donkey | Wing's World

Stevie passed away last week, at the age of 37, in his rural North Carolina home. You may remember Stevie from various posts over the years:

I missed the chance to say goodbye, arriving at my folks’ farm a week too late. Son Two, who happened to be visiting his grandparents then, did get that chance.

Son 2 (and Son 1) go way back w/ Stevie; this is 11 years ago.

For the first time in decades, there were no furry ears to cuddle–usually my first stop after dropping my bags upstairs.

When my folks bought this land way back in 1959, my German father named their little farm Tierreich, which translates to Kingdom (or Realm) of the Animals. They proceeded to fill the place up with critters, and it’s remained that way for 65 years.

Horses. Goats. Barn cats. Chickens, geese, ducks, guinea fowl. A couple of bottle-fed deer (from the research herd at Duke). Somebody’s sheep who got left here. One tempermental llama, whom only my dad liked.

Not pictured: Salvador Dalai Llama. But here’s Hank the goat

Once or twice we raised an animal to eat–Chuck the steer, Sir Toby the pig–but my father hated killing and butchering so much that we abandoned that path.

LOTS OF CRITTERS. And that was just the barnyard. In the house you’d find: more cats. Canaries, budgies, finches. Guinea pigs, rabbits, gerbils, hamsters, tropical fish, a flying squirrel, and a hedgehog. And roaming between house & yard…two to four Norwegian Elkhounds.

…like Erda, in her youth. Joined by an occasional Standard Poodle.

They ran the place. If you look at the photo wall in my folks’ family room, you’ll see that most pictures include animals. They still run the place.

But there are fewer of them every time I come home. Gone are Stevie’s various goat buddies…

…and soon, all too soon, Erda the Ancient Elkhound will be making her own departure.

Among the larger animals on the farm, that will leave two smaller, younger elkhounds, and two elderly horses: Trefino, nearly 28…

Seen here with my Amazing Mom, waiting for a new set of shoes (probably his last)

…and the little Arab, Raj, who Mom thinks is even older than Stevie–maybe 38!

I’m not at all sure that either of these gentle old equines will be here by my next visit, next spring–an arresting thought.

On my walk in the autumnal woods today, I was musing about how that will feel, when I saw this double ruin: old broken springhouse on the left, old broken oak on the right:

Man-made or Nature-made, everything falls to ruin eventually. Where do beloved pets and farm animals fit in this spectrum? Of nature, yet shaped by humans, all–our dear Stevie, old Erda, old Fino and oldest Raj–are part oak, part springhouse.

And may they all rest in peace for the peace (and joy, and comfort, and rides, and laughs, and hair) they have given.

Road Trip IV, Days 29-31: Hangin’ Out in Durham, NC

I’m home. And I’m one of the very few 52 year-old Americans who can say that.

Both my parents still live on the funky little farm where I was born in 1961. My mom is in town right now tutoring her adult literacy student. My dad, semi-retired from Duke but still actively pursuing research in animal behavior, is at his lab checking on his lemurs. (He rides his part-electric tricycle the six miles each way.)

The dogs in the yard are just as noisy as the ones we had when I was growing up: Norwegian Elkhounds (plus a poodle). The horses are a little less motley and scruffy than the ones I grew up riding, as my mom developed a taste for dressage, but the barnyard critters are just as colorful: chickens, a goat, and Stevie, the World’s Cutest ~~Ass~~ Donkey. (Their llama died a couple years ago, as did Bess, the Wandering Sheep.)

The house is even more crammed with my grandmother’s artwork (she was a sculptor), my mom’s weavings, and items picked up from a lifetime of travel to places like Madagascar, Israel and Guatemala, plus art and furniture made by various local artisan friends. Oh, and then there’s my dad’s proclivity for new gadgets, clashing horribly with the aforementioned art and requiring fancy wandering patterns to walk anywhere in the house. And the wall of family photos, stuck up higgledy-piggledy with pushpins, edges curling, hopelessly overlapping each other because new ones keep getting added without the old ones ever being organized.

None of the doors close properly. (Drives my carpenter husband nuts.) The ancient radiators still clank at night. The fridge is full of yogurt and peanut butter, local beer and imported cheese.

Carolina Friends School, which I attended K-12 (and walked to, since my parents donated some of their adjacent land for it) is still going strong. I can hear the kids right now, across the pond, out for recess. Their stray soccer balls still float by our dam.

Like I said: home.

How rare is it, at my age, to have parents still married to each other, still living in the same house where they’ve lived for the past 54 years?

I try to make myself focus on what’s different. There’s a sporty new Subaru BRZ in the driveway, which my dad bought for my mom but she’s too embarrassed to drive. There’s a new road into the woods where Carolina Friends School is expanding; one day they will inherit the entire property from my folks. And if course there’s that poodle.

But that’s really it. Home is breathtakingly, chaotically, wonderfully the same: full of dog hair, musical instruments, books, and muddy boots.

So, Thomas Wolfe, fellow North Carolinian, I’m afraid I must beg to differ. It may not happen often, but…it happens. I’m home.

What do you guys think? Is my case not as rare as it feels? I would love to hear if you or anyone you know can relate to this question: Can you really not go home again?