Trauma Farm (13 page)

Now that we have become oil consumers, or necro-phages— eaters of the dead, our civilization based on the fossilized lives of earth’s history—we have lost our knowledge of the local. Oil, in an odd way, has made transportation too easy, and its child, globalization, has separated us from contact with the soil and moved us at an accelerating rate into cities. And city people no longer understand rural life, speeding up its rush toward extinction.

Though it can be difficult in this absurd era, I am relearning how to live and act locally. When the Oil Age inevitably ends we are going to see the failure of globalization, as the transportation system collapses under escalating costs. The captains of industry, along with the rest of us, will be forced to discover a unique formula for earning our keep—creating the kind of land where a child can drive his fist into soil up to his elbow. If we don’t—well, then we’re facing a big collapse back into a hunter-gatherer civilization. Long, long ago, a woman emerged out of the forest with a digging stick, and we could meet her again.

7
RUNNING DOGS AND
FELLOW TRAVELLERS

B
ACK IN THE
house, the dogs loll on their cushions as I make tea. Three dogs, two of them border collies, are too many. I regret the day we decided to keep Bella, though she’s a beauty and I love her—she’s a born troublemaker. Jen, the older collie, is a control freak and keeps everyone in line. Olive—the gentle, bullheaded Labrador-Rottweiler— is in rough, arthritic shape these days, since she broke her back climbing up a tree after a raccoon.

It’s thought that the first domesticated animals were dogs. A tiny puppy skeleton was discovered in the hand of an elderly woman in a 12,300-year-old burial site in Israel, so we can assume our relationship goes back further. Skeletons of domesticated dogs in North America date back to 8500 bc , suggesting that they moved around the world quickly, probably alongside us.

Domestic dogs were soon used for hunting—sight hounds for spotting distant prey, scent hounds for tracking, and “catch dogs for the kill”—though they probably began their domestic careers as alarms against predators and for comfort in the cold. A North American Native description for very cold weather is a “three-dog night.” In the Arctic and a few other regions they found a place as sled or pack animals. When agriculture appeared, people became less nomadic, and dogs were relegated to more specialized uses—herd dogs and fighting dogs, retrievers, guard dogs and lap pets. When we consider the varieties of domesticated dog, from the wolf hound to the chihuahua, our evolutionary manipulation over maybe fifteen thousand years is impressive indeed. Dogs have been bred for both useful and distinctly non-useful purposes. For example, Pekingese were bred to resemble miniature lions (until the bored ladies of the Chinese court reputedly discovered an alternative use for that flattened nose and little tongue). Some dogs, such as the much-maligned pit bull, have been bred to kill dogs or valiant animals merely for sport.

We try to keep a herd dog—a border collie—for the sheep, and usually a Labrador to guard against raccoons and marauding dog packs. Dogs are helpful and sometimes necessary allies on a small farm.

Goats and sheep and pigs soon joined the dog in the human fold, quickly followed by the cow and an increasingly exotic menagerie, ranging from the yak to the guinea pig, the silkworm, the camel, the cat, and the turkey. The art of domestication rapidly grew more complex. At the same time the grains and rices and fruits and vegetables began to transform under our guidance into a stunning array of varieties. You only have to consider the
Brassica
genus—mustard, cabbage, broccoli, canola, and a myriad of other cultivars—to recognize what diverse characteristics we are capable of breeding into the world. The history of domestication is mainly the history of the small farm, which tended toward a balanced mixture of horticulture and livestock that suited the local environment.

I’ve always bonded quickly with animals, despite the livestock and game I’ve slaughtered and despite the number of times I’ve been kicked, bitten, and trampled. Wherever I’ve been, all my life, animals have come to me, even so-called ferocious dogs, schizoid cats, or twitchy horses. I also lean, instinctively, toward physical contact with animals. I brush against them, rest my fingers on a shoulder. Simple gestures in the middle of hard tasks. I love their physical world. They recognize that, and they come forward to be touched. If you are unafraid and open with animals, you will learn how much they want to like you. I’ve been chased around a few trees by bulls and horses, and I slammed more than one gate just in time on a charging dog while peddling with my dad when I was young, but I’ve also stopped stampeding livestock and vicious dogs in their tracks. You have to trust yourself in the world, and learn when to run and when to stand. I’ve never been bit while offering my hand slowly to a slavering German shepherd, though I’ve met a couple of dogs who’ve kept me in my vehicle.

Dogs on a farm, like livestock, tend to find the most impressive ways of injuring themselves or sickening. Fortunately, on our island, we have a good vet. Malcolm has what is known as “the touch.” When he returned to Salt Spring after many years away, he performed emergency operations in his home while building his hospital. I much preferred it in the house. You’d go there, and Malcolm and his wife, Stephanie, would wipe down the kitchen table and he’d start operating. Afterwards, with the dog kennelled or in a basket by the fire, we’d clean off the table and maybe have a glass of wine and swap lies about farming.

Our first Lab, Tara, got an ear shredded by a vicious raccoon. Malcolm stitched it up and we returned with her a week later to have the stitches removed. We were sitting around in the kitchen, chatting, and Malcolm patted the chair he was sitting on. Tara walked right up to him and sat down with her head between his legs. He took his tweezers and slowly began pulling the stitches out of her ear while she trembled, unrestrained. I’ve never seen so flagrant a “touch” in a vet before and such trust from a dog.

