Fear

Since moving to the farm two years ago I have had to face many fears. Some are little fears, will I be able to keep little baby chicks alive in a brooder box in my unheated mud room in February, some are big fears, will I be able to afford to stay home with my kids if I leave corporate America, and some are in the middle, do I really have to pull these ticks off of my kids?  But as each incident that tests my fears comes along, I have been stunned by the internal ability that has come forth to hit them head on. As I have conquered each of these things, some taking a lot longer than others, I have made a mental note of the accomplishment and had a moment of thanksgiving. See, I believe that fear is the direct opposite of faith. 

Each time fear creeps up on me, or slaps me across my face; it is a time for me to flex my faith muscle.  The act of building that muscle up takes time and definitive effort over time. It is the act of taking each moment as it comes and putting your best foot forward in that moment.  It is saying to God, I have no idea what will happen, but I believe in the end I will be ok. 

I know that previous worldly training has taught me to believe I need to have a plan for all seasons of my life. Save for my retirement, plan for my kid’s college, build equity for the future, get the best training in school for the long haul of a career, etc. Spending all of my time focused on planning for tomorrow made me a person who lived in tomorrow. When you are hyper focused on planning and controlling what will happen tomorrow, it is impossible to enjoy today. The funny thing is that there is no way you can be totally prepared for what will happen tomorrow.  The best thing you can do is make decisions as they come to you today and lean on faith for the rest.  Sounds easy? It is not. It is the main lesson I grapple with in my current life.  Each moment of each day, I try to make the best decision not knowing what each outcome will be.  Sometimes the decisions are terrible, and have tough consequences, but more often than not, the outcome is better than I could ever have planned because I allow room for God in the details.

By taking each moment as it comes, being flexible and open to shifts in the path, I actually believe that I allow God the freedom to act in my life. If I think I know how everything is to be at all times, how in the world will God participate? In that mindset I will actually fill the answers before God has any input in the situation. Life really is about walking with God and not leaning on our own understanding.

This week I experienced direct physical fear and hit it head on. I was working in the garden with my daughter when my husband announced from the porch that there seemed to be a problem with a duck in the pond.  As he was on a conference call, I was left to investigate on my own. I walked down to the pond and came upon our duck Ferdinand thrashing around appearing to be stuck on something in the pasture pond.

His wings were flailing up and down as he appeared to be sinking into the murky algae filled darkness.

He was just out far enough that I knew I was going to have to enter into the water past my knees to get him out. To say this water is gross is and understatement. It is dark, muddy murky stuff.

As Ferdie looked at me, flapping ferociously to stay above water, I knew that if I did not get into this gross water filled with who knows what, that he would die. He was exhausted from keeping himself afloat. I stepped into the dark pool and my feet sank 3 inches into slimy mud. My shoes were immediately stuck and of no help to me. It took a lot of effort just to manage walking out to him as my feet were engulfed in the cool muck.

Just as I reached out and found myself just 3 inches too short to reach his neck, the algae on top of the pool cleared and I saw with great horror what was holding him in place.

There was the biggest snapping turtle I have every seen grasping on to Ferdie’s foot and slowly dragging him under.  If you know anything about snapping turtles, you know that they can break human bones with their jaws.  For a brief moment, the fear of my own self preservation took over and I was frozen as I pondered the thought of lossing toes or fingers in my mind. 

His shell was over a foot in circumference and he was holding onto Ferdie for the long haul.  I realized that Ferdie was trying to flap in my direction, his eyes looked deep into mine and I knew instantly what I needed to do.  I stepped forward and grabbed Ferdinand’s neck, pulling both he and the snapping turtle still attached to his webbed feet onto the shore.

Once on shore adrenaline kicked in and some how I managed to separate the two, I think I stepped on the turtle’s back to get him to release Ferdie.  But then the turtle started to run back to the pond. I was not going to have that monster preying on my critters anymore and so I reached down and grabbed the back of his shell hurling him up further onto shore.  In the end I would do this twice until my husband appeared with our huge barn shovel to pick him up and relocate him to a river several miles away.

Ferdie is recovering with the rest of the flock, and while he still will not let me catch him to set his broken leg, I know he is thankful for my willingness to face my fears on his behalf, for I have seen the fear of death in his eyes.

Never in my life did I think I would have done any of these things.  Never in my life did I think I would live on a farm, care for my kids and animals everyday. Never in my life did I think at fourty years old I would be riding horses again. Never in my life did I imagine being brave enough to let my husband be the breadwinner in our family. Never in my life did I imagine that I would help a barn cat deliver her 1^st litter of kittens. Never in my life did I imagine that I would get comfortable with the knowledge that I don’t have it all together all the time and I certainly do not know what will happen tomorrow.

