It's Not Only About Trees -- Lessons on the Sliding Scale of a Lifetime

Crocus on the day she arrived in the mail at Iron Sun Farm

Almost everyone knows the math -- one dog year equals seven human years.  Part of the joy and sadness of loving a dog is knowing, best case scenario, you will bear witness to a lifetime in about a decade.  In a year, the infant becomes a schoolchild; in another, a teenager; and then an adult.  In the blink of an eye, your energetic, clumsy puppy has become a loyal but dotty companion who needs a supporting hand to climb the steps to bed at night.

For horses, the pace of a lifetime more closely resembles our own, still they get about a year for every three of ours.  Ten years ago, when my handsome Juneau came into my life, he was eight -- a cocky but tense frat boy who’d just got his first real job – carrying me through a variety of adventures.  Today, he’s a seasoned gentleman – able to do just about everything the young guns can do, but a bit sore and weary the next day.

Last year, I had my first venture into the world of poultry.  I got three young hens – coop-ready but not yet laying.  I named them Agnes, Bernadette, and Cornelia.  Over the course of that first year, I lost all three.  Cornelia had some kind of injury or growth impairment that made it hard for her to move about.  Occasionally, she’d tip on to her back and – like a turtle – would be unable to right herself.  Ultimately, I had to dispatch her; which was much easier physically and harder emotionally than I would have guessed.  Agnes got attacked by my cat.  She carried on for a month but slowly wasted away as the nights got cold.  Bernadette literally died of a broken heart.  Left alone in the coop, she just stopped eating.

You’d think that would have cured me of chicken ownership, but no.  I really enjoyed the ladies.  Not only was having fresh eggs a delight; they also did an excellent job of weeding around the barn and keeping down the bugs.  This spring, rather than throw in the hen towel, I decided to play the odds and got six new chickens – Dorothea, Estee, Fanny, Ginger, Hester, and Irma.  These girls, at 4 months, are avian middle schoolers – cuddled together in an awkward, squawking pile one minute and the next chasing each other around the coop in a game we call WORM DERBY.

I also am the proud owner of three mail order ducklings – Camelia, Pansy, and Crocus.  These little beauties hatched on a Wednesday in Memphis and were popped in a cardboard box the same day.  When I got out of my car at the post office two days later, their peeping could be heard from the parking lot.  In the week they’ve been home, they’ve doubled in size, set tail feathers, produced about a pound each of nasty guano, and decided I may be their mother.  Like the toddlers they now are, they run from me in gleeful zoomies when I need to catch them then nestle under my legs when I sit down.

Being the steward of this amazing menagerie of animals with their abbreviated lifespans has taught me a few things. 

·       Lesson 1 – Don’t think about aging, just enjoy your new reality.  When my dog was young, her best day ever involved chasing deer.  Today, Reba really likes a nap on the sofa.

·       Lesson 2 -- The quality of a life depends on the quality of the company in which you live it.

·       Lesson 3 --When things really go tits up, it’s better to have someone take a hammer to your skull than to die of a broken heart.

After only a week, Crocus, Camelia, and Pansy are full ‘fledged’ toddlers