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Farms Talk
By Delbert Blickenstaff, M.D.
What? You never heard a farm talk? Where have you been all
your life? New York City? Of course you have to listen very
carefully because we don’t make a lot of noise when we talk, like some
people do. Let me tell you about my latest renter. I know, he
uses the term owner. But let me tell you something. Nobody
owns me. He owns the right to live here for a while, but nobody
owns me. Anyway, a couple named Doc and Lou, and their son Jon moved
into my big brick house in the dead of winter. I could tell by
the words he used that Doc had studied something, but it certainly
wasn’t farming. You see, we farms didn’t go to school so we can’t
read or write. But we listen to our renters so we learn a lot.
I say my big brick house because it is a part of me. There is a
lot of clay in my soil and the bricks for my house were made right
here. The walnut planks for the door frames may have been cut
from my woods, but I don’t have a clear memory for that detail.
What I do remember is that Doc had some horses, and he did seem to know
how to take good care of them. He fed them hay and grain and made
sure they had plenty of water to drink. I even remember some of
their names: Gay, Gigi, Cotina, Roby, and Ofir. Some were full
blooded Arabian horses and some were half Arabian. All were
beautiful horses.
Here’s a story about one of Doc’s mares. I think it was
Gigi. When she was about 5 years old she developed a pouch on the
underside of her belly which Doc called an umbilical hernia.
Those were new words to me. I was surprised when Doc said that he
was going to operate on Gigi and repair the hernia. I’m sure that
had never been done on this farm before.
So one day a stranger arrived to help Doc and they proceeded to do the
operation. First they made sure that Gigi was asleep by injecting
some medicine into her jugular (another new word) vein. She
collapsed on the ground and they rolled her onto a sheet. Then
Doc cleaned off the pouch, opened it up and put some sutures (new word)
in the tough tissue beneath. He closed the skin with sutures that
he wouldn’t have to remove later. Good idea, I thought.
Gigi recovered nicely, and the pouch was gone.
Some words about Lou. She evidently was familiar to farm
life. She loved to garden and always had a big garden. She
helped with some of the mowing, but didn’t spend much time with the
horses. Lou could ride, but she didn’t enjoy it as much as Doc
did. One day she was riding one of the mares when the mare
suddenly took off running and Lou was thrown through a barbed wire
fence. She suffered minor injuries, but I think that was the last
time she rode
Now some stories about the dogs. Rusty was a beautiful Irish
Setter who was one of the wildest dogs I have ever seen, and I’ve seen
a lot of dogs. He wanted to be with his owners all the time, but
they didn’t allow him in the house. He was kept in one of the
small barns during the night, but he seemed to want human contact, and
he would howl almost every night. Doc would be awakened and I
could hear him yell out the upstairs window, Rusty be quiet.
The two Dobermans were some trouble also. They liked to run to
the neighbor’s farm and chase the sheep. One day the two went on
a spree, I heard a loud bang, and only one dog came back. Troy,
the male, bred a short legged Beagle female and four beautiful pups
were born. But they were given away.
Do you remember the 1978 blizzard? I do. All the roads were
closed to normal traffic. Some people got around on
snowmobiles. Doc had one and he did go across the field to see
Jo, his daughter. But most of the time everyone stayed home.
One day some big trucks and diggers came up the lane and I wondered why
they were there. I soon found out because they started digging a
large hole in the field back of the orchard and hauling the dirt (my
dirt) away. No one asked me. When they were finished
everyone started talking about the nice pond. I didn’t ask for
it, but I had to admit that it did add something to the farm. And
the kids had a lot of fun, swimming in the summer and ice skating in
the winter.
The pig roasts were a lot of fun, with lots of people arriving, talking
and laughing. I think they were part of Family Health, whatever
that is. Some of the people talked like Doc so maybe that’s where
he works when he is not here. Anyway, a big roaster was brought
in and a cleaned up pig was cooked which took several
hours. While that was going on a bunch of people played
volleyball and had lots of fun. I noticed that someone brought a
keg and people were drinking some liquid from the keg. Maybe it
was beer. Rusty really enjoyed these parties because he got lots
of attention.
I have mentioned Jon and Jo, two children of Doc and Lou. There
were two more boys in the family: Jef and The. Jef lived way up
north, and The lives somewhere south of here. They would come
occasionally and bring their children. I think Jon liked the farm
the most, because I once heard him refer to the farm as a
paradise. I still get to see Doc and Lou when they come to visit
Jo, but I like my new renters too. So, life goes on here as it
has for hundreds of years.
Delbert Blickenstaff, M.D.
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