The Dog Barn and Literary Lounge

Just a reminder, dear reader. I’m a horse trainer using all I know to raise a puppy. If your horse’s trainer uses methods that would be bad for a dog, please reconsider. It gets worse. I’m a horse trainer who believes we should train donkeys as a prerequisite to horses. Donkeys demand special skills that horses would benefit from. Most trainers dismiss donkeys as not being worthy of their time. They call donkeys stupid and stubborn, when the truth is donkeys don’t pander to bullies. Intimidation doesn’t work. They stand up by shutting down. Donkeys are the #resist originals.

So, with all due modesty, I’d like to explain how to train a donkey like Edgar Rice Burro to walk into a shed that’s smaller than a stall. Start by taking a seat in the corner to read the directions for the solar light, which, no matter how hard you try, make no sense at all. Then fiddle with the light for a while and eventually pick up the directions again. This time, squint your eyebrows. Eventually, the donkey walks in to see if he can help. The perfect guest, he stays a while to admire the view.

If you ask any animal, they will tell you the first training prerