privy flowers and confessions

At some point, maybe thirty or more years ago, my grandma put together a little book of memories for the family. Childhood memories of growing up in Burchard, Nebraska, which is just thirty miles from where I still live. Many of her memories were of her grandparents, spending summer days at their house. I read through that book one morning last month and found Grandma's stories charming and sweet - she was a writer in many forms in her life, most prolifically of correspondence and her "card ministry" as she called it, sending thousands of cards to hundreds of people on a regular basis. But she also kept daily journals - I know this because she would sometimes take them out to look back and find when something had happened - but I've never read them. And she even wrote for the local newspaper for a number of years, though I've never read any of those columns either. And then the winter before last, she took to writing memories of her childhood again, scribbling them in her almost illegible, shaking hand on bits of paper, margins of letters and backs of envelopes, until my mom and aunt found her some notebooks to keep her thoughts in.

I have an urge to try to illustrate these stories one day - they are well-told, funny and folksy, which was and still is, Grandma's storytelling style. Many of them I'd heard over and over as a child, but some were brand new bits of lore... like any good writer, I am almost certain that Grandma's stories were edited and honed over time to match the version of her childhood she chose to carry in her memory... of happy innocence and simple, sweet pleasures.... of learning to spell her first word from her grandma on a sunny summer day: "G A R D E N.. I remember it took a long time and Grandma got short of patience. Grandma was always short of patience but we weren't worried about it as we were assured of her love for us. [. . .] Grandma had beautiful flowers. All the way to the outdoor toilet the holly hocks grew in abundance and put on a colorful show in summer. We'd pick the flowers and put a bud on the stem . . . . this formed dancing ladies . . . . we thought they were beautiful."

I painted a portrait of my great great grandma standing in front of some of those hollyhocks that hid her "privy" or outhouse last summer. It's one of those rare pieces that I don't really think looks like mine, it's something that came through me because it needed to be painted... a painting of my own that I can actually display and enjoy without a critical eye, though probably it has as many faults as most of my work, but for some reason, I don't really notice them. I just see a woman I never knew but feel I know, a part of me and my grandma and my mom, and all the women in my family who have held their hands in that way and squinted into the sun and seen back into time, their childhood, their mother or grandmother’s childhood.

I had some lovely hollyhocks this summer, and because of the dry weather, they didn't succumb to leaf rust as early as some years - but their peak is almost always around the summer solstice, when the photos above were taken, and all of them were chopped down almost two months ago now, around the time we made the decision to surrender Clara Belle to a local animal shelter. I pulled out a lot of things in the garden at that time - I guess making one concession encourages others, and having failed so spectacularly to give Clara the life she deserved, and to provide Sweet Haven with a new protector - having to accept my limitations as a caregiver and as a human - I guess I was more willing to accept my limitations as a gardener in my particular climate, too.

My instinct is to start justifying and generalizing and I suppose even to distract you from what was sadder for me in some ways, than having a pet pass away, because really, it felt like and indeed was our choice, a willful surrendering of an animal that I had intended to care for her entire life. And even if we believe that giving Clara up was better for her, and for us, and for our animals in the long run, it was still just that - giving up - giving up on her and ourselves and the possibility of our making things work.... eventually. We used that word so often after Clara came, hoping that eventually we would see progress with her behavior towards the cats and chickens and ducks. And while I could see at some point that she did understand what we wanted her to do - NOT to chase and attack and almost constantly harass the animals - she couldn't seem to stop herself. It was just too tempting. She would try if we were with her, but when our backs were turned, she couldn't resist.

The final straw was when I heard Celie hen's distressed cries during chores one afternoon and found Clara, jaws still wrapped around Celie's neck, having a nice chew. That was the day I knew we had to concede, for everyone's sake. Celie spent the afternoon in the house and I was beyond relieved to see that within 20 minutes or so, she was strutting around the basement like she owned the place, which was how Celie was - the queen of all she surveyed. Two days later, we surrendered Clara Belle. I can hardly write about it even now, it was so crushing.... what I know is that Clara was adopted within a week and what I hope is that her new family doesn't have to tell her "no" dozens upon dozens of times a day, and instead is able to tell her she's a good girl - which Clara was - she just couldn't be good around small animals.

