The July Work Party had arrived. The focus would be on the ducks and geese, and I hoped that this would be a good opportunity to meet Daisy up close and personal. Since I was feeling in need of some extra-strength Farm therapy, I planned to do the work party on Saturday and then stay Sunday to help with more chores. I must admit that I prefer my volunteer days to the formal work party days. I feel like I get more done on the days when it is just me volunteering and it is important to me to feel like I am giving my all to the animals.
That is why I was on the road at four AM driving through the quiet darkness en route to the Farm, as the curtains of night were furled to allow the many hues of morning to spread from the horizon and overtake the sky. I wanted to get there before the work party started at ten thirty and get in some extra volunteer time; really give my all. Normally, this trip would have been made the night before. I had gotten in the habit of driving up on Friday nights, but since I was going to be gone all weekend, I didn't want to leave Lori on Friday night. As I breathed deep, cool air to stay alert, I regretted my decision to make the morning trip. Like a kid on the night before Christmas, I had not been able to sleep. I had tossed and turned and hoped to twist myself into a blissful sleep, but it had eluded me. Now, I was feeling the exact opposite as I repeatedly shifted positions in my chair, trying to stay awake.
When I arrived at the Farm at about fifteen before seven, the sun was up and I could definitely feel it. It was going to be a scorcher! The internet weather site had said it would be over the one hundred degree mark and, for once, the internet wasn't lying. I quickly fell into step with Mike who was cleaning barns with one of the new interns. I was pretty proud of the fact that we got through the Rescue Barn, the Pig Barn, and most of the Sheep and Goat Barn before I saw Jess and realized that the volunteer introduction tour was wrapping up and that it was time for the work party to commence.
At first, it was just me and another volunteer named Todd who began raking out the soiled straw in the duck hutches. Since it was a special cleaning day, we also scraped and scrubbed the wooden floor to remove traces of, how should I say it, duck poop. Oreo, for his part, provided encouragement via occasional nips to my ankles. In his defense, I love the attention he gives me. I love ducks. There is something so peaceful about them. Watching them swimming, it always looks like they are gliding through the water, with no immediate evidence of how their little feet are kicking away under water to move them forward. I love their little bills, their feet, their waddle, and their duck-attitude. They are so much fun.
Shortly after we started, Luke and several interns arrived to help out. This allowed us to focus not just on the barns, but also removing weeds from around the duck pond, hutches, and fence-line. With the addition of Kristen, we were a full-fledged work party. I shifted my focus to pulling weeds for a while. I donned some of the gloves that we were provided in a small Tupperware container, but found that they were outmatched by the thorns and prickles on the weeds and other miscellaneous shrubs that we were attacking ruthlessly. It didn't take long to eliminate virtually every weed and evidence of duck poop was purged from the duck and goose pens. This was good news to the work party who were eager for lunch and for the ducks who appeared impatient as they hovered around the edge of their pen, curious about what we were doing, but not quite as eager to join us in the action.
While the rest of the team ate, I needed to spend some time with my buddies. I found Coco lying outside in the sun and I sidled up next to her for some quality time. She was looking slightly upward and cast a very noble profile against the blue sky. Her eyes traced me as I approached and sat down next to her. I could tell from her eyes and her expression that she wasn't going to get up and run off, so I moved a little closer so that I could recline next to her on my side. While the sun was baking overhead, her white fur took the edge off of it. As I scratched the top of her head, she would pitch her head forward in a way that seemed to encourage more of this and her eyes would take on a sleepy, dreamy look. These are the moments that I live for with Coco, and in her defense she has been pretty accommodating lately, although there can be some dry spells. After a while, I put my arm over her and pressed my face into her fur and breathed deeply. It has been my experience that the sense of smell is the best at conjuring up old memories and this seemed like a good way of binding this moment in my brain for revisiting at a future date. When I am with the goats, I feel so peaceful and serene. At first I attributed this to their simple life which obviously appealed to me when my life feels so chaotic, but over time I have started to wonder whether the simple life is really the more refined life. Who could possibly look at the average worker in the United States and believe that this is a healthy way to live? The outright lust to consume drives us to do things that we would never choose to do otherwise, like working ridiculous numbers of hours, squabbling for the petty scraps of dignity and prosperity that are tossed our way, sacrificing our lives piece by piece at the altar of commercial futility. It makes me think that these simple goats are a lot wiser than my co-workers or I. Since I had limited time while the others were at lunch, I had to say goodbye to Coco and seek out Melvin. Melvin is still shy with the other goats, probably not by choice but by necessity, and he was in the barn with the sheep. This served him well since it kept him in the shade. His coat has largely grown back and he is almost as curly as he was when I first met him. He always greets me when I come to see him and in that way he is a little more reliable than Coco. If Coco is "my girl", Melvin is my old gentleman friend who I can shoot the breeze and swap tall stories with. I love hearing stories from the caregivers of Melvin and Coco's bonding. I like to picture that they look out for each other and share the love that I see so often evidenced across the Farm. After spending some time rubbing his shoulders and looking into his deep eyes, I left him to his business in the shade and headed back to the Main Office to meet my compatriots.
By now the afternoon sun was perched directly overhead and the temperature setting for the day was set to broil. I have felt heat before. I used to live in the desert and do stupid things like going on all day hikes without any thought to bringing water. I have participated in fire-fighting training in a live fire trainer where I lost five pounds of water weight in less than an hour. I even had my core temperature spike at one-hundred and eight degrees once. That requires a little explanation. When I was in the Navy, I was asked to participate in steam suit testing. The steam suit was a piece of protective gear that was intended to allow an operator to enter the engine room after a catastrophic casualty in which a steam line had ruptured and probably killed everyone inside. The old steam suit had been determined to be inadequate and the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory was tasked with coming up with an alternative. Basically what this turned out to be was more layers of protection. My first layer was my briefs and undershirt. Over that I had my coveralls, a heavy FFE, or Fire-Fighting Ensemble as they called it, a vest, and then the old steam suit. For my first round of testing, I was to perform the engine room stabilization line-ups without any cooling packs in the vest for a baseline. Just getting suited up was a thermal event, and I was damp with sweat before I even got the steam suit strapped on. Before I put my helmet on, I was fitted with an ear thermometer to measure my core temperature during the exercise. With the helmet on, I was ready to go. However, the rest of the monitors were not ready. Plus the ELTs, or Engineering Laboratory Technicians, hadn't completed all of their secondary chemistry checks in support of the drill. The sweat was pouring down my back by now, partially because of the heat and partially due to the pressure not to screw anything up that would require me, or someone else to have to do this again. When I was finally allowed through the watertight door, after what seemed like an hour but was probably only half an hour, I forgot all about the heat and just went about my business. I verified the steam stop valves were shut, made some other checks, and then headed down to Engine Room Forward to initiate a steam generator blow-down for the starboard S/G. I was glad that they hadn't decided to litter the walkway with "dead bodies" to enhance the simulation because my visibility was pretty crappy. The only thing that would save anyone in this situation was the fact that we were all so familiar with the spaces and the route. When I got to the blow down station, I pulled the pin on the bracket that held the valve wrench in place. Since these were large steam valves, they were subject to thermal effects and required boundary valve checks to ensure they remained closed after the last use. This meant they were pretty tightly closed. Although they were "knocker valves" which meant that you could rotate them about fifteen degrees and then slam, or knock them, this was hard to do with the oven mitts of the steam suit. My job here was to commence the blow down by opening these valves. In a real situation, I would leave these open to discharge the contents of the affected steam generator overboard to prevent steam from leaking into the engine room. Since that would be a bad thing to do in the current situation, a monitor would follow behind me after I opened the valves and close them again after the prescribed blow-down met the desired water chemistry requirements. I headed back to the water-tight door and was glad to get unsuited. By this time I was drenched in sweat and when they pulled my ear thermometer out, there was some immediate concern over the readings. When they saw a peak of one hundred and eight degrees, it was readily apparent that the cooling packs would be needed. This simulation had been in a relatively cool engine room and it would definitely be a problem for anyone trying to do this in a real casualty. Hopefully, no one will ever need to don this outfit for real, but if they do, they can thank me for the fact that cooling packs will be available in the vest.