But both Ferdinand and I am happy that my life has become bigger and better than just what I could have imagined.

Below is a picture of the turtle on his back in the shovel.  This shovel is 24 inches across.

Margo

On Easter morning we returned home from church and prepared for the joy of children searching for plastic eggs filled with goodies all around the farm yard.  The cold rainy weather had lifted and the sun was shining slightly as the kids prepared their baskets. We let the 2 littlest ones go first, then one a little older, and finally the oldest were free to gather all that they could.  Shortly after the hunt began, my son called to me. “Mom, I think the rooster is over here dying!”  And sure enough, he was right.  Our rooster Chanticleer was lying on his stomach with his face turned to his left. Upon seeing him, I knew instantly that his neck was broken.  He was silently gasping his last breaths.  I knelt down next to him and stroked his back.  “I’m so sorry Chanticleer.” I whispered to him.

My husband came over and together we realized that Chanticleer needed to be put out of his suffering.  We also noticed that there were random piles of feathers around other areas of the barnyard. My husband went into the house and brought out his handgun, after a few shots and a lot of flapping (Chickens do not die quickly), Chanticleer was dead.

I walked down to through the barn out into the pasture and found another hen dead, still intact.  She had been dead for a while, her body as stiff as a board.  I carried her up to the barn and gave her to Dan.  All told, we were missing 4 hens and Chanticleer.  We can to the conclusion that the heavy fog we had encountered that morning as we left early for church, had disguised a pack of coyotes in the early hours of Easter.  The hens had left the security of the coop to feast on early morning bugs and had been unaware of being hunted.  Chanticleer appeared to have tried to save his hens as we found feathers 50 yards away from where he had fallen, neck broken, too hurt to resume the fight.

It was odd to me that the coyotes didn’t take away all of the bodies, Chanticleer was fully intact.  Why waste a meal?  I’m not sure I’ll ever understand.  Had the horses intervened? Had they interrupted the feast and scared the pack away? We will never truly know what happened.  But when I prayed over Chanticleer, I felt certain that this brave rooster had died protecting the rest of his ladies.  I thanked him for his great service, for all of the times he had alerted them to the presence of eagles, and for the times he showed them all where the best grubs were.  I told him I forgave him for ripping off their feathers during his intimate moments with the hens and that I would miss him.

Two nights later, one of the missing hens returned. It was Margo, one of the first hens to arrive during our first fall living at the farm. She has always been one of my favorites, her black and white feathers made up the softest coat I have ever touched on a bird.  She was a silent chicken, never raising her voice to scold the other ladies.  When I saw Margo had returned, I was ecstatic! I ran to her and picked her up, placing her on the hay bales where she stood and slept on every night. She was not ok. I could tell right away that she was badly hurt.  I placed her gently there in her favorite spot, along with some grain and told the other ladies to leave her be.  I prayed for healing as I could tell that her left side had been crushed and she was missing a lot of her feathers.  She had no open wounds as far as I could tell, but the color was fading from her crest and waddles, an indication of aging or ill health.  I told her that I was happy she had come home.

Margo lasted two days before she passed away.  I had found her several times on the ground, having fallen off of the hay bales and unable to get up off of her left side. I gently picked her up each time and placed her back in her “bed”. The final night I could tell death was eminent. Her color was draining rapidly from her usually vibrant crest and her waddles were following suit.  She had begun to drool and her eyes were half open.  I went to the house and asked my husband to please put her down too.  I asked him to do it quickly and to spare me any details. 

As I reflect back on these events, I feel so blessed to have had these critters in my life.  I appreciate the event of death more now than at any time in my life.  I’ve lost my grandparents to death, but honestly these events are so sporadic that they hardly seem real.  This spring we have encountered so many small deaths at the farm that my perception is really changing. When my husband recently called me to say he had found two dead kittens in the barn, I was sad, but not shaken. I felt blessed that we had been able to help Mui Mui the barn cat deliver the other four without incident.

I dare say that I am getting more comfortable with death. Not that I want to start spending all of my time at funerals, but I am more understanding of the role of death in a process called life. 

So often we celebrate things in our world. I had already mastered that ability early in life. I loved celebrating things! Purses, cars, all sorts of stuff had always filled me with joy. But the time I have spent birthing and watching the deaths of these simple farm animals, the more I realize that it truly is in the moments shared that purpose and fulfillment exist, not in the moments of acquisition. Now, I know that most of you reading this figured all of this out much earlier than me.  I am a late bloomer.  But if you have not held a small body from its birth until its death, I encourage you to not underestimate the positive impact to your life when you care for some one or something else, no matter how long or short your time together may be.

Chanticleer eating scratch with his ladies.