Last week, walking with the dogs, I came upon the carcass of one of our weaned calves. It had a red chalk mark across its face, indicating that Shawn or the hired man had "doctored" it for some illness, but unsuccessfully.
Today, just a week later, my walk took me to the same part of the meadow, just below the treeline on what is left of an old irrigation dike. At first, I didn't see the carcass, so assumed that Shawn had drug it off somewhere. Then, several yards from where I expected to find the calf stood an empty ribcage, a few thigh bones, and some skin . . . the only indicators that there had been a complete animal lying here just seven days ago.
That empty ribcage struck me . . . how quickly life can disappear. If a calf, grazing the meadow one day, dead the next, can be nearly nonexistent within a week -- can have all physical traces of its presence on earth wiped out -- then what is to prevent that from happening to any of us?
Of course, I hope there won't be coyotes, bald eagles, hawks, owls and other small scavengers picking away at my ribcage. I hope I will be mourned and remembered by the people I love, the people I share my life with. I hope some traces of the way I've lived these last forty years -- or however many more -- will outlive my physical body.
Death bluntly reminds me, however, that there are no guarantees. I may work hard to create a legacy, to ensure my survival beyond my death . . . and I may still be forgotten. There is, after all, only this day that is sure. Only this day to fill up, to celebrate that I haven't yet become an empty ribcage standing sentinel on the prairie. Only this day to live . . .
Monday, February 22, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Winter
Alone at the ranch today . . . I have a holiday for Presidents' Day, but my kids are in school and Shawn is over at the neighbors', helping to sort and vaccinate calves.
Yesterday, we sold horses at a bull sale in North Dakota. It was the culmination of several months of work on Shawn's part, training and riding these horses, as well as just struggling to keep them healthy through the winter months prior to the sale. We've had so much ice this year --- the snow will melt just enough, and then the temperature will drop so that the melted snow becomes ice. Then more snow, more melting, more icing up . . . a cycle that only spring will break. The last two years have been particularly bad.
Not that we are the only people struggling with the weather; this winter has beaten down so many people across the nation that I feel silly complaining about ice. Yesterday, my brother from South Dakota didn't even bring the two horses he was supposed to sell, because the roads and weather were too bad for traveling.
And as I watch weather reports of major snowstorms hitting the northeast in the last few weeks, I know we are just not alone in this battle. Not that it is much of a battle: weather, Mother Nature, whatever you want to call it, will always win. All we as humans can do is try to be careful, take care of the livestock, and wait it out.
I think this powerlessness is what makes major storms such a perenially big story for news channels. As humans, we are so accustomed to making our lives work out a certain way . . .when a storm hits and shuts down our lives for days or weeks, we are as devastated by the reminder that we aren't in charge as we are by the physical hardships we have.
Here at the ranch, we learn, as our ancestors did, to expect bad weather, to prepare for it, to try to live with it. Winter always comes, and with it, snow, ice, and cold wind. Likewise, we will cycle through heavy spring snows and rains, parching summer days, violent lightning and hailstorms. We know these things will come; if we are in tune to the world around us, we even begin to recognize, like the animals, the certain look of the clouds and smell of the air.
And it is in caring for the animals, watching them, noticing how they behave, that we learn to deal with the weather. It is in going back to what is animalistic, primitive, and basic in us that we survive . . . and perhaps even then have an opportunity to thrive. Our horses and cattle don't exert themselves any more than necessary in frigid weather. Instead, they huddle in groups, taking in what weak rays of sun there are, and absorbing body heat from the animals around them. Our dogs curl up, back against a wall or a bush, to wait out the bitter winds. Our cats hide, coming out only when they hear the barn door open and know somebody is there to feed them.
Only we humans attempt to carry on as usual, driving the same speeds, using the same amount of electricity, continuing our endless cycles of go-go work and play. We could take a lesson from the animals. We could slow down a bit, and then perhaps we wouldn't remember this winter as being so difficult . . . or at least we wouldn't compound the difficulty with traffic accidents, cold and flu epidemics, and stories of homeless people freezing to death on the streets. Winter weather is a reminder to us all that we should focus most on caring for ourselves and our neighbors, on getting proper rest and nutrition, on staying close to our companions, on enjoying the sun when it shines.
Mother Nature is trying to tell us something: we have our priorties wrong. She's trying to reorder them for us, and she will do it, one way or another. The earth teaches us multitudes of lessons, daily, monthly, seasonally. We humans just need to learn how to listen.
Yesterday, we sold horses at a bull sale in North Dakota. It was the culmination of several months of work on Shawn's part, training and riding these horses, as well as just struggling to keep them healthy through the winter months prior to the sale. We've had so much ice this year --- the snow will melt just enough, and then the temperature will drop so that the melted snow becomes ice. Then more snow, more melting, more icing up . . . a cycle that only spring will break. The last two years have been particularly bad.
Not that we are the only people struggling with the weather; this winter has beaten down so many people across the nation that I feel silly complaining about ice. Yesterday, my brother from South Dakota didn't even bring the two horses he was supposed to sell, because the roads and weather were too bad for traveling.
And as I watch weather reports of major snowstorms hitting the northeast in the last few weeks, I know we are just not alone in this battle. Not that it is much of a battle: weather, Mother Nature, whatever you want to call it, will always win. All we as humans can do is try to be careful, take care of the livestock, and wait it out.
I think this powerlessness is what makes major storms such a perenially big story for news channels. As humans, we are so accustomed to making our lives work out a certain way . . .when a storm hits and shuts down our lives for days or weeks, we are as devastated by the reminder that we aren't in charge as we are by the physical hardships we have.
Here at the ranch, we learn, as our ancestors did, to expect bad weather, to prepare for it, to try to live with it. Winter always comes, and with it, snow, ice, and cold wind. Likewise, we will cycle through heavy spring snows and rains, parching summer days, violent lightning and hailstorms. We know these things will come; if we are in tune to the world around us, we even begin to recognize, like the animals, the certain look of the clouds and smell of the air.
And it is in caring for the animals, watching them, noticing how they behave, that we learn to deal with the weather. It is in going back to what is animalistic, primitive, and basic in us that we survive . . . and perhaps even then have an opportunity to thrive. Our horses and cattle don't exert themselves any more than necessary in frigid weather. Instead, they huddle in groups, taking in what weak rays of sun there are, and absorbing body heat from the animals around them. Our dogs curl up, back against a wall or a bush, to wait out the bitter winds. Our cats hide, coming out only when they hear the barn door open and know somebody is there to feed them.
Only we humans attempt to carry on as usual, driving the same speeds, using the same amount of electricity, continuing our endless cycles of go-go work and play. We could take a lesson from the animals. We could slow down a bit, and then perhaps we wouldn't remember this winter as being so difficult . . . or at least we wouldn't compound the difficulty with traffic accidents, cold and flu epidemics, and stories of homeless people freezing to death on the streets. Winter weather is a reminder to us all that we should focus most on caring for ourselves and our neighbors, on getting proper rest and nutrition, on staying close to our companions, on enjoying the sun when it shines.
Mother Nature is trying to tell us something: we have our priorties wrong. She's trying to reorder them for us, and she will do it, one way or another. The earth teaches us multitudes of lessons, daily, monthly, seasonally. We humans just need to learn how to listen.
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