So that was a lengthy diatribe intended to prove that I know a thing or two about heat. As we started the next task, scooping up cow patties into piles, I was getting a whole new lesson in the subject. After about an hour in the oppressive heat, I felt awful. Keeping in mind that I had drank six sports drinks and at least as many liters of water, I was still struggling to keep up with the effects of the heat on my body. As my lower back started to spasm and my body began to feel chills, I entered the stage where, if I were a man stranded in the desert, I would have given up hope and resigned myself to death. It was that bad! Fortunately, in a purely selfish way, I was not the only one having a hard time. Kristen had headed inside a while earlier so I partially took advantage of the guise of chivalry to check on her and get out of the sun for at least a few minutes. Before she headed into the office, Hank had taken an interest in her. He had approached her from across the pasture and was hovering nearby for several minutes as she tried to rehydrate. Hank is friendly, but this was a behavior that I had not seen in him before. He has been the caretaker for the geriatric herd for a while, and it really looked like he was extending his caretaking across species to Kristen. I chose to believe that he was encouraging her to look after herself, like an old friend or a concerned neighbor.
It ended up taking at least fifteen minutes of checking on Kristen for me to be ready to brave the cow pasture again. By then, we were reaching the point of diminishing returns on our work and it was time to wrap it up. Thank heavens! This is not intended as a lazy man's statement, but there are health issues to take into account and this task would have been much better if it were scheduled early in the morning.
The last stops of the day were the Turkey Girls' Barn for some water bowl sanitizing and then feeding the sheep and goats some special treats. Needless to say, the majority of my apple slices and carrots found their way to Coco and Melvin, but I was generous with the rest of the goats and sheep as well. This was largely out of necessity since we were being mobbed by them, including one practically climbing up my back when I held the tray over my head.
As the remnants of the long hard day disappeared in the rearview mirror, all I could think of was a long shower. I was filthy in a way that didn't require me to look at myself in any mirror. The frequently applied sunscreen had mixed with the dirt and who knows what else that was caked on my exposed skin and under my clothes. Every second spent driving and checking into the Orland Inn, was a interminable and when I was finally alone in the bathroom, the moment of cleansing was nigh. I turned on the faucet and it immediately broke off in my hand and fell to the bottom of the tub with a dream-wrenching clatter. The plastic of the knob had waited probably years for this moment to thwart me by giving way when it was called upon to perform its one duty. I looked at the faucet and knew that I could jury rig it to work long enough to work for my shower, but I figured I should notify the lobby as soon as possible to avoid looking like I had deliberately broken it.
When I go to the lobby, there was one couple checking in and the gal at the desk said she would come by to fix it as soon as she had them set up with a room. I resigned myself to a little longer wait and returned to my room. I couldn't bear to sit on the bed so I picked a chair that I hoped wouldn't show the dirt that would likely fall off of me when I rested my weight and the weight of the filth clinging to me on it. After a long fifteen minutes and some of my plumbing assistance, I was ready to strip down and undo the damage wrought by a hot day of honest work. Watching the water grow a dark shade of brown, like a hot chocolate tinge, it was a very satisfying culmination.
With a hunger pain in my belly, I was off to the Farwood for some dinner. I held my breath at the door in hopes that the Vegan menu would be available today, and I was in luck. After a wonderful dinner, I asked the waitress to tell the manager thank you for me. A few minutes later the manager stopped by the table and I let her know personally how much I appreciated having such good food options after my visits to the Farm. Restaurant proprietors make choices all the time and it is important to let them know when you approve so that they will be encouraged to keep those decisions in place. It is a great example of voting with your dollars.
When I got to the Farm on Sunday morning, I was a little early, fifteen minutes or so. I headed into the Main Office to see if I was on the schedule. I was, but the first item seemed a little odd. "Feed calf", was what it said. I had seen Edwin yesterday, the latest young cow, and while I would certainly love to feed him, he seemed to be quite capable on his own. While I puzzled over this, Kerrie came in. When I asked her about it, she pointed to a new guest who was in the small hospital pen next to Blossom. Somehow I had completely missed him on my way in, probably because he was asleep, but there was no missing him now. Curled up in the straw was a little baby cow. I had never actually seen a calf up close and in person. I had driven past "baby cows" and I will always consider Whitaker to be a baby, but this was something new.
