On the Garden Path at 5~Acre Farm: Sweet Dreams, Lulu

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Sweet Dreams, Lulu

John, and Jesse James Carroll walking the burial site

We buried Lulu early this morning, not long after sun-up.

Jesse begins digging the hole that will be Lulu's grave

When you bury a beloved family pet in the back yard, perhaps you have a simple ceremony, wrapping the pet in a favorite blanket, and leaving a favorite toy with him in a small grave you've dug yourself. You whisper your good-byes amid tears of love and sorrow, and perhaps you leave a small marker, or plant a flowering bush as a reminder. I've done it many times myself.

Hard, dense clay soil. Difficult even for the bobcat

On a farm, however, when you're burying an animal much larger than a family pet, especially in hot weather, you need a bigger area and a deeper hole, something larger than a shovel to dig with, and speed, in order to get ahead of the decay.

Yesterday, John was able to find a man who agreed to bring his bobcat over and bury Lulu for us. Jesse James Carroll, quite a character we found out, came over yesterday afternoon and looked over the area where he would dig the hole. He is a very nice man, and he quoted us a very reasonable price for the job. He was also quite sympathetic to our loss. That was a nice bonus for us, we thought.

The last scoop being removed

From start to finish, the whole process took about 45 minutes. The "hole" was not really a hole, but a scooped out area deep on one end and shallow on the other. When it was ready, John dragged the container (an old water trough) with Lulu in it, down into the hole and, very unceremoniously, dumped Lulu into the deep end.

Although I took lots of pictures of the entire process, including pictures of Lulu in her grave, I have chosen not to post many of them here, desiring to be sensitive to readers who might find such pictures too difficult to view. However, I did include one picture that shows Lulu already partially covered with soil. I thought it was important to the goals of this blog to show the full reality of farm life, and how we must deal with some things in a very pragmatic way, even when they affect us emotionally.

I said my good-byes to Lulu yesterday, but spoke another quiet good-bye this morning as the first scoop of dirt fell over her. John too, I found out later, said his good-byes during the burial process. Neither of us cried. It's difficult to muster tears when there's a stranger digging a huge hole in your back yard with giant machinery. We were both too busy watching the bobcat jerk back and forth and around to think about how we were feeling about losing Lulu. It was rather nerve-wracking, actually, and we were both relieved when it was over.

John and I had to leave rather quickly after Lulu was buried this morning. We had been scheduled for more than a month to attend a gun safety class at the Sheriff's Department, and we were already going to be late. So we had no time for a ceremony for Lulu's passing. We're okay with that. It doesn't mean we loved Lulu any less than we did the other pets we've lost and cried over, and buried with ceremony. It just means that even on a farm the business of life keeps us moving forward, preventing us from standing still in any one moment for too long.

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John and Michelle, and 5 Acre Farm

How We Came To Be

John was born and raised in Georgia by parents who lived incredible lives of their own, and passed on to John a rich family history from both sides. He was a die hard Boy Scout, and later, spent 17 years as a Troop Leader. He earned a dual Agriculture/Agricultural Engineering degree at ABAC in Tipton, where he also started the college's radio station. After college, John served on nuclear submarines in the Navy, where he once saved the lives of his shipmates, and, rumor has it, did many incredible things in the service of our country. He married and had a family, and after the Navy, worked briefly with the EPA before opening his own HVAC-Refrigeration company. John was inventive as a child, and that carried over into everything in his life. He is a fixer of severe mechanical problems, and an inventor of all kinds of things that improve on or simplify existing machinery, equipment, and ideas. His inventions are unique, and some of them may some day aide humanity, save lives, and save our planet if we can get the right people to listen.

My dad was career Army. I was born in France, and introduced, at a very young age, to the Virginia countryside, where we raised rabbits and chickens. After dad retired, we moved to North Carolina, his home state, where we spent many years on the coast, near Wilmington. Here, we had a garden, raised cows, pigs, chickens, and ducks, and fished commercially. Our freezer was always full of fresh Spot and shrimp, and oyster roasts were a weekly event! As a young adult I lived with my family in the mountains south of Asheville. Here too we had a garden, raised cows, pigs, chickens, and ducks, as well as geese and peacocks. I worked for many years with an arts council, Christian organizations, and other non-profits. I helped train missionaries, researched/wrote grants, produced professional documents, edited newsletters, and wrote a lot of publicity materials. I already had two Associate degrees, but in my late 30s I finally completed an undergraduate degree in English/Art History. For 20 years I was active in community theater, sang solos with a community choir, and danced with a show choir. Treasured memories! I moved to Georgia in late 1998, and married my first husband in 2002. I was 45. Eighteen months later, I was widowed.

John and I first met in 2000. After I was widowed, and John was divorced, we found each other again. Of like minds, spirits, and goals, our hearts came together quickly, and we married in 2005. Each of us has undergone Elijah House training, and we were both ordained into ministry in 2006. I have been a Christian counselor and prayer warrior for probably 30 years. John and I live to put God first in our lives, and in our dreams for this small piece of earth of which we are the caretakers.

We call our place "5 Acre Farm." John's father took this barren, overworked field from a larger parcel of farmland in the mid-70s. He fenced off about three-quarters of an acre for the house, and added plants, flowers, and trees. Elsewhere, he transformed the property through years of hard work, adding an apple orchard, peach trees, pears, two fig orchards, grape vines, and a greenhouse. John and I have been trying to continue his father's work on this land, adding to it with our own hopes and dreams, and our late-in-life efforts. Not a day goes by that I don't feel great respect for John's father, for the man he was, for the work he did here, and gratitude for the bounty we reap because of his hard work.

John and I are in our 50s, just starting life together, but with age and health trying to work against us. We aren't ready to sit down and take it easy. We have a goal to become self-sufficient by growing our own food (meat and vegetables), and getting off the grid. The challenges we face in doing this are age, health, and finances. John's inventiveness is being strongly applied, as is my gift for budget stretching and frugality. Our strength? The love we have for each other, and the trust that we are working inside the will of God.

One of the things we ask ourselves now and then is this: "Is it worth it?" I never had children. John's son has set his own path with family and career. There does not seem to be anyone we can leave this property to who will continue the work and the dream; one of John's grandchildren, perhaps, but they are very young right now, and do not yet notice or care.

So, is it worth it (all the work and expense) if there is every chance this land will end up in the hands of developers after we're gone? Well, our answer to that question so far is always "Yes, it's worth it." It's worth it to us, because of what we are accomplishing here in our lifetime. It's worth it because what we grow here we share with family, with friends, and with our community. And not just what we grow, but our faith and philosophy, our hopes and dreams, and our very desire to leave at least our little part of the world better than it was when we found it. We are living - consciously, and deliberately - a lifestyle that expresses who we are and what we believe. Does anybody care? Why don't read our blog, leave a comment, and let us know.