Do you ever wonder how things get buried? I mean, entire cities? Take London, for example. It seems as if, every time they dig a foundation for a large, multi-storied building, they end up having to halt the work and bring in archaeologists because there are sixteen layers of history in the excavation - one atop the other. But, how did they get buried?
I know the answer. Goats. And I don’t think anyone else has realized it. I looked up (on the internet) how old civilizations get buried. Here’s what I found: “Things get buried because of sudden changes in the landscape such as flooding, volcanic eruptions or earthquakes.” Yeah, maybe. I mean, Pompei, sure. But, more often it’s goats. In fact, goats are increasing the size of our planet in such a dramatic way, I’m surprised we aren’t the size of Jupiter at this point!
This week I’ve been digging out gates. All our pens have gates, and you’d think they’d be just fine. Once you build a gate, it swings open, and unless a tree falls down and blocks it, what could go wrong?
Goats. That’s what.
When we feed the goats, we put their flakes of hay in big tubs. (See the photo below of Mothra lounging in her feeding tub). The goats run to the tubs and eat with such exuberance that the tubs get pushed all around their pens. The hay gets tossed into the air, and often lands near the gates. Once there is hay on the ground, the goats pee and poop in it, which causes the hay, almost instantly, to turn into soil and grow weeds.
You think I’m kidding. You try digging out a gate. It’s unbelievable.
Jan was looking at the fences around our pens just the other day (as she was pointing to the gates that I could dig out) and she said, “Those fences used to be six feet tall. Now look at them.” She went on to say how much higher the ground is inside the pens than it used to be. Good Grief! The goats are increasing the size of our farm! With their strategically placed poop.
I don’t know if goat poop is magical, or what. Certainly the dogs think it is. The dogs think goat poop is the best delicacy in the world. Often, when I look out my window, I see Clark (the younger of our herd-guarding dogs) with his paw - clear up to his shoulder - through the chain link fence of a goat pen, pulling a pile of goat poop toward himself so he can eat it. Ew. I mean, I know dogs eat a lot of weird things, but - ew.
On a completely different topic, another thing I really want to share is the sound of our farm. How did I live an entire lifetime without these sounds? In the morning, we walk out with the hay cart and a bucket of alfalfa pellets to feed the goats. The sun has just come up, and the air is really cold - we’re swaddled in so many layers we move like we did back when we were five years old and our moms put us in snow pants, with mittens clipped to a string that ran up our sleeve, across our backs, and down the other sleeve so that we wouldn’t lose them, and boots with newspaper stuffed in the the toes because they were hand-me-downs and not yet quite the right size. We lumber towards the pens, stiff-legged and mittened, wearing our hats on top of our hoods.
The neighbor’s rooster is crowing, the neighbor’s cows are mooing, and all our goats are bleating at the tops of their lungs - each of them trying to stand in the best spot to watch us as we make our way to their pens with their breakfast. Often, the sandhill cranes add in to this, with their whirring noises; and there’s a train in the distance with its long, lonely whistle. I want to weep with the beauty, but don’t want tears freezing on my face.
And, possibly even better than that is the sound of silence after we’ve been to the last pen, and everyone has their head in their feed tubs, contentedly chewing. Goats, the neighbor’s cows, chickens - all grateful for the new day and for their food which appears twice a day no matter whether it’s snowing or scorching, raining or fine.
But, even more moving are the evening sounds. As the sun is setting, the humans are calling their dogs and their children back home, where it’s warm, where there’s dinner, where there’s family. The animals seem to say good night to each other. The chickens head into their coop for the night, and their roosting sounds tumble over each other as we shut the door that will keep them safe and warm until morning.
Do you know the Samuel Barber composition Knoxville: Summer of 1915? It is a setting of a text by James Agee. In some right-brained, emotional way, I feel as if this work really captures those evening sounds. Here’s a recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uq1st54E6Q. I chose this one because you can read the words and the music as it’s sung. The intrusion of the street car music doesn’t last long - stick with it. The part about the family lying on quilts on the grass just knocks me out. It’s how our farm sounds in those moments when day turns into night.