As I stared at him, alternating between sleeping and returning my gaze, I was transfixed. He was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. His fur was pure white and the only other colors were the brilliant blue of his eyes and the dark remnants of his umbilical cord. He was really just a newborn. He had been found the night before by some people in Mendocino who had brought him by after being unable to find any other cows near the ditch he was in. It's probably impossible to ever know for sure, but it was easy to imagine him being a victim of his "maleness" in an industry that places no value on the inconvenient byproducts of its irresponsibility. He looked like an angel, the epitome of innocence. When Leanne came in and explained that I would need to help bottle feed him, every microsecond between that announcement and getting dressed in the orange isolation jumpsuit seemed to stretch for an eternity suspended in cold molasses (Or roughly Lori speed). After Leanne taught me the basics, I was ready to show my skills. The little guy was definitely hungry, although he was also pretty messy. He backed himself up against the wall and then proceeded to finish his bottle in short order. He was just so tiny!
With the bottle done, I stayed with him for an hour while Leanne and the rest of the team went to check on La Nina who was having trouble standing up. After walking around for a bit, the baby calf lay down next to me and I couldn't resist laying down myself. With one arm hugging him, I stroked his face with my other, partially to keep the flies away, but also to just touch this amazing creature. I felt tears pooling in my eyes as I thought of how he came to be here. I couldn't fathom how anyone could look upon such a sweet face and not have their hearts melt. I was so glad that he had made it here, but at the same time, he was very lucky to have made it at all. Having spent the previous day in the heat working, it was a wonder that he could have survived that. He seemed so helpless. As my fingers traced outlines on his muzzle, one of my fingers strayed too close to his mouth and he began sucking on my finger. That sweet moment was only trumped by the one where I kissed his face and he briefly sucked on my nose. I could live a million years and be hard pressed to experience anything like this again. The ability to not marvel at the wonder of the baby cow is the utmost manifestation of coldness. I knew, above anything else, that this baby's mother was either dead or that the pitiful sounds of woeful moos were echoing in a barn or field somewhere. As much as I pitied him and his counterparts who had found their way to veal crates or had died in ditches, discarded as trash, I pity those people who have fallen so far as to be capable of such acts. These people have lost touch with what it means to be human. They may not be monsters, but they are not human either. With every callous act, they have lost pieces of their soul and there is no way to ever come back from that. I am sure that this coldness weaves its way throughout all aspects of their lives, forcing them either to become more emotionally calloused to try to excuse it all away, or to have to hide their shame away from the world. As much anger as I may have for these people, the truth is that there are horrendous casualties on both sides of this Devil's bargain for "cheap food". Cheap food really just cheapens life and it is like a pervasive cancer that consumes everyone it can set its talons in.
After my visit with the new baby, Leanne asked how long it would be before I adopted him, and even Edwin for that matter. My ever growing family had apparently been noticed. The fact is that it will probably happen as soon as he has a name. I am proud of my Farm family, but I would be lying if I didn't admit that I feel bad sometimes about the fact that it is harder and harder to spend time with them all during my short volunteer visits. In some ways this reminds me of my childhood years. I used to have an abundance of stuffed animals. I never had as many as Lori has, mind you, but somewhere between five and ten. This used to cause my childhood brain some level of anxiety since I never wanted to play favorites. I concocted elaborate schemes to try to ensure that none of the stuffed animals, or "spaminals" as Lori and I call her brood, felt neglected or left out. This consisted of rotations in the sleeping pattern and having them arranged on both sides of me to minimize their distance. While I obviously don't have those exact problems anymore, at least not that I would ever admit to, there is some subconscious regret that I can't spend quality time with all of them.
The rest of the morning was consumed with barn cleaning, first the Rescue Barn with Ben and then the Chicken and Duck and Goose Barns, and then the Hospital Hutches. Throughout the morning, we had heard a lot about the health issues befalling the turkeys. A couple of them, Sky and Luna, had already passed away from this mysterious affliction and some others were under observation. Needless to say, these issues are taken very seriously both professionally and emotionally by the staff and volunteers and it was hard to feel helpless to fix the situation.
While I was working on the Hospital Hutch, Leanne asked if I could take one of the turkeys, Maple, to Davis Veterinary Hospital. This would mean ending my on-site volunteer day a little early, but my objective is to help where I can and this certainly fell into that category. I hurried over to start my car and get it cooled off before picking up my patient. As my GPS powered up, I had to giggle a little. Prior to my trip, I had updated my GPS with the latest maps and icons. From the numerous ones available, I had chosen a turkey to represent my car as it moved through the on-screen map. Was I psychic or was this just a really weird coincidence? In any case, it would be pretty darn appropriate in a few minutes. I drove up to the Turkey Barn with Molly to pick Maple up. I had never driven up to the barns before and it would have been cool under different conditions. Once we got Maple situated, I hit the road.
