Let Me Not Defer

Today is Gramma's birthday. She died several years ago and is buried next to Grampa at the church down the street. Every time I drive into town, I look over at the resting lawn outside the church to see the headstone. On the back of the headstone is a beautiful quote by Stephen Grellet. "I shall pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again." As much as I remember about Gramma tells me she fully lived this quote.

It's easy to think of this on a quotidian basis and maintain a smiling countenance or a sympathetic mind. And the heart of this idea is that we must take care of life as it is and, whenever we can, help it grow. But there is something else about it that rings heavily when I read it at my grandparents' grave. "I shall pass through this world but once and I shall not pass this way again." I can't help but think of a few instances when the holistic meaning of Gramma's wisdom has presented itself in the past couple weeks.

The other day, Chris and I are working with biochar in the corral. Chris turns to look at the field. "What the hell is that?" A big, but low, black figure lurches across our field, eastward. It is slow and travels with a strenuous gait a couple hundred yards away. The farthest south I've seen a black bear is almost three hours north of here. It couldn't be.

We hear Mom calling for Kali, our big black flat-coated retriever, from the house. Kali is getting a little older, but has the spirit of a puppy. She charges through the corn stubble toward the figure. Her long fur bounces and she responds to none of our calls for her to come back. Chris and I step through the rungs of the corral fence and start our sprint to intercept Kali before the battle ensues. Sure enough, as we close in, we see it's just another black dog, but it carries a big turkey in its long mouth. By this time, Kali, Chris, and I are within a few yards of the dog and Mom is close behind. The dog drops the turkey, looks at us in the way you might think of a dog smiling, but it actually just breathes heavily. We walk to it and it takes off to the neighbor's forest. The turkey is still alive, its head wobbling in the air and blood pooling in the cup of its mouth. Chris and I look at each other. I know I have the knife and the obligation toward life. Unfortunately, after years of use, my knife is too dull to easily slice through the turkey's neck. Mom hands us her utility knife (clicky knife, as she calls it) and we put the ordeal to rest.

We don't do much hunting and the last time we butchered a bird was in grade school when Grampa turned our dozen chickens into soup. So we haul the bird back to the ranch house, call a few hunter friends for advice, but ultimately resort to YouTube for a quick lesson. No matter how much I try to detach myself from the life of a creature in a situation like this, it is impossible. Feeling the heat from meat as we butcher it, I have in mind that this bird, no more than a few minutes ago, was picking beetles out of the ground near our wetland. Its layered display of feathers remind me of its meticulous evolution, its particular purpose, and why Ben Franklin thought the turkey a better choice than the eagle to represent our nation. Knowing we will avoid wasting any of this creature, I feel grateful for the life of this turkey and I consider it a blessing to be unable to detach myself.

About two weeks before the incident with the turkey, we find an issue with one of our chicks. We have a dozen chicks in a big cardboard box under a heatlamp in our office. They're great to have around, chirping all day and part of the night. As chicks do, they scratch through their food, kicking it all over their siblings, then pooping on the dish. Two weeks ago, we find one chick, much smaller than the others, with a large ball of crust on its butt. After some research, we find that "pasty butt" usually happens to the runt of a litter and can kill the chick. We isolate her and dab water on the crust until it becomes soggy and disintegrates. She stays isolated under her own heat lamp until we get her cleaned up and the swelling reduces. The application of a Q-tip with warm water helps with that. She's fragile in our hands. A tiny, breathing creature. She depends on us, an entirely different species, to take care of her, supply her with food, water, heat, shelter. It's a strange thing to hold such a young, delicate being. I don't think I've even held a child this young. I hear that the more you handle a chick, the more attached they get to you. Well, for the next few days, I watch her wandering around, eventually with the other chicks. I can certainly pick her up more easily than the others, but I question who's attached to whom. For a few days, I feel like a concerned father. I'm glad I can't tell her apart from the others anymore.

The rabbits have some action in their lives, too. About a month ago, I bought two breeding rabbits from my friends, Jimmy and Heidi, in Madison. We mated them that same day. A month later, she looks pretty plump and, in the most recent days, she acts a little goofy, lying at the front of the cage when she normally pounds the cage in excitement. She drinks twice as much water now and eats her food more quickly. I supplement her pellets with a few veggie scraps now, which she loves. The straw in her cage is dug into a  nest and, as of yesterday, the nest is lined with chucks of her fur. It's exciting to see her prepare. We all expect to see a litter by morning. I suppose they might share a birthday with Gramma.

All of these experiences with animals, wild, young, domesticated, bring me closer to the quote on the headstone. The dynamics are endless. We can watch life happen in its entirety, but we must accept some characteristics of life to feel it fully. It's not always beautiful in the moment, but the larger picture of it is truly and undeniably the most beautiful experience. We didn't expect to have to end the life of a dying turkey, and I wouldn't haven't chosen to at that moment, but after a few days of reflection, I feel I was a part of a bigger thing, the life of a creature I've never known. To detach myself from that animal's death is to detach myself from the bigger scope of life.

Another characteristic we need to accept is the fact that we all shall pass through this world but once, but that we are passing through it right now. There will never be a better time than now to watch rabbits give birth or to hold a baby chick. The most innocent, unspoiled source of life is the breathing body of a little chick filling my hand and deflating, working to grow another ounce. Whether I'm in the hoophouse encouraging the plants to reach higher, laying the post-harvest debris of plants back on the soil, raising an animal, or putting one to rest, there's a demand from Gramma's headstone for me to appreciate the grittiest and gentlest facets of this life. After all, I only pass through this crazy place but once and there's no time to defer or neglect.