AgriCulture: Ayse's Time Arrives

Writers tend to return to a few themes repeatedly . Maybe it’s because preoccupation with an idea is what drives someone to write, or maybe each person just has room for a few big concepts, the prism through which they see the world, in their soul. Just as sheep can only remember 15 human faces, maybe we are wired to only be able to think about a few issues in depth.

Or in my case, maybe there’s a third explanation, which is that I have to return to the same questions over and over again because I am unable ever to resolve them. I compulsively examine the pluses and minuses on every issue. I think I’ve resolved a question (like will I be a city mouse, a country mouse, or a straddler?) only to find some new event or thought or angle that throws everything into doubt. So I procrastinate about making the final decision, and therefore have to re-debate repeatedly as I inch toward resolution.

So here I am again contemplating the fate of my aged frail blind ewe, Ayse. Decisions about the end of her life have recurred every month or two, with each successive setback to her health. And each time I’ve concluded that she can no longer enjoy the essence of a sheep’s life in its fullness and that it’s probably time to bring things to a merciful end, I have also found a new reason not to carry through.

I fear this presages how I will adjust to my own future decrepitude. If anyone asks, I say I would find dependency humiliating and have no desire to live if I cannot lustily enjoy the pleasures I’ve always pursued. A few years ago, I told my friend George, one of my medical proxies, that if anyone offered me a seat on the subway it was time to withdraw all medical care from me. But then someone offered me a seat, and I moved the goalpost.

It’s been many months since Ayse, who last fall would wander frantically in circles bleating and desperate to graze with the herd from which she had become separated, has participated in the herd’s daily wanderings. These days, while everyone else is off in the far pasture Ayse can generally be found grazing alone within 50 feet of the barn. She seems contented, but I wonder if that’s not just wishful thinking on my part. Sheep are the quintessential herd animals, to the degree that it would be inhumane to keep just a single sheep as a pet. They live to be part of the herd.

It’s been a couple of months since Ayse got tangled in an old fence, where she was stranded for several hours and could not, when untangled, stand up. I had to put her in a wheelbarrow and wheel her to the barn, where she thankfully recovered function before I could have her put down.

It’s been several weeks since Ayse has been able to effectively navigate the twice daily grain treat stampede in the barn. Sheep eating habits can be rather rough. Although there is more than one grain bowl per sheep, spread out all over the barn, typically a sheep will take a bite or two out of one bowl and quickly move to the next, often bonking out whoever is at the next bowl, until the sheep change bowls several times in a kind of chain reaction. Recently Ayse’s been knocked over several times in the stampede to the feed, and I’ve noticed that even though she tries to start in the most remote bowls, the location of which she has a mental memory for, she gets bonked out of the way more quickly and violently than any of the others. They know they can push her around, and the only remedy is to give her a several minute head start at feeding time.

The last few days Ayse has seemed even more unsteady on her feet, falling as she tries to come to the barn and on a couple of occasions requiring that I carry her in. Yesterday, when I got to the barn in the morning, I found her lying on her side and unable to get up. I put her in a pen, and after a couple of hours of rest I was finally able to position her to sit “sternally”, that is up on her chest with her head up with two legs under her and two out to the side. In that position, she’s been able to drink water, munch on hay, and avidly devour grain treats. But try as she might, she has remained unable to stand up even if I lift her up onto her legs.

She seems “comfortable”, because I’ve imposed on her a human conception of convalescence. But the vet told me that Ayse would tell me when it is time to go. And I think Ayse has told me. Barring a miraculous recovery, it is time for good-byes.

I take solace in Ayse’s, and by extension my own place in the larger ecosystem. In some sense we all exist simply as conduits of energy, each creature or life form feeding on another. Indeed, I sometimes have wondered whether our activity here as humans on planet earth, which we find so uniquely driven by intentionality and somehow on top of the pyramid of life forms, controlling the others, is in fact any different in kind from any other creature. As our guts contain a microbiome of millions of tiny organisms interacting and feeding on one another, I wonder if we ourselves might not be relative micro-organisms in an nook of the gut of some much larger being. We think we control and shape our world, when in fact we are simply a cogs in that being’s digestive process.

Unfortunately, because of the powerful drug given to euthanize an animal, Ayse will have to be buried deep in the ground, and not returned, like the doe who died here two weeks ago of natural causes, to a high level of the food chain. The drug that quickly kills her would sicken any scavenger that partook of her flesh. Still, there is comfort to being able to time her death, to support her through it, and to know that her energy will remain here, feeding back even at the micro-organism level into the energy of the farm.

WHAT’S AVAILABLE THIS WEEK

Rhubarb $4 a lb.

Mint $1 a bunch

Dill, $1 a bunch

Chervil $1.50 a bunch

Sorrel, $3 a bag

Spinach $4 a bag (limited quantities)

Garlic chives, $1/bunch (flat leafed)

EGGS: $5/doz

FRESH HORSERADISH, $3/lb

CHICKENS: They were quite uniform in size, all just around 6 lbs, a few under. These freedom rangers have been what you want them to be, deeply flavorful. $6/lb, frozen.

FARM PICKUPS:

Email us your order at [email protected], and let us know when you’d like to pick up your order. It will be put out for you on the side screened porch of the farmhouse (110 Lasher Ave., Germantown) in a bag. You can leave cash or a check in the now famous pineapple on the porch table. Because I’m now here full time, we’re abandoning regular pick-up times. Let us know when you want your order any day between 10 and 5, and unless there are unusual circumstances we’ll be able to ready it to your convenience. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to call or text at 917-544-6464 or email.