A Bit of Life and Death

Lately I've been having an occasional dream that seems like it's not a dream. The setting will be exactly as it is where I am sleeping. It will feel like it's a happening and I am awake.

In one of those I looked over and saw a man sitting on the bedroom step. Farm Boss was standing in the bathroom-- I think, trimming his mustache or beard. I knew he didn't see the man who I knew wasn't really there. I decided clearly this was a ghost visiting, no threat to it, just there. The face I didn't recognize, but he was dressed in pants, a jacket of some sort, and I think a kind of cap but not a farm hat. It was working man garb and seemed from an earlier era.

Some other spirit beings flitted by, and I guessed I was probably going to be seeing ghosts now. That was not particularly thrilling or scary to me. It was just a fact and one I hadn't asked for but there it apparently was. When I woke up later, I saw no ghosts.


The day preceding it had been all about farm stuff, my writing, Farm Boss and I playing Quiddler and taking turns being swamped by bad luck, and watching a delightful little DVD that we had gotten through Netflix-- Tortilla Soup.

If you haven't had a chance to see that one, check it out. Funny, lovely, about a Hispanic family in the LA area, widower father trying to do the best he could for his grown daughters, love not always where you expect it, tradition, cooking (all the wonderful food will make you hungry, want to cook, or both), and watching people living their lives fully at all ages.

The farm activities here were several-- one a gang of small lambs who have figured fences are for going through. This always happens about this time of the year as one gets out and their friends go with them. They ended up once out on the road when I heard one that had been left behind bleating plaintively. His friends had left him. Maybe he was the obedient lamb who didn't want to get into trouble or maybe they got out while he wasn't looking. Anyway I got them back and then we managed to maneuver them all down the driveway and to their regular pasture that is tighter. No more out there until the 'leak' has been fixed.

Just after we had driven into town on Friday, Farm Boss got a message on his cell phone from our neighbor at the farm that we had a dead cow in our pasture. They see the pasture better than we do as they drive down the road from above. We figured it probably was the old one, the one who had lost a calf two weeks earlier.

Hearing that kind of news took the edge off wanting to be in town because you always feel some sadness when you lose an animal, but it also meant there was no reason to cut our trip short. What was done was done. We had come to celebrate the birthday of one of our grandsons and we did that.


This time my youngest grandson was particularly interested in my face, very cuddly which he hadn't been the last times I'd been with him and I very much enjoyed that. It was funny though as he studied my face, put his fingers on my cheek and asked why I have cracks.

Laughing and thinking only a three year old says stuff like that, I answered they are the result of being old and having lived 67 years. I said they aren't really cracks. First I thought to say they were lines, which is how I have seen them, but then told him wrinkles. After I was back at the farm, I decided actually cracks is a better word than wrinkles. They are kind of cracks, like cracks in the earth, my earth. I suppose I should dab a little more moisturizer on them, but I doubt it'd change anything. They are a product of both age and a lot of time outdoors. Since I won't be staying inside, won't be having a laser peel that would flatten them, they are staying. It's amazing what children observe.

Then came a special moment of the week-end, at least for the farm, even though it was also a bit of a sad one. When Farm Boss had pulled the carcass of the dead cow to where he planned to dig a hole with the backhoe, our horned cow, another of his favorites, came over to the body. She nuzzled it a little and then licked it. It was her mother.

I believe the old cow died of a heart attack although it's possible she had had internal bleeding after such a difficult birthing, but I really don't think so since she had been eating and active. That night she had gone to the back with the herd, and they slept under their favorite tree. She looks to have died in her sleep.

Can anyone creature or human ask for more than she had which was a long life fully lived on her own land, having some of the calves she birthed grow up to still be with her. She was born on that land. It was hers more truly than ours. Then with no fear of death, she bedded down that last night, slept with her herd, and died there before morning.

Add to that the last thing, the one that made it a piéce de resistance was where loving respects were paid to her with a last gesture, but one where the horned daughter didn't stay to grieve. She then went back to the herd and on with her own life. Once the cow had been buried, the herd went on as if nothing had changed... and it hadn't.

(Photos of the cattle are some old ones as it's been raining and gray too much to get good color in any photos right now. Soon though. Spring is here and summer not far behind! I hope.)