Of Carrots and Life
Animal Story, Blog, Other Animals | March 16, 2012
Once a week we do a meditation on Earthfire’s vision which includes Hannah, a volunteer who lives in England. We start at 7:30 am our time and she at 2:30 her time. At the end of an hour she gives us a call and we discuss what arose for each us. This time she said a bit sheepishly, “What came up for me was carrots. Images of carrots.” At first I thought she said parrots and I thought of a remarkable one I knew but she said, “No, CARROTS. Does that make any sense?”
I told her what happened yesterday:
Robert, our farrier, had come to trim the feet of Jenny, the very ancient donkey we are honored to care for. She is very very ancient. When we first got her several years ago the vet came to examine her. We asked her age, he said “ She was born before Nixon’s first term.”
I came out to meet Robert who had been looking her over. He said, “Susan, you’ve got to put Jenny down. She’s depressed, moping, in pain. The wound on her back isn’t healing and her feet are falling apart.” I said, “Please do her feet. She still wants her carrots. If she wants her carrots, she still has a zest for life, and I’m not going to take that from her.” I described how, as we led her to the area where he was going to work on her, we passed the bag of carrots I always bring out in preparation for the event. They were several yards away but she started veering towards them, catching the scent even in the cold air and through the plastic bag. Food is a big part of her life.
Robert started working on her feet as we fed her the carrots. She took them with her usual grumpy acceptance.
We shared our thoughts about when, if ever, does one euthanize an animal? He had worked on big ranches where the animals were generally put down rather than nursed, especially if they were no longer “useful.” But Jenny is very useful; let me count the ways:
1. She certainly considers herself useful to herself. She thinks she is quite important and lets us know her rights and demands and opinions without any hesitation.
2. We love her.
3. She adds great character to Earthfire. She is the first to scream for food in the mornings, her raucous bray ricocheting around the ranch. She is the first to scream for food in the evenings, the loudest voice of all the animals. When we try to sneak extra treats to her she always gives us away as we approach, and the other donkeys and horses and buffalo come pounding from across the field. If we try to sneak by her to go to the yurt, she gives us away again.
4. She also is adorable with a great soft fuzzy gray forehead, hair covering most of her soft brown eyes and the very best longest donkey ears.
5. She has presence and dignity. No pushing HER around.
6. And she leans into us for petting. How can that not be useful?
But basically we are very reluctant to take an animal’s life under any but the most dire circumstances, and with Jenny, certainly not if she still lusted for carrots. Robert really loves animals and horses and donkeys. As we talked he softened and said “Yes, I can see that way of doing things. I’m just not used to it.”
Because we respected his opinion we called Summer, our vet, to look at Jenny again, see if she was in pain, and to re-dress the wound on her back which was actually healing. Very slowly, but healing. She was certainly old, slow, a bit hang-dog and not enjoying the winter cold and deep snow. But she loved her attention, her hay, and her carrots. As a wild donkey captured many years ago from the wild, in the Bureau of Land Management wild horse and burros round-ups, she did not have carrots. They loom large in her world.
Summer said she didn’t think it was time, so we left things as they were, her dainty hooves trimmed to Robert’s artistic and exacting specifications.
Back to Hannah and her images of carrots. Why did that come up for her? Was it a coincidence? If it was from Jenny and her will to live, how did Hannah pick that up? How did Jenny convey that? She never met Hannah, who lives across the Atlantic ocean. That was the only image Hannah “got” during that meditation and it was a strong one; it kept coming up for her.
I wonder at the implications of events like this. It hints at a reality much larger and richer than the one we normally inhabit, just waiting for us to tune in and enjoy. A reality in which we are all connected in unseen ways and sometimes can feel, if we are able to be quiet inside and attend to the softer knowings that come to us.
As always, comments, stories and personal experiences welcome.