I can tell myself it was the right choice for every other animal here at Sweet Haven, Leonard included, who needed almost complete rest after her surgery - it was the right choice for me, too, as I can't count the number of times I screamed myself hoarse and suffered injury, chasing Clara down as she tore around after or mauled hens and cats and ducks. My blood pressure is lower I know.... and I just have to believe that Clara is happier now too, being a good dog for someone who doesn't have all the temptations that Sweet Haven held for Clara. But it still feels rotten and wrong. So now you're privy to one of the griefs I've been holding close these last months, hoping that the guilt would feel less and the time to share present itself but I suppose giving up Clara is the closest thing I've every had to a skeleton in the closet - the sadness and shame of it still makes my cheeks and ears burn and my breath catch a little in my chest.

With Clara gone and Leonard confined indoors, another animal saw an opportunity to move into Sweet Haven. It started with a duck lost in the day... then one of the rescued hens... then another duck and another and then - Celie hen - Celie hen gone between treat time and dark... my favorite girl Celie, who I loved from the first day she came - it wasn't fair or objective of me - but that's the way animals are sometimes, just like humans, there are some that are so full of charisma and pluck that we can't help but get caught up in loving them, and I loved Celie dearly and deeply and probably unreasonably.... we searched and searched and called and wondered if she'd had a heat stroke, it had been over 100 that day and she never took the heat well - but she had come at chore time and jumped for her bananas as usual and then I found just a very few of her feathers, and it all presented itself clearly in my mind - it was the fox that I suspected had been the end of Fernie hen in June - I knew it was that fox, I could see what had happened, Dave could too, there was really no question - but you know, even though it's been a month now, I still think Celie will come trotting up any day now, stretching her neck and fixing me with her bright eye to see what I've got for treats. I just wasn't done with Celie. I thought she had a long story here, and I don't want to believe that it's over. I feel I failed her, so much shame and guilt here, too, because we've had such good luck over the years, keeping free range chickens with no predator problems at all, and I guess we've either been lucky, or cocky, or stupid, or lucky in having Leonard as a very good protector, probably all those things.

And now I fret over how to keep our remaining hens and ducks, who are unquestionably happier free ranging, but also unquestionably more in danger. We added chicken wire to the periphery to discourage them slipping through and prevent such easy access by foxes or other animals. And we decided to keep the rescued hens confined to their coop, garage, and garden area, which are securely fenced except overhead. I know they aren't as happy, though, and squabble more amongst themselves than when they had their freedom. I hope Leonard's reemergence as guardian during the day will put things to rights, but sometimes once the balance is broken, it's hard to restore equilibrium.

The week before the Friends of Sweet Haven fundraising sale, we had to let old Sissy cat go - she was over seventeen and had lived most of her life outdoors, with no real intervention from humans for her care - so when we took her in almost a year ago, we never expected to have very long with her. I suppose it doesn’t make her passing less sad, it doesn’t make me miss her less either, but it’s a loss I can accept because I know we did our best for her, and that she was very happy and comfortable and loved here.

Celie’s passing feels like a failure - I’ve wished and wished that I had just somehow kept her inside after her incident with Clara - but I’ve been reading a lot about chickens and how people choose to care for them, the different amounts of freedom they give and how each person weighs risks of predation against quality of life and I’ve thought a lot about Celie and how much she enjoyed life. She lived for a year in a tiny, muddy pen with a giant rooster who broke off most of her feathers and never gave her a moment’s peace and I know she never wanted to be contained like that again - she was always the first girl out of the coop in the morning, the first to hop out the barn door to find a good place to scratch and I think she relished every moment to be a free bird, free to follow her own will. Would I give her so much freedom if I could go back? My aching heart doesn’t want to - I might even have tried to keep her inside my house, never let her back out after her incident with Clara, but my head knows that probably wouldn’t have been fair to her. We are all part of nature, after all, and when we create an artificial environment for an animal, a part of them is never fulfilled. That’s the line we walk as animal caregivers or as parents, weighing how best to protect but also empower and help realize those in our care - it’s one I’ve written about before and I know it will continue to be something that grieves and puzzles and oftentimes confounds me, and I suppose that’s just part of loving someone.

I don't necessarily think every loss at a sanctuary needs to be or should be shared - it would be exhausting for everyone, an unnecessary grief for those who don’t need it - but I think these did need to be voiced to you . . . there are those who I’m certain would have noticed the absences of Clara and Celie and Sissy and I know you feel you knew and maybe even loved them too.