Afterwards, he told her to go lie down, and she curled up in the big basket in front of the fire in the living room. We gossiped on, then got into a disagreement, mostly because Malcolm, like many farmers, is a flamboyant conservative (though he’d deny that with some vigour), and I’m definitely not—so we usually have much to argue about. It was late in the evening by then and, after finishing our wine, Sharon and I left. We were a mile down the driveway before we realized we’d forgotten the dog, who was happily snoring in front of the fire. Most times when you take a dog to a vet it cringes and shakes and looks hopelessly at you as soon as you turn up the driveway. But not at Malcolm’s place. The dogs look forward to visiting his farm. And if they are good, which they usually are, they get a biscuit.

However, when you work a farm, you also have to deal with your own problems. Like the time old Tom Grundy brought his equally ancient but much-prized Highland collie, Cap, over to act as stud for our first border collie, Samantha. Tom has obviously spent many years hard labouring and walks with a ninety-degree stoop. Cap was so geriatric that Tom had to bring a bale of hay for Cap to jump on to get into the pickup. Samantha was a young, choice virgin, and we were all eager to see how this was going to turn out. We introduced the suitor to the virgin and it didn’t take long, even though Samantha was not sure about it all.

Suddenly everything went south. They stuck together. Old Tom was horrified. “It’ll kill him,” he moaned. I didn’t think so. I suggested a bucket of cold water. I’d seen that work before. This doubly horrified Tom Grundy. “That would surely kill him.” So we phoned Malcolm, who immediately volunteered that this was his funniest phone call of the week. I was all for letting the dogs solve the problem, and so was Malcolm, but Tom was fretting about his aged dog.

“There’s only one other thing you can do,” said Malcolm, “and that’s stroke Cap off. Then the knot will go down and he’ll fall out.” At this point I was starting to suspect the much-delighted Malcolm was having us on.

Sharon and I looked at each other and said simultaneously, “I ain’t doing that.”

This even gave Tom Grundy pause. Fortunately, while we were discussing solutions, nature took its course, as it usually does, and Cap flopped out of Sam. Sam ran for cover, having experienced enough of this sex business, and Cap staggered away as if he was going to keel over from exhaustion.

After Tom had settled down from the crisis with a cup of coffee, he and Cap returned to his old pickup. Cap climbed onto the hay bale and into the back of the truck. I threw the bale in after him, and Tom lifted the gate, but it wouldn’t close. He kept shutting it, and it fell with a crash each time. Finally, I slammed it up. That locked it. Tom slowly walked around and climbed into the cab. Sitting behind the wheel, he gave me a long, baleful look and said, “Old man . . . old dog . . . old truck . . .” Then, shifting into gear, he slowly motored down the driveway.

THE BIRTH OF THE
pups was almost as stressful. Sam practically had a nervous breakdown as they began arriving. I’d been watching her all morning, but every time I left her she’d start to panic. She shredded her bed in minutes. I moved her to the attached greenhouse and went to get a coffee. By the time I returned she’d almost eaten her way through the exterior door. I phoned Sharon for help, but she was too busy with other traumas at the emergency ward where she was working that day.

Eventually, I had to lie down with Sam and console her. Once the puppies started popping out, she tried to run away, so I restrained her until she naturally shifted into mothering mode and licked the blood and caul off them, warming and drying them, before suddenly trying to escape as each new one appeared. After an hour of this I was a basket case. Fortunately, Sharon arrived home and took over. Once the birthing was done, Sam became a magnificent mother.

Jen’s first batch of pups arrived several years later, and both Sharon and I were lucky enough to be home. We’d built her a covered hay nest in the barn, and she seemed to think it adequate, but we still kept a close eye on her. We were in the library watching a movie about raising camels, which included a birth scene that Jen watched wide-eyed. Border collies are smarter than some people I know, and I’m convinced she understood exactly what was going on. It’s only human stupidity that causes our failure to recognize animal intelligence. Whether it’s the cats and dogs or Tuco the parrot, watching videos with our gang can be a riotous experience. Tuco always growls at bears and furry critters and cheers the reptiles and the birds in the movies, and he adores rampaging dinosaurs, scantily clad women, and noisy science-fiction wars.

Being so near to term, Jen had a weak bladder and needed to relieve herself. Sharon unthinkingly let her out and started making some popcorn. By the time she opened the door again Jen was long gone.

We searched for an hour and then just as I returned out of the rainy night I heard a squeak like a newborn puppy might make. Only it was under my feet. Jen had slithered into the crawl space beneath the mud room. The entrance at the other side of the house was so tight I was forced to dig it out so I could crawl inside. Wearing my headlamp, I had to exhale deeply in order to slide under each joist. Talk about claustrophobia!

Worse, it appeared that the cool, dampish earth of the crawl space under the rear addition was also a graveyard, containing the fossilized skeleton of a cat, probably killed by a raccoon long before we bought the farm, a dead sparrow, and a dead mouse. It was ghoulish, and now there was more squeaking, multiple squeaking. I turned the corner beneath the laundry room. It was still too black ahead, even with the headlamp. I kept crawling as the squeaking grew louder. Finally, I saw her huddled in the corner. Four pups. Obviously more to come. She was in a panic. I crawled up to her and took the first four pups, one at a time, and placed them behind me. Then I grabbed Jen by her chain-collar and started gently dragging her on her back. I couldn’t leave her there, in case she developed problems.

So I lifted the pups a foot ahead, dragged myself, then dragged her. I couldn’t let go now because she’d crawl straight back to her damp hidey-hole. Cursing and sweating in the dark, I retreated a foot at a time until we rounded the corner and I saw Sharon’s flashlight at the entrance. She called out to Jen, and the dog broke away and ran into her arms, while I slowly wormed forward with the pups. Once outside we leashed Jen and carried the pups to her fancy, hay-lined, blanket-adorned birthing lair, where she finished the job, locked in. I returned to the house and showered off a half pound of mud, dirt, and dead things.