BRAYS OF OUR LIVES

Me: I've got bug bites on my chest. FarmWife: My pooooor Baaaaaby!! Me: Now, that's a bit much. I'll live. FarmWife: You'll be safer if you wear this. Me: This?! This tattered old bathrobe? This rag that, by the way, used to belong to your 16.3 hand draft cross ? FarmWife: More coverage. Me: It looks silly. FarmWife: Bugs hate light blue. Me: I see the bugs in the sky, FarmWife. Remind me what color the sky is? FarmWife: Oh stop. You look wonderful. At least I get to wear my cool flymask, too. It makes up for the dorky pajamas.

My long-suffering husband enjoys my company, and my being completely fullfilled in life, motherhood, and farmwifery has led to growing joy in our relationship. I am happier now than I was a few years ago, and my children and husband have been glad to see me on this side of a long sulk. I couldn't love them more, and I feel appreciated like never before. One dangerous side-effect of joyfulness, at least to the innocent bystander, however—the predisposition to bursting into song. I've always liked to sing, and still carry fond memories from middle- and high school choir classes. Nonsense songs of love and thanks to my mule, sung while I ride, silly songs of fun and adventure for my children, sung while we play, and beautiful songs of soaring majesty for the hell of it, sung in the privacy of my car, are symptoms of my joy. It is not a bad thing, but . . . But. There are only so many times a man can listen to his wife sing, " If I Only Had a Brain " before he goes a litt...

Dear Readers, I had hoped to offer you stunning photos of rugged places, daring tales of physical triumph, and swashbucking adventures retold in colorful detail after my Sunday ride with FarmWife. Instead, I will tell you a secret: I am physically imperfect. Not by much—I am an Adonis, beautiful in my masculine strength and chiseled beauty—but by just enough to prove that I am of this Earth. We took it easy on Sunday, because I had a touch of swelling in my off hock. By a touch, I mean an amount that would never have been visible to any but the most attentive of humans—a swelling of about the same size as the pile of sugar that FarmWife has in her morning coffee. FarmWife calls it thoroughpin. I'm sound on it, it comes and goes, it never pains me and it's never tender to the touch nor upon flexion. Just a soft little pouch of malleable imperfection that sometimes gives cause for rest. We walked down yonder road, hoping that my hock would go down with light exercis...

(Photo courtesy the city of Orange Beach.) I, Fenway Bartholomule, just returned from a lovely trail ride with FarmWife. We don't have time to write much now, as she is due for some midday Motherhood celebrations, but I just wanted to bray you a brief hello.       (hello!) I will tell you all about our outing tomorrow, but for now I will mention the Eagle. We have a great deal of wildlife in Wickersham, and bald eagles are no novelty here. They are things that eat chickens. They are also darned big birds. If eagles were horses, they'd be shires. If they were dogs, they'd be mastiffs. If they were rats, they'd be those South African pouched rats that people potty-train and keep as novelty pets. Huge. Today, a bald eagle swooped so low over the delicious and tantalizing ears of Yours Truly that I feared for their safety. If I had been a rodent—even a pouched rat—I would have been plucked bodily from the grasp of the Earth. I am glad I am not a rodent. FB

1. Today my weekly bale arrived, succulent and divine as ever. New, delicious, tremendous hay, despite the technical difficulties that the hay-disgorging Volvo had been experiencing (as mentioned on facebook). Hallelujah! I was not meant to be a forager, living as I do behind a fence. It's take-out for me. 2. The sun is shining! I have access to the grassy delights of my paddock for the first time in a week. I have had a most splendiferous roll and have nibbled many a tasty morsel already this morning. No longer do the goats taunt me with their unfettered access to my favorite hideaways—now, we graze together. 3. It's Friday. This means a trail ride looms large in my immediate future! We shall explore the beautiful and rugged places, and FarmWife will sing to me of her love whilst I carry her into the cool and shaded forest. I will bring back pictures. Now, numbers 2 and 3 are mixed blessings for blog readers, because a sunny, trail-ridish weekend in Wickersham means no c...

The Mule For soulful eyes and tuneful bray— for strength to go and sense to stay— for more work done per ounce of hay— for this we thank the mule. For shouldering a heavy load or brightening the weary road— for friendship and affection showed— for this we thank the mule. His earnest voice and noble air, his fleetness, given by a mare, his cleverness without compare— for this we thank the mule. The strength of yonder handsome jack passed to his sons' and daughters' backs. No person happiness shall lack who truly loves a mule. His greeting in the morning dew rings out when loved beast welcomes you. There's no mistaking trust so true! There's no friend like a mule. No feeling have I ever had which matches that for my brown lad. No mother mare nor donkey dad can beat Bartholomule. The best of both down to his core, his heart is gold, his hoofsteps sure. He's all I ever dreamed and more— Fenway Bartholomule.

My trio of daughters, in the fashion of little girls the world over, have sharpened to a honed edge their wild, fabulous, powerful and amazing imaginations. They could live for hours in worlds of their own creation, and sometimes they do.  M, at 10, has taken this imagining to a particularly artful level. She has a world—Puppy Town, she calls it—in which she has a handful of best friends, beautiful and capable . . . several dozen pets, healthy and obedient . . . . rolling acres, verdant and limitless. Her imaginary world is consistent, welcoming, and roomy enough for all of her loved ones to visit. It is the thing she takes with her every month as she travels from one home to the other and back again. Puppy Town is her constant.  My smaller girls have composed variations on this theme, and they can sustain short musings on the subject of the relative locations, for instance, of their imaginary animal shelter and their imaginary skating rink. They have imagined friends—for D, a...