This morning I learned that my grandma’s nursing home is shut to visitors again, for at least two weeks. We’ve been able to visit since late spring, going at least once weekly with flowers for Grandma, and Nettie does her “chicken dance” which is probably the highlight of Grandma’s week. Her birthday is in a few days, she’ll be 97, and we’ll have to celebrate with her through the window, as we did last year. . . in the name of her and other’s safety and care. . .

From Grandma’s collection of stories: “Often in my mind I go to Grandma’s house and go through all the rooms, remembering where each piece of furniture was; rugs, wall paper, pictures, curtains, etc. I remember perfectly how it looked. . . . It seems a great comfort to me.”

wild plums

Nettie’s bouquet of wild plums and my beautiful hens from lovely Lynn of @seaangelsvintage

Nettie presented me with a small bouquet of wild plum blossoms today - I had spotted a handful blooming on my way to pick her up at my mom’s - there are fewer and fewer of them to be seen around here, though they used to fill the ditches and waterways in my childhood, their frothy, creamy-white flowers filling the air with fragrance around Easter-time. This small bouquet perfumed the car as we drove home and worked their magic in the kitchen as well, and half-way through afternoon chores I realized I was still smelling them and I thought somehow I was carrying the perfume in my hair or clothing, but realized after a few moments musing about it, that I was smelling the plums blooming in the copse south of the house, their fragrance carried on the wind.

We planted 75 small whips of Prunus americana (wild plum or American plum) nine years ago when we were just settling into this acreage. It was one of the first things we did and it seemed significant, meaningful, if a little hopeless, as we dug through the tough sod and planted what looked like little more than twigs which were almost impossible to spot (save for the small piles of wood mulch) in the sea of brome grass when we were done. I walked along that double row of plums today to see how they were doing. I suppose maybe 20 or 30 have survived, most of them being choked out by grass or succumbing to drought or eaten by rabbits or deer in the first few seasons. Those that remain are still small and insignificant looking, only one or two look as though they might have a few flowers this year. But this will be the first time any of them blooms, and I suppose that if two or three can really become established, mature trees that begin to send out suckers, there might eventually be a thicket here, the way I imagined it, even if I don’t see it in my lifetime.

Prunus americana

Leonard in the plum thicket south of the house

There are plums all along the waterway in the field south of our house. It isn’t a copse, really, though I used that word earlier - it’s just a low spot in the field that’s been left to nature, which seems more and more like a rarity - most waterways have been cleared of trees and shrubs in recent years, if they’ve been left at all, but this one is an exception and every spring I’m drawn out to visit the plums while they’re blooming, standing for a few moments in their profusion of petals and sweetness, perhaps the biggest show of romance I can think of that happens naturally here on the prairie, where most things are subtle and nuanced - the plums are exuberant extravagance, bursting forth for just a few days with their blossoms, which are quickly blown away by spring winds, leaving the plums rather like Cinderella after the ball - looking and probably feeling a little plain in their regular clothes.

The morning after we brought Nettie home, I remember waking up on the sofa in the library, which sat in front of an east-facing window, the bassinet next to me lit up by the rising sun, and the smell of wild plums filling the air. It seemed other-worldly, I felt hardly in my body. I think some of that was hormones and breastfeeding and really I have so few clear memories from Nettie’s first year, but that is one of them. The smell of wild plums and the bassinet and daffodils and the tips of her black hair glowing in the golden sun of an early April morning and her tiny curled body in her rosebud sleeper, everything soft and quiet and sweet.

Last night as I walked back to the house after shutting the animals in, I heard the back door slam. It was dark already and I squinted to see if the wind had caught it or if a cat or dog had pushed it open, and then saw a little figure walking towards me in her winter coat and scarf, though the night was mild. “Hey Mom, I came to take a nighttime stroll with you,” she said, slipping her gloved hand into mine as we met on the path, and though this would be our first ‘nighttime stroll’ together I smiled and only laughed inside and replied like we often did this, “this is a good night for a stroll,” and squeezed her hand and we walked towards the black shadows of the hedgerow and she asked “What’s that smell?” and I said “that’s the wild plums blooming.” We stood still at the edge of the trees, the wind blowing our hair back from our faces, the smell of the plums filling our noses, and she said “There must be thousands and thousands of them,” and I said “Tomorrow we’ll go and see them before they’re gone.”