PS – I read somewhere that carrots share 50% of our DNA
We have a well-established tank in the office cabin filled with colorful tropical fish who have become a peaceful adapted community. One of the denizens is a kuhlie loach. With its long slender agile body and gentle behavior it is a delight. Entering the office we look forward to seeing its brightly colored black and yellow stripes as it wiggles along the bottom feeling for food with its tiny sensitive whiskers. The other day I looked at the fish tank and saw him very uncharacteristically shooting up to the surface. I wondered briefly but was distracted by a very full office of people. In the evening, when I had time to sort impressions from the day, I remembered, and also realized that the recirculating pump in the tank was very quiet. It had stopped working and the oxygen content of the water had dropped. The loach had been trying to breathe. Now it was on the bottom in distress, belly-up, but periodically turning over, so we had hope. Jean and I pulled out the pump and tried to find out what was wrong. It took us a while but we finally got it working. Meanwhile we added fresh oxygenated water to the tank hoping that would help. We went to bed worried.
Jean came to the door with a soft concern in his brown eyes, tenderly holding what looked like an unmoving mound of cream colored feathers. It was Banty, a tough little rooster brought to his knees by the – 20 degree cold. A long-term resident, Banty had been raised by Esmerelda, a motherly turkey hen who was never able to hatch any of her own chicks. She was a splendid, ever-patient mother to him, and for her whole life he was the apple of her eye who could do no wrong. She was partial towards him even when he was a grown chicken. He was her only son.
Jean had found Banty huddled on the ground in his coop, weak and unable to stand. His neck was twisted 180 degrees so he was looking directly up at the ceiling, unable to straighten it or balance himself; unable to feed himself or drink. Perhaps a stroke? A nervous system virus brought on by cold stress? We had seen a similar twisted neck with another fine rooster, Strider’s Brother, who is now on his ninth life and 13 years old, so we didn’t despair. Where there is life there is hope.
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position so he could begin to relearn the sensation of straight posture. After about a week it seemed as if his neck was slightly less askew and Jean started to place him on the floor, supporting him as he tried to find his balance. Sometimes he would flop over and just lie there on his back on the warm floor, seemingly content, as he didn’t struggle to get up again. Then a big day arrived. Jean offered him food in a cup and he was coordinated enough to make a clumsy peck at it – he was on his way to feeding himself! Continuing his physical therapy, Jean would hold the cup in such a way that he had to work a bit to get it, exercising his coordination. Then was he was eating himself and hardly flopping over at all, his head now at only right angles to the ceiling. As he became more mobile and needed his exercise we would open the door to his crate (lined of course with fragrant hay) and release him in the living room which he soon claimed as his own. He would flat-foot his way over to Jean working at the computer and stand next to him making gentle little noises of companionship. Jean would reach down and stroke him. Quite a change from the shy untamed rooster he had been. There was a bond of
amazing sweetness developing between man and chicken. . .
It was a long frustrating trial for him and quite an accomplishment. First the nuts were too big and he couldn’t hold them; then he could barely hold them; then he managed to hold them andturn them this way and that but was unable to crack the nut so to speak. We would find them whole, “squirreled” away around his enclosure hidden away in frustration. After all, he had almonds and hazelnuts and pine nuts – what did he need with a lousy old walnut anyway? Then one day I found one open and empty!! And immediately another! He had gone on a walnut orgy. Since then he has been cruelly dubbed Walnut Gut by Dondy the svelte (he now is a rather substantial squirrel). She didn’t help matters by bringing organic walnuts from her mother’s 150 year old trees in California. Then Linda visited him yesterday and cried out “My God, he has jowls!” She doesn’t help either because she keeps feeding him nuts which she freely admits she cannot
resist. Then Amanda, who hasn’t seen him recently exclaimed “He has a gut!” as she went to give him a treat. The poor guy doesn’t stand a chance. And after all, a squirrel has to protect himself from potential starvation.
Approaching the office to give Tutankhamun his breakfast, Barette, our gorgeous iridescent black rooster is basking on the doorstep in the early morning sun. His favorite place. I say excuse me as he moves aside to let me in the door. He has his dignity and needs his recognition. I really should have said good morning first – courtesy counts.
Nomad Lives by Jennifer Sauer
