. This dog didnt cost any two hundred dollars, he said. Youll tell me how much, and well work it out through labor. Done. Now, when I hear Anthonys Toyota pull up the driveway and see Anthony climb out with his tools and radio, Arthur follows right behind. He sniffs around a bit, then stakes out a spot near Anthony as he works. Nothing fazes Arthur-not the passing traffic or my dogs chasing after sheep. He has found his place, and his place is right by Anthonys skinny side. I wish as happy a life for every dog. ALTHOUGH SIX YEARS OF SPENDING TIME IN WASHINGTON County has taught me more than I used to know, I still cant easily grasp how a lot of things work. I can operate a Phillips screwdriver now and hammer a nail into a wall; I can deal with mice and minor plumbing issues. But the mechanics of how things work, how theyre taken apart and put together-I still havent come much closer to understanding that. Paulas prohibitions all made sense for me, even though Id already violated rule number one (and hadnt told her about it yet). I could shoot my foot off if I had a gun. Power tools were dangerous and finicky, heavy farm equipment way beyond my abilities, and that truck was already proving balky. Id pledged that Id do all the animal care myself-tasks relating to dogs, sheep, the donkey and their well-being. But on other scores, I was grateful for Team Bedlam, even though their help also made me feel I needed a testosterone patch. Like many people with animals upstate, I spent a lot of time at an Agway farm-supply store. After my fourth or fifth visit to the Salem store, an employee asked me if I wanted to join the weekly Agway Farmers Call List. Each week Agway called farmers around Salem and Hebron to ask if they needed feed or other supplies. A truck came by a few days later to deliver them. Apart from the fact that I was delighted not to have to haul around heavy sacks of corn and feed, I have to say my chest puffed up at the idea of being on the list. It was one of the few clubs Id ever been invited into that I was actually eager to join. Still, I know Im considered testosterone-deficient, and I cant really argue otherwise. I spoil my animals, for instance, lavishing what many of my neighbors consider a ridiculous amount of attention on dogs, sheep, and donkey. Take that sheep surgery, for example. Afterward, I took a lot of guff from neighboring farmers who heard about the operation and pointed out that I was nuts to spend $150 dollars patching up a sheep worth $60 at market in a really good year. Several volunteered to shoot her if it happened again. They werent being cruel; these men lived on the economic margins, struggling mightily to keep their farms afloat. It was illogical, even indulgent, to spend two or three times as much to heal an animal as it could bring in revenue. I explained that the animals were different for me. I wasnt sure it was in me to shoot my livestock. This kind of moral ambiguity was the blessing and curse of our generation, but no sheep or dog or donkey was going to suffer or die pointlessly if I could manage to prevent it. Id love to be one of your sheep, one farmer guffawed. Id been called a sissy before, by classmates and, most frequently, by my father. But this ribbing didnt carry that sting. These guys liked me, got a kick out of me, were always there to help. They accepted the differences between us, even found them interesting. I found the situation pretty interesting myself, although it often made me squirm. I was getting a small taste of just how hard their lives were, why they couldnt afford my sentimentality. Id hardly have blamed them for resenting me; instead, I was touched by their generous spirits. Still, Nancy Fortier and I laughed about the testosterone gap many mornings when I went to get a cup of coffee and a newspaper at the Bedlams Corner Variety Store. She worked there weekdays, after moving up from Westchester, and had become a keen observer of local culture. Wait till hunting season, she cautioned. I was already hearing plenty about it. Weeks ahead of time, every man I talked to seemed to be riding around in his pickup, scouting for deer tracks, feverishly readying his hunting blind or camp. Guys were cleaning their guns, readying scopes and ammunition, taking nightly practice shots. Hunting season was a big thing in Hebron. It was a father-son ritual of the kind lost to many American dads and kids; it was also an expression of friendship. Much of the planning and preparation and intensifying Country Hunting Bullshit was not about deer at all but about the chance to get together, away from family and work, and have a few beers with your buddies. It was also, for better or worse, an immersion in nature, a reinsertion of men into the woods. On opening day, starting at three A.M., pickups began creeping up the road in front of my house, heading into the hills. I waited until daylight to walk the dogs and kept a close eye on Rose, who is wont to bound off after anything that moves and can cover a lot of ground before I can open my mouth. Some people only walked their dogs on leashes during the season, or put orange collars and vests on them. I just walked mine in the open meadow across the road, avoiding the tree line. The gunshots started just before dawn. Unlike the sharp ping of my .22, they made loud booms, a strange and discordant sound. The second morning, Adams green pickup pulled into my driveway. Hed been up in his stand for an hour or so when an unruly buck wandered in front of him. Did I want to come up and see? We bounded up the hill in Adams truck, over spaces I wouldnt have considered trails, let alone roads. We found the buck in the woods behind Adams house, hopped out, picked up the body and maneuvered it into the back of the truck. Adam was pumped, to say the least, recounting the shot and the kill. Back at his house, he whipped out a knife and went to work, positioning two buckets below the truck bed. He gutted the buck, carving out its internal organs; one bucket filled with blood, the other with body parts. I held the deer while he worked, and he tossed me the fatal bullet, which he found near the heart. Then he cut the heart out, dropped it into a plastic bag and asked if he could store it in my refrigerator (no electricity at his new place yet). Good for eating, he said. He was exhilarated and I was mesmerized by how exciting and important the hunt was to people. I called Paula and said I had a deer heart in the fridge. I also told her I lacked the grit to kill a deer and hoped I could still live up here. It was a joke, sort of.