Life on the Farm

The two horses belonged to our neighbor who raises horses until they are old enough to ride at 3 years.

In some ways, it seems like yesterday that we sat with friends in the summer shade of giant oak trees trying to imagine what life would look like after our move from the States, and yet we've managed to fill these last 3 1/2 months with more moments of bliss and doubt than seems possible in an entire lifetime. Plenty of those moments have happened standing before great buildings or in the streets of great cities, but the dearest have come in our garden or on the farm, or on the cobbled lanes of the country villages that we now call home.

This shy couple (expecting a baby this April) shares their pond beneath the willow tree with the resident duck families,
who have migrated south for the winter

The change of seasons is upon us, and nowhere is that more evident than in the countryside, where tractors have been buzzing about like bees near the hive, making barren the corn-padded fields and opening up the landscape so we can see farms for miles until they bump up against the forests on the Belgian border, which is just a 10 mile drive from our house.

The land we live on belongs to a gentleman farmer who lives with his wife in the charming little village up the road, and spends a few hours each day in his workshop and in the stables with his 12 miniature horses.  During the summer, the horses feed solely on the grass grown in the farm's four pastures, and in fall and winter their diets are supplemented with hay and pellet feed, giving them more energy and time to run around or, as is the case with the four dairy cows in the field beside us, lay around. Three of the horses are pregnant and expecting foals sometime in April, and the two spring horses from this year have grown tremendously since we moved in.  Just about 2 months ago, a sweet-tempered young white colt name Denzel joined the others as a lodger of sorts, bringing the population to 13, and giving my eldest child a new favorite pet, which would come as a blow to the rooster who shares his coop with 6 hens if he had the sense to understand that this means he was once favorite at all. Or perhaps he does and that would explain his crowing every time we walk past him this week.

 

And the rooster is not the only animal in the neighborhood who has been vocal lately.  Last Monday, as the farmer was out working the field of feed grass across the street, the four dairy cows were insistent with their mooing, even going so far as trying to run alongside the tractor a time or two. It was two days of constant mooing. And my, how loud that is. And it has taken this long for these cityslickers to understand that there is good reason that young goats are called kids. Because I spent half the weekend trying to figure out whether our youngest was calling for his dad or the goats were going at it.  Same sound.

The field adjacent to our house.
This irrigation ditch is infamous in our family as one of the children has taken a dramatic bike trip into its depths. Once.

Last Saturday I came out the front door to find two men with shotguns and hunting dog in the field across from the house.  Unlike our suburban neighborhood in the States, loud pops in the night in the month of October do not mean teenagers with fireworks, they mean hunting season is in full swing.  Men are seen across the Netherlands with rabbit or duck hanging from their belts, and the gunshots at night usually mean wild boar, which we have been told to watch for on menus. In order to hold a hunting license in Holland, one must prove in court that he or she has land enough to hunt on, which means farmers in the fields with shotguns and ducks who choose to migrate that day.

Like creatures all across the Northern Hemisphere, we are busy preparing for winter, gathering walnuts from the two prolific trees in the back garden, collecting twigs and leaves and pinecones along with all of the other trophies of autumn, and enjoying leisurely weekend bike rides through the leaves with the luscious scent of woodfire in the air.  Enjoy the crisp air and a mug of cider!