Out with the Old, In with the New - is it better?

In the farthest part of the barn, along the concrete wall that once served as the milking station for Griswold's dairy cows, rests an old sign that reads, "Ivy Hill." The sign is battered and rusted and broken right in half. Not original to the property, we think the name Ivy Hill came along sometime in the 1960's when the ancestors of "Old Man Griswold" died out and the property changed hands. By the time my sister bought the place in the early nineties, the new sign and name were already well-known to the area.

No longer a working farm, my sister's family works hard for the privileged of living there. My niece and nephew pitch in too - They do this willingly - they love the "farm lifestyle" and enjoy the land and the property.

Sadly, the last fifteen years have seen insurmountable growth to this area bringing with it, urban sprawl and a changing value system. Where once songbirds competed with cicada in the late afternoon, cars blasting bass rhythms loud enough to knock the flow blue dishes off the cupboard shelf is a common-enough sound at day's end begging the country dweller's question.. "Why do city folks move to the country if they miss the city so much?" If only they would turn off their stereos and learn to listen to the sounds of nature.... ?

As the UPS man tells the story, one day he was stopped in front of Ivy Hill Farm preparing to deliver a package. Behind him, a new car with a booming sound loomed. Impatient and without reverence, the lady driver decided to pass the UPS truck on the inside - between his truck and the Ivy Hill driveway. When she did this, she took out the old hand-painted sign and nearly killed the UPS man who was on foot and barely fell away in time. From his back in the marshy wet bed of Iris the UPS man watched as the old sign post smashed through the right side of the driver's windshield splintering its old sign into a thousand pieces before it fell under the wheels of a the Chrysler 300. Without hesitation or the slightest concern, the lady in the big car just kept on driving, leaving echos rhythms of Eminem in her wake...

Look out, we're going to be seeing more of this in the future. As an octogenarian likes to tell me, "The old ways are being replaced by the new"

Will it be better?

You tell me...

Poppies in Ruby Red - manure pile beauties

Can They Take Away the Flowers?

Filling water buckets for each pasture, I am lost in thought for our country and how removed from nature most folks have become. Watering the horses was once a simple, daily routine shared by almost everyone. Look around at older homes - while you still can. Do you see old, tall garages behind some of those houses? Most likely they were originally used to house the family horse. Today, restrictive laws regulate the number of animals we can have period. "Horses?", "What?" is what most legislators would say. Indeed, we are living in very different times than those of our forefathers.

Is progress always a good thing? When President Obama speaks of Americans needing to "tighten our belts" and driving more responsible vehicles, is he speaking for you and me? Is he speaking for the animal people? Does anyone in Congress know that a smart car can't pull a horse trailer (or haul dog crates) and that an entire way of life is dependent on inexpensive gasoline? Do they care? I'm guessing the answer is "No. We do not."

Walking back to the pump for another fill of water, I see a stand of poppies growing from an old manure pile. They are ruby red and brilliant. The beauty my eyes seek has nothing to do with hip and trendy. I do not wish to shop at Bloomingdales nor do I care what shoes are currently vogue and, although I have nothing against tennis, basketball or other sports featuring a ball, my idea of recreational fun has nothing to do with asphalt. All I want is the life that I have been blessed with. "Will it last?," I ask myself. With a certain sadness, I hear the answer - "probably not."

I think of World War II and all of the people like me, the ones who fought and struggled to preserve their animals and the animal way of life in spite of the fact that there was no money and food shortages often caused them to act in desperation. That we still have Welsh Ponies and Doberman Pinschers (and many other breeds of animals) is testimony to the success of those hallowed breeders of our past. But current times are different - we are so "advanced" as a civilization now. We have virtual worlds to occupy our time. In places like "Half Life" we can raise dogs and flowers without worry for responsible puppy buyers, cruelty to animals, skyrocketing food and gas prices... and political correctness. In a virtual world we can ride horses and hire someone else to muck their stalls. We can buy a designer dog and have someone else train it but will the experiences be the same? How could they be? A virtual world is just that - "Virtually real" ...almost real...

......not real at all.

