BRAYS OF OUR LIVES

Purina Goat Chow? No thank you. Equine Senior? Ho, hum. Corn, oats, and barley? Blech. Alfalfa pellets? Yaaaawwwwn. Asphalt shingles and moldy tar paper? NOW we're talking! Missy hasn't been so excited about a meal in ages. Good thing FarmWife was near the all-you-can-eat garbage buffet before Missy overate! Love, FenBar P.S. Our housetiger, Townes, is easier to feed. His challenge is that he is ALWAYS hungry. Here, you see that he has asked for, and received, a BIGGER bowl of cat food. "Ah," he said. "Finally, a dish my size!"

We are well situated here at Bent Barrow Farm in regard to nature. While our 113 year-old farmhouse sits on what many would consider a small parcel, we do have what feels like the world's biggest backyard. Bent Barrow Farm sits in the South Fork Valley of Western Washington's Cascade foothills, and with a fit mount and a weekend's time, I could ride out on our neighborhood logging roads and deer paths and make it as far as the 7,000-ft. Twin Sisters. With a free summer, a game mule, and a machete, I could traverse the neglected Pacific Northwest Trail to Montana. With a free hour, however, I am limited to difficult footing or very short spurs that end, like the pipeline trail, at gravelly drop-offs or precipitous, densely forested slopes. There’s the trail that ends above Ennis Creek, its gravel cul-de-sac offering little pleasure beside the burbling sound of the falls below, and the one that ends on the rise below Lyman Hill’s impassable north slope. Lyman Hill is just a l...

Bent Barrow Farm “ 'Begin at the beginning,” the King said gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” This story begins with this farm, if I can call it that. This farm sits on just 1.25 acres, but it’s all pasture and orchard and barn and garden and coop. I think it qualifies at least as a hobby farm, except that I resent that phrase. It brings to mind hobby farmers, whom I think of as people with more money than me. Perhaps this is no farm but just a rural home, with a rural yard full of rural pets—mules, goat, rabbits, chickens. I start by telling you about this place because it is here that I learned to be happy. When we bought Bent Barrow Farm (known then merely as the Omey’s place or, to some of the older neighbors, the Hathaway house, or, to some of the even older ones, the old electrical transform station), I was not happy. I was quite distressed, actually. We were expecting a third child—all of them unplanned, and through no lack of attempts at c...

Here's the second installment of the book I was writing. —Marnie Roommates, continued My cockatiels lived at that time in their own outbuilding, a flight cage of about a hundred square feet, and so Rhody, the aptly named Rhode Island Red, was the little house's only resident fowl. She had lost a leg after becoming entangled in chicken wire and had thereafter been brutally ostracized by her fellow hens. Chicken flocks, it turns out, are not equal opportunity organizations. She passed her remaining days in the yard with my three dabbling ducks and slept, each night, on my the headboard of my bed: butt facing out, paper beneath. The ducks slept in a doghouse out of doors, because even I had my limits. My Siamese cat—Mewzetica—and three guinea pigs—Piglet, Nellie, and Iggy Tribble—rounded out the mammal population of my little house until I brought home three mice and a pony. The pony, Sir Lancelittle, had spent his first five years of life tied to the outside of a lion cage,...

Let's file this under "old but good." This is an excerpt from the book that I was writing, and which I ought to get back to. I'll parcel it out to you over the next few days, and you can see if you think it's worth finishing. Some material may have appeared on my blog, Puddle Run, before. It's a mostly true story.   Marnie Roommates When I was about twelve years old, my mother and stepfather let me move into the guest house at Cultus Bay Road. The two story building, 100 yards removed from our squat shingled house, had linoleum floors, a kitchenette, and a fenced yard for my Indian runner ducks. This was my home for a brief but formative time, the years after my family moved to the country but before my Irish wolfhound was framed for murder. At the end of those years, my mom moved me to a five acre parcel off Lone Lake Road where we could afford a barn or a house, but not both, and where we therefore lived in a barn for the rest of ...

I worked from home today (Labor Day + a cold = a great excuse to stay in) and enjoyed the time with my pets: Clover, who DOES have a tail (it's just wagging too fast to see) Paisley, who ALWAYS looks this amazed Kevin, who is THIS wonderful (stretching arms wide). Marnie

Dear friends and readers, I'm planning on deleting  www.puddlerun.com ,  www.commissionedpoetry.com , and  www.commissionedpoetry.blogspo t.com . The archives of those blogs are now intermingled with Fenway's posts here at  www.BraysOfOurLives.com . I hope that the disadvantages of broken links and changing voices will be outweighed by the advantage of having a streamlined online identity and a chance to share photos, stories, poems, and updates in one place with my largest audience. The tone and character of Brays of Our Lives may evolve, and I thank my friends and readers in advance for going with me on this next phase of my journey as a writer.  Fenway is still here, hale, and hearty, and still serves as my muse. You'll hear from him from time to time! Marnie Jones