David Bowie & Politically Incorrect Baseball Games
So far, no one thinks I am going to be able to butcher our pigs — I am not fighting them on that one, I know myself and they are probably right. I have no doubt that these four new friends of mine will remain on our farm until they are old, grey and very leathered — gracing us with their massive pig bellies that we will end up feeding just because we love them and not so we can fatten them up for bacon.
We have, of course, named all of the pigs. There is David Bowie who has an unmistakable lighting bolt across his face, there is Gus Gus who is named after the fat rat in Cinderella, there is the runt who we are calling Usnavi (Usi for short) who is named after my favorite character in the musical In The Heights and then there is Harriet, the one and only female pig. Harriet has taken to rolling over in the morning sun so that we can scratch her belly, as she snorts and grunts with serious pleasure like only a pig could do. The pigs are very much like dogs, their eyes are loving and gentle — big pools of innocence. In comparison, the eyes of our chickens look like someone who would not think a whole lot about stabbing you in the gut before stealing your wallet. In other words, the chickens are heartless. They are not here to attach. They are here to survive and they will do whatever it takes. The other day, a chicken pecked Heathar in the eye, scratching her cornea as she was leaning down to feed it. The chickens do not have favorite humans and they will always bite the hand that feeds them. They are reptilian and most of them look like prehistoric dinosaurs. I’m sure you can tell, the pigs are my favorite.
The meat chickens are a whole other story. Apparently, we got the kind of meat chicken that does not do well in high altitudes. We live at 7500 feet, way up in the Sangre De Cristo mountains of New Mexico and these birds and not meant for this environment. We only learned this after several of our chickens suddenly died, with seemingly little reason. After calling our local chicken guru, we were informed that the 50 meat chickens we ordered were more suited for sea level and softer environments.
If you’ve never been to New Mexico, most people say it is not for the faint of heart. There is cactus hidden amidst what appears to be lush soil and sand where flowers should be. There is sage bush where one may hope to find a small river bed and there is wind where one may wish to lean their back against the side of a hill and shut their eyes. These meat chickens are delicate birds. The other morning, one spasmed and died right in front of our eyes. Every few days, we shovel a dead bird out of the coop and drive it out to the forest for the coyotes. We hope we are not leading the coyotes to our home but instead, making a peace offering to them: a chicken in exchange for the promise of peace. Essentially, these meat chickens have to be killed very soon. What you should also know, is that hardly anyone processes and butchers meat chickens. I have been able to find one person who is willing to do it for us in all of the Southwest. Before we set out on this meat chicken endeavor, I never dreamed there would be a shortage of meat chicken processors. Luckily, our retired meat chicken guru has been talked in to coming and helping us butcher our first round of chickens.
But most importantly, I should tell you that Heathar, Jack and I attended our very first Ojo Sarco annual baseball game on Sunday which took place in the middle of the woods. This tradition has been happening for fifty years and most of you are going to be very offended by what I say next, ready? The game is a playoff between the hippies and the Indians. The hippies show up in Tye-Dye t-shirts and the Indians show up in serious, red and black baseball jerseys. In our small and vital community, the racial tensions are real and ever present. There are multiple reservations scattered all around our tiny mountain, mixed in with native New Mexican families, mixed in with white people who have been living here since the 1970’s and then finally, mixed in with a random group of French families who have made their home here. I believe the baseball game to be an acknowledgement of the tension that exists in our small community, a nod to the historical imbalance and a way to call it outright into the open. There is no political correctness, there is no tiptoeing around the violent truth — there is only baseball.
People keep telling us that we’re doing a lot in our first year of farming. Heathar’s mom said to us yesterday, “If you had only started with laying hens, that would have been enough!” Perhaps when you have been dreaming of something for over a decade, things cannot seem to happen fast enough. There is an avalanche of forward momentum that takes your breath away, that leaves you longing to sit down so you can remember what it feels like to stop moving. There is a haste — almost like you’ve been incarcerated when suddenly, you’re released. You’re free to go out into the world again and taste real food, ride a roller coaster and hug your kids. You want to do everything at once. We want chickens, pigs, raised beds and all the things. There are so many things to want. There are so many visions to bring into reality. There is no fighting the bigness of the momentum.
But every so often, we have to stop the momentum. We have to unclog ourselves from the great, turning wheel of the farm and go to a baseball game. It’s hard to do this. We get antsy quickly — longing to return to The Vision, the place where our dream is coming to life, the place where our canvas is filling with color. There is only so long one can be away from their art. The art becomes an obsession, pulling us wearily and begrudgingly out of bed in the morning and yet we have to answer.
A couple weeks ago, one of our neighbors died (one who we did not have the chance to meet yet) and they laid him to rest in the backyard, covered in a blanket and wrapped with a simple piece of twine. His friends and family threw some handfuls of dirt on him and placed a few flowers on his chest. This is the kind of life I know we are building — where even death becomes an incredible art, an act of simple beauty and one of intangible heartbreak. The Vision is not only to create an idyllic farm but to be immersed with the most alive parts of living. For me, this means not being separated from any part of life. There is blood, there is death, there is vomit and there is also food cooked outside, a sky full of night stars and the joy of watching our valley turn to green in the summer. Perhaps people with children know what it is to try and live a life that is constantly interrupted — this is how I want to live: interrupted by a baseball game, a donkey giving birth, a neighbor being buried in the ground next door. In the unpredictability of life, live our greatest stories and this is the soil that any farm grows upon.