Walking to the fence, I stoop down to smell the sweet, spicy scent of a little pink flower. Standing back up I notice my gelding Wings has come to the fence for a visit. Crawling over the fence, I reach my arms out for the warm embrace of his muscular neck that pushes against me. He hangs his head over my shoulder and I push my face into his mane inhaling the heavenly scent of horses. The experience is intoxicating. In our modern, real world it is rare for someone to have this experience.

In a virtual world, it is impossible.

Will the future have dogs and horses? Will there be flowers? Real ones that you can touch and smell? If our governing bodies make laws against how much land we can own, how many dogs we can have, how much gas we can use.. and if they dictate whether or not we can use our animals to create new ones - will our human experience be forever truncated?

Can they really take away our flowers?

Wings

A Farm by Any Other Name..

Ivy Hill Farm is my sister's place in northeastern, Ohio. The barn is the largest in its county. It stands in an area long known as the "Western Reserve." The property and buildings, like the area itself - is very old for America - dating back to the early nineteenth century. Once upon a time, Ivy Hill Farm was known as Sand Springs Farm. The man who built the place (in 1845) was a smart farmer by the name of Ira Grizwold. He used the natural spring to bottle water for medicinal remedy. I have not done the research to support my theory but I betcha he was right. The minerals flowing from the spring probably were good for those who drank its waters.

Yesterday it was Sand Spring Farm, today it is Ivy Hill. Whatever name it goes by, the feeling evoked from standing still is very old, deeply connected to the earth. I like to stand on the middle of the farm and close my eyes. Listening to the birds overhead, feeling the breeze blow through my hair - I like to "go back" to the time when this was a working farm with nearly a thousand acres of cows, corn, wheat, chickens and horses. Is it my imagination or can I really hear the happy, sweating workers as they go about their days' work? "It's probably just the breeze" I tell myself but I could have sworn I heard someone say, "Yo, swing open the gate" and my inner eye opens to the sight of a pair of Drafts backing in unison towards the plow... the whinny of a pony wakens me from my daydream and I am faced with nothing but an empty lane..

Lucky

My niece is a total animal freak - "Whew" was the collective expression uttered by my sister and me when the kid took her first steps towards becoming a real animal person. "Oh good, she is expressing her "animal genes," said we with a laugh. But really, in our modern society with so many things competing for the attention of our children, it is no small thing to see any kid "out there" mucking stalls, reading horse books, learning the disciplines of riding - or just wanting to know the difference between a Thoroughbred and a Quarter Horse.

Dressed in knee-high rubber dairy boots, my hair pulled through a ball cap and my sweatshirt covered in muddy paw prints, horse hair and a little hay, I lean on my pitchfork and soak up the atmosphere and am reminded of a favorite poem. "Lucky means finding holes where pockets aren't. Lucky's to spend laughter, not money. Lucky are breathe, grow, dream, die, love - not fear, eat, sleep, kill and have. You am lucky. Is we lucky, luckier, luckiest." I know this is true and I know that all my friends who endeavor for the sake of a life with animals - feel the same way. "Lucky, luckier, luckiest."

Family Circle

Once a year my sister's family goes to Florida. Since our Welsh Pony breeding operation is a joint venture, we cover for one another when travel takes any of us away from our farms. June was my month to tend to the horses at Ivy Hill.

What one learns from working another person's farm is how different we are - and yet, our goals are so similar. "Get the horses fed." "Meet the needs of the animals." Horses are creatures of routine and the Ivy Hill creatures are no exception.

Each morning, I wake up well before dawn to care for my own critters before leaving for Ivy Hill but my sister's horses are used to being fed seriously early. Arriving at the farm by 7AM, the Ivy Hill herd is impatient. If you work around animals long enough, you learn to communicate (and hear them) without talking. Stamping their feet, ears back, necks snaking forward - they are annoyed. Horses are Noblemen and see we humans as their servants. "How dare she feed us so late," they seem to say. As quickly as I can, I feed, water and turn out and over the next two hours, the Lords and Ladies of Ivy Hill are content once again. Happily - as creatures of habit, horses are able to adapt and within two days they know my schedule and everything is bliss. Nonetheless, every day I am greeted with a "How about that grain" whinny and all eyes and ears focus on me as I set up the grain and pull down the hay.

What is bliss? Hanging out in a dry barn listening to the sound of six horses munching away on their breakfast.