Maple and I chatted during the drive. Once the initial adrenalin rush of being a turkey ambulance driver subsided, I became terrified that she would pass away in my charge. If this happened, Leanne has directed that I continue with her to Davis for a necropsy, but I prayed she would hang in there. Every once in a while, I would hear a chirp or shrill and I was constantly checking the rear-view mirror to make sure she was okay. Luckily for both of us, she was better at riding in the car than Heidi. At least Maple knew to lie down in her carrier so she wouldn't be constantly fighting for her balance. Well, I hoped it was something she was doing by conscious choice and not by necessity. It was a long drive due to my concern and it was made longer by the fact that I had a heck of a time finding the right place to bring her once I arrived at Davis.
As I mentioned before in an earlier chapter, I had been there before with Steve-O, but that wasn't on a weekend. I thought I was supposed to go to the Small Animal Hospital so that was my first stop. I carried Maple in her traveler crate up to the second floor to the reception area and they confirmed that I was at the right part of the hospital, but that I would need to take her to the receiving area. The nurse at the desk recommended getting back in my car, heading out to the main road and turning right until I saw a receiving area. That seemed like something I could do, so we got back in the car and headed out to the main road and turned right. I looked in vain for a receiving area. In my brain I was looking for something with big loading doors for trucks and I finally found one, but it was back at the Large Animal Hospital. My arms were admittedly tired so I left Maple in the car for a minute with the AC running so that I could ask someone if I was in the right place. I wasn't, as it turned out, but the veterinary resident who I met offered to help me get where I needed to go. I ran back to Maple and carried her into the hospital.
Turkeys are big birds and carrying her was a lot of effort. This was amplified by the awkward size of the travel crate so I was glad when she said we were almost there. I was less enthusiastic when we opened the door and I saw a familiar mural. We were back where I had started. Argh! We headed back upstairs and they explained to her where I needed to go. It turned out that we were only about one hundred yards away from the receiving area, which did look like a loading dock. I couldn't for the life of me understand why the nurse at the receiving desk would have recommended that I get in my car to go there. That had led me on a wild goose, sorry, wild turkey chase.
I thanked the resident for her help and delivered Maple to the waiting arms of two doctors who took her to an observation room with an isolation chamber in it. I washed my hands profusely after being advised to do so. Since it was unclear what was making the turkeys sick, there was no way to say whether it could be transmittable to humans. This of course conjured images of bird flu. Wouldn't that be ironic if I got bird flu after saying so many times that it was a massively exaggerated epidemic conjured to distract people's attention from real issues? That was actually a double question since I am never sure whether the term "ironic" is appropriate or not.
One of the attending doctors asked if I could take the travel crates with me since they took up space on their floor. I agreed to take one back to my car and said I would come back for the other. What I had failed to remember was that my car was clear on the other side of the hospital and this meant walking about a mile with a travel crate perched on alternating shoulders. Even without a thirty pound turkey in it, it was heavy and awkward. I imagined that this was probably what I looked like when I was a teenager carrying the requisite boom box stereo on my shoulder thinking I looked cool. As I saw my shadow here, I was sure that I had never looked cool with anything perched on my shoulder. Well, except for Steve-O.
By now I was running on pure unadulterated frustration and I made it to my car with a full-on stress headache. I finally got back to the receiving area, wondering if they thought I had taken off without coming back for the other crate. I really didn't want to have to explain my delay in returning and fortunately they didn't ask. Before I knew it, I was saying goodbye and, "Get well soon" to Maple and was on my way home.
I had about an hour and a half of driving time left to reflect on the events of the past couple of days. I wished there had been time to say goodbye to my animals before I left. They have all become more and more a part of my family, to the point where I couldn't imagine moving to somewhere where I wouldn't be able to visit them regularly. I really wish that there was a way to know that they knew how much I love and care about them. They have taught me how smart they are, but I would feel so much better if I knew that they knew how I felt. It's the same with Heidi. If I were to find a genie on one of my travels, that would be my first wish; that the animals in my life know that I love them. This is partially a selfish wish, for my own needs, but since I see ample evidence of love between the animals, I want to make sure they feel mine. Until I find that genie, the best I can do is to show it. Love is what you do and not what you say. And what says I love you like cleaning up your loved one's poop!
