Dirt Under My Fingernails: Bob White and Other Friends

Confession time: I am baffled by the current fascination with chickens as recipients of human affection. I don't get it. When I look into a chicken's beady little black eye, I see and feel nothing better than indifference. I understand the fascination with incubating eggs, watching them hatch, and hearing the slightly endearing peep peeps of the little chicks. When I see the results of chickens' behavior toward their kinfolk.....no tail feathers and the like..I'm tempted to say, "With friends like these....?"

On the other hand, there are lots of little birds I am quite fond of: the wrens, aggressively protective from a safe distance, hectoring and scolding one moment and the next pouring out a glorious liquid melody from the hidden corners of the yard. The finch family, whistling to each other while they flitter from the seedy buffet of the coneflowers and rudbeckias. Though I don't mind a nest or too in the fern baskets on the front porch, I do get annoyed when they are so neighborly as to build in my porch lights or above the fan....or on the front door.....

It used to be a big deal to see a turkey. Not long after we moved out to the farm, the dogs treed a hen turkey high in the elm in the front yard. It was the first wild turkey I'd ever seen; her pictures are in the photo album from that year. I will swerve to avoid a pheasant...we don't see them that often anymore and the birds are more beautiful than brainy.

I love to hear the quail calling from hillside to hillside on summer days while I am watering the mum lines. When I was growing up, 'bob white' seemed to echo continuously along the gravel road to our farm. Even our next door neighbor two miles down the road was named...Bob White.

I was still in my quixotic horsey phase when the Whites decided they wanted to sell their riding pony. I arranged to walk over one day and take a ride on the pony and try him out. As I remember it, the two of us did just fine for a while, until all of a sudden, the pony took a wild hair to dash off the track into the woods, jumping a couple of fallen logs along the way! Fortunately, I managed to hang on, and eventually delivered the perverse creature back home, but the experience pretty well cured me of my flirtation with horse ownership. Guess I'll just stick with the Clydesdales...

Then there are the animals best experienced as scenery...peacocks, for example...pronghorn antelope on the range....decorative cattle like Belted Galloways and Red Angus. The prime example of scenic beasts is the American bison, majestic by itself, artistic and evocative spread across a hillside, the cows and calves powerful even when pastoral.

But our stories, our sentiments, our reminiscences are all about the animals we name, we raise, we talk to, we hug. They can be sounding boards, or silent companions. Sometimes they are footstools; sometimes pillows.

And while these faithful friends in our family have mostly been dogs, I do want to pay homage to one cat from our past that was as devoted as any dog and had the same disdain for any notion of personal space. She showed up unannounced, like all our pets did on the farm. One day she followed me into one of the greenhouses where I was watering poinsettias, leaped onto the benches, and, with no warning, sprang onto my shoulders and wrapped herself around my neck like a purring furry stole. There she stayed, riding along as I maneuvered between the benches. Cats in the greenhouses are pretty well verboten because no one wants to find a surprise in their potted plants, but one never left this little cat behind. She was small, a black calico with wide yellow eyes and we just called her 'Baby'. She always jumped up on my shoulders and never once scratched me even when I removed her...she was just companionable in the extreme and very sweet.

The current farm dogs are a lovable though eccentric bunch, and in that they carry on a tradition going back more than three decades from Bob who ate fireworks to Mister who danced, Dunkin who chased reflections, not shadows, and Juno, patient, quiet, and gentle despite her Doberman/German Shepherd heritage.

This Christmas season I can't help but remember the day a young, scared and very pregnant black Lab turned up in the driveway. We took food and water down to the old shed and sure enough, the next day, we found her there surrounded by seven wriggling puppies. My first thought was to name her Penelope, but that didn't stick so Mama Dog she was for the rest of her life. She never became a truly friendly dog; she didn't like noise or crowds and disappeared when there were lots of little boys around. But whenever we were alone on the farm...working on a greenhouse or watering lines or pulling weeds....we would see her keeping watch from the top of a terrace or from the shade of a propane tank. It was a sad day when Blake and I came to work and found her cold body...she was faithful and true.

Ike was one of Mama Dog's puppies. Matt adopted him and shortly thereafter, Ike moved with Ann and Matt to their home in Kansas City. Ike loved all kids, had a sensitive stomach, and had no idea he was a dog. He was happy at the farm, but would wear himself out trying to keep track of all his people...no napping on the job for Ikey! His successor is Griswold, who falls all over himself each morning wanting to ride, to go; soon and very soon, he will be a farm dog himself. Lee and Ryan's compatriots are Elvis of the soulful eyes and Gibbs, an enormous mound of hair and paws. Gibbs thinks he is a lap dog and no one has managed to dissuade him of the notion. He is a lover, not a fighter, that will indeed bark at a strange noise or a disturbance....from under the front porch or the garage.

These are some of the good guys of the animal kingdom, the ones we love, who meet our eyes with their great brown ones and bridge the gap between man and beast.