My Gentle Barn (13 page)

My true partner in this endeavor, from the very beginning—even before I knew what I was up to—was my sweet Mary, the goat. In early spring, however, I noticed that she was beginning to slow down. On one particular morning, as I filled the goats’ hay bins, Mary did not get up. She just stayed where she was on the straw in the barn and watched me from there.

“Aren’t you hungry, sweetheart?” I asked her. I went over and sat by her side and stroked her head. Then I went inside and called Dr. Geissen.

“Give it a couple of hours,” he said. “Maybe she’s just having an off day.”

In the afternoon, Mary was still in the same spot, only now she was lying on her side. Looking at her, I felt a sudden surge of panic.
Something is very wrong. I need to get help
. And beneath the panic I felt fear.
I can’t do this without her
.

I called the vet again; this time, he said he was dealing with emergencies, but that he’d get over to us as soon as he could.

As I moved around the barnyard and in and out of the house, cleaning and looking after Jesse, I returned over and over to the barn to check on Mary and sit by her side.
Please, please, don’t go
, I thought as I stroked her neck.
You’re my partner. I need you
.

By nightfall, Dr. Geissen still had not shown, and it became more and more obvious that Mary was leaving me. As soon as Scott came home, I asked him if he’d hang out with Jesse so I could be with Mary. I grabbed a blanket, and as I walked out to the barn, I made a decision. I did not want Mary to feel my panic. I did not want to make this all about me. I wanted her to know how much I appreciated her and that she was to be commended on a life well lived. So I took a deep breath and shoved the panic out of my body as best I could. Then I lay down behind Mary in the straw and spooned my precious girl and covered the two of us with the blanket. I no longer was waiting for the vet; I knew in my bones that it was too late. Instead I focused all of my being on thanking and loving the creature who had made the Gentle Barn possible. And for the next two hours I stroked her neck and kissed her head and sang to her.

“You know you changed my life, right?” I asked her, looking into her magical goat eyes. “You know how lucky I am I found you?” She looked right back at me and, through those secret-message slots, love poured out at me, and in her Eeyore way, she said,
Oh … thank you so very much
.

Mary passed away in my arms a half hour later.

At the core of every human being is a resilience that buoys us back to the surface of life. I saw this in my at-risk kids and I saw it in myself. With every painful loss or setback that brings us crashing to our knees, we find some way to keep breathing and move forward. And so it was with losing Mary. I gathered myself up and found a way to move on, but she remained forever in my thoughts and in my heart. Her story would live on in others’ hearts too; I told everyone who would listen, especially my at-risk kids, about the animal who’d made the whole thing possible.

I had more kids than ever coming out to visit. The more groups we had, the more the media heard about us and came out to take pictures and write up newspaper stories. That, in turn, brought more people
out on Sundays to see what we were all about. As people arrived each Sunday, I had them wait at the picnic tables in the grassy yard until there were about ten people gathered, and then I introduced myself and my philosophy of reverence for all life.

“We may look different on the outside, but we’re all the same,” I would tell the visitors. “Just because a horse or a goat has four legs instead of two doesn’t mean they don’t have needs and wants and a voice. We just have to learn how to hear their voice and how to understand their desires. If we walk into their space slowly, quietly, we show our gentle, respectful intent, and hopefully that animal will reciprocate by allowing us to be with them and to pet them. But if they don’t, we need to respect that, too.”

Before I led people into the barnyard, I taught them about body language—theirs and the animals’—and made sure they understood when an animal was asking to be left alone. The result was a very different experience—for the people and for the animals. At that terrible petting zoo, the animals had been constantly on their guard. There’d been no supervision or intervention; no staff had been on hand to keep children from chasing the animals down, dragging them by their horns, or pulling on their fur.

Sundays at the Gentle Barn were the perfect environment to facilitate emotional healing in these goats and sheep and horses. They were surrounded by humans, especially children—the very culprits who had abused them—and yet no one pulled on them, no one chased them or cornered them, and people respected them when they said no. In this environment they could begin slowly to trust humans and to shed their trauma.

In the early days of opening to the public I personally gave every tour—for four hours straight. Needless to say, I was exhausted! I couldn’t keep doing it all on my own. Some of the kids who had volunteered at the grand opening continued to come around, so I began teaching them how to give these tours and to educate people about the
animals in our barnyard. Slowly others—kids and adults—started asking about volunteering. They were inspired by what they were witnessing and wanted to be a part of it. I accepted all offers with open arms, and by the end of my first year I had a small handful of regular volunteers. Mostly they came to help on Sundays, but neighbor kids sometimes helped out during the week, too. I requested that each volunteer talk to the animals before they did anything to them, such as grooming a horse or picking up a chicken. The volunteers, in turn, taught the Sunday visitors the same. It was by watching my volunteers that I learned how to better train them. I’d listen to how they talked to the visitors and then make suggestions for something they might add to their repertoire … or something they might cut out. I had one volunteer named Marcus who was an animal-rights activist. When Marcus gave his first tour, he took people over to Duncan, our big farm pig, and slapped him on the behind, saying, “This right here. This is your bacon.” I had to sit Marcus down and have a discussion about subtlety.

In May 2000 someone told me about a website advertising miniature cows. Spurred on by curiosity, I went online to visit the site. There were pictures of miniature cows standing next to normal cows, to show that the miniatures were less than half the size of regular cattle. There was also an image of a tiny calf being cradled in someone’s arms. Under the pictures was the statement: “If you like what you see and want to add some colorful miniatures to your front pasture, call us today!” There was a block of text beneath that explaining that miniature cows often became the family pet and could live inside your house, but that “miniatures also serve as terrific multipurpose cattle.”

Multipurpose cattle?
Still pretty new to the realm of farm animals, I didn’t know for sure what that meant. But I had a hunch it had something to do with human consumption. I decided I had to call the place and find out.

“They’re so easy to raise and easy to kill,” the guy on the other end of the line said. “Their half size makes for half the work!” He had a faint Southern accent, even though I was calling Washington State. “They’re perfect for single-family consumption. You can raise ’em right in your little backyard and have meat for a year. Or you can have one as a milk cow.” He continued extolling the virtues of the miniature cow, hardly taking a breath. “We have this one little cow that our grandkids give bubble baths to. She’s so docile they walk her around like a pet dog, and it’s just too bad she can’t get pregnant; we have to slaughter her tomorrow.”

“Wait,” I said. “What did you say?”

“They’re just so easy and cheaper to raise.”

“No, I mean after that.”

“About our grandkids giving bubble baths—”

“Did you say you were going to slaughter her tomorrow?”

“Oh, that. Yeah, she’s a breeder, but she can’t get pregnant.”

An animal who’s getting bubble baths today and tomorrow is going to be killed—that was just not a situation I could walk away from. “It just doesn’t seem right,” I told the man. “I want to help that cow.”

“Oh, darlin’,” the man said. “That’s just how life is.”

“Can I buy her?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, “that’s tomorrow morning she’s going to slaughter.”

“How much would you ask for her?”

“Let’s see, that would be about two thousand dollars, but—”

“I’ll call you tomorrow morning. Please, I’m asking you. Give me a chance to get the money together.”

“Well, you drive a hard bargain, little lady. I’ll give you till nine o’clock tomorrow mornin’. But that’s the latest.”

I didn’t have two thousand extra dollars lying around. And my trust fund was beginning to dwindle because I’d loaned so much of it to the Gentle Barn; I needed to hold on to
something
in case of emergencies. But I wasn’t going to let these details stand in my way. I was going to
rescue this cow. An idea popped into my head. I didn’t know if it would work, but I had to try. There was no time to second-guess. I packed snacks and water in the diaper bag and took along the baby sling just in case Jesse got tired. As I headed out the front door I thought to myself,
We have goats, sheep, horses, pigs, and chickens. This is exactly what we need at the Gentle Barn—a cow!
How I was going to break it to Scott, I had no idea. I would cross that bridge when I got to it. First I had to come up with the money.

I walked all over my neighborhood and beyond, knocking on doors. The first house was the hardest. I had never knocked on a door to ask for anything. In truth I was a little shy about approaching people, and I was certainly uncomfortable intruding on someone and asking them to give money to a perfect stranger.
It’s not for me
, I thought.
It’s for that poor cow
. When I rang the bell, I held my breath, half hoping no one was home. I was sure I would get a strange look or even a door slammed in my face. But the door opened and a woman stood there smiling at me. “Hi,” I said. “I’m Ellie. I’m your neighbor.” And I told her about the sweetest little cow that was going to be slaughtered the next day, but that if all the neighbors pitched in just a bit we’d have the funds to save the cow and bring her down to the Gentle Barn. I even told her about the cow getting bubble baths, and I promised that she and all the neighbors could come visit the little cow when she arrived from Washington.

“Give me a minute,” the woman said, and when she came back to the door she had a checkbook in hand. She sat right down on her porch and wrote me a check for $100.

I thanked the woman profusely and slid the check into the diaper bag. As I walked to the next house, I gave Jesse a hug and said, “Well, that was easy.”

Not everyone gave money, but to my surprise not one person slammed a door.

When I headed for home my feet were killing me and it was already
getting dark. I was just feeding Jesse when Scott returned from work; I hadn’t even started on our dinner, and Scott was hungry. But I had done it. Not only had I raised the bulk of the $2,000 but my neighbors now felt invested in the Gentle Barn. All who had donated were eager to visit the new cow they had helped save. And I could easily make up the remaining couple hundred dollars.

“What are you so chipper about?” Scott grumbled. “And why are you home so late?”

It wasn’t the best time to break the news to him, but I knew I had to say something soon; I was buying a cow in the morning. I decided to wait until after Scott had eaten, so I kept the news to myself as I put Jesse to bed and then hurried around the kitchen throwing dinner together.

I didn’t work up the nerve to tell him until he was relaxing in front of the TV. I sat down and waited for a commercial and then blurted out the news.

Scott muted the volume. “Tell me I didn’t just hear you say
cow
.”

“Just a little cow,” I said, and I told him all about miniature cows and how this one was going to be slaughtered in the morning if I didn’t save her.