By Walton Conway
A classic Christmas Eve blizzard brought in a white Christmas this year--postcard picture perfect! A second snow of the winter has fallen this first week of January: a blanket of snow covers the farm and mountain, giving the world a clean slate, a fresh start for the new year. After 2020, we embrace the chance for a new beginning.
One of my 2020 New Year's resolution was to plant an abundance of blueberry bushes. Along came the pandemic of a lifetime which provided just the help needed: not one but two home-bound, unemployed daughters! With nothing else to do and nowhere to go, they agreed to help plant 400 bushes, not fully realizing that would be followed by endless mulching and weeding. We can claim to be real farmers now: how satisfying to see the neatly mulched rows of bushes on the hillside where once there were trees and briars! Here's to hoping we get a handful of berries next season, and gallons and gallons by and by for our guests to enjoy. Will we ever tire of blueberry pie? Unfortunately, the deer have not waited to partake, chewing on all the new growth just as quickly as it sprouts. We'll have to see whether nature or nurture wins out.
Sadly, 2020 was a year we put other things in the ground, as well. Last spring, we were shocked to find Turk dead one evening, lying in his favorite napping spot in the barn. He had a humble nature, and took his leave without the slightest fuss, bless his sweet soul. By fall, we knew our old mare Snowbreak was going downhill fast and might not make it through another winter. In November it was with sad relief we found her lying dead in the field. Snowbreak came to us as a retired show champion, and for six great years treated us and our guests to many a delightful ride. She was quality, through and through, and gave us a mark by which to judge the training of the rest of the herd. It's quite uncommon that an old horse passes naturally like that, so we were grateful that both Turk and Snowbreak found peaceful ways out.
Heidi’s is a different story. Although she had started to slow down some this last fall, she remained an active part of farm life and was very spry for an old dog. (She was so dedicated to her farm and family, that sometimes we forgot that she was almost twelve years old!) But on Christmas Day, we could not cajole her out of her doghouse to join us around the Christmas tree. When by the next afternoon she still wouldn't eat or drink, we took her to the emergency vet who found a tumor bleeding internally. It was quite a blow to lose such a dominant presence on the farm. She will be sorely missed not only by her family, but by many guests who grew to love her over the years. Did ever a dog have such an extensive fan base?! Farm work without her oversight has been a fair amount lonelier these days, and how hikers will find their way through our maze of trails without her guiding the way remains a mystery.
When I think of Heidi now, my mind travels back to the spring planting of blueberries, to a treasured moment on a spectacular day in May. The girls and I worked up and down the rows, shedding jackets as the sun rose to the zenith, and all the while Heidi sat on the hilltop overlooking us, supervising, making sure everything was in order.
And it was that day. The pristine blue sky draped behind her, the greening field fell in front of her, and there she sat, regally, the happiest farm dog in the world, smiling with all her heart. "Stop and look," I told the girls, "look at that dog!" I suspected they were not quite ready to understand the dog was aging. "Take a mental picture of Heidi today on the hillside, doing her job, doing what she loves best. Isn't she beautiful?!"
With Turk gone and Heidi slowing down, Betty knew by September it was high time to bring a new dog on to the scene, and so she found Piper, an Old Time Scotch Collie pup who looks pretty much like Heidi's daughter, only with a longer nose and tail. We are so glad that Heidi was around to tutor Piper on the ways of the farm for at least a few months. Piper endlessly harassed the old dog to play, but when nobody was looking, Heidi, who had always been an "all business" dog, would succumb and have a really fun romp with her. Perhaps the little pup is the one who misses Heidi the most.
So we've got Piper to help fill the house with joy now, and to keep Betty, our dog trainer, forever on task. We're watching eagerly to see if Piper can possibly live up to the high standard Heidi set as farm diva. If only they could have been together a little longer, her success would have been guaranteed. At least she's off to a promising start.
Otherwise, post pandemic shutdown, we've been busy with lots of guests seeking respite in the country. We've had fun putting in new trails, new fences, harvesting apples and making 10 gallons of apple sauce and several of cider. We're still dreaming of the day the pawpaws will bear.
As time has allowed, we've done a lot of "horsing around." This was the year I brought 5-year-old Midnight Masterpiece, the only horse we've had born on the farm, into her own as a riding horse. It was thrilling to take her on her first rides over our mountain, down the road, and finally on big trips to Mount Rogers, Cone Manor, and the Virginia Creeper Trail for all-day rides. It’s been a dream of mine for a long time to train a horse to ride, and now I guess I've done it! Or am still doing it, as she needs many more "wet saddle blankets" before the training is done, if ever.
To fill several empty stalls, we acquired Penelope the donkey in summer (oh how wonderful to have the bray of a donkey on the farm again!) and brought two new horses into the herd just prior to Thanksgiving. Carmen, a sweet-natured racking horse, will take over kid rides for Snowbreak, while Delilah, Carmen's six-year-old daughter, gives us a new training project, as she has never been ridden.
To make things more exciting, Midnight is due to foal early June (fingers crossed!), so we hope to have a new baby horse to start the training process all over again. Only this time we'll know more from the outset.
Such have been the comings and goings on the farm in 2020. The sun comes up... the sun goes down. Somewhere in between we managed to fill the barn with hay to ready for winter. And now we're counting the days by square bales, two at a time.
Come visit when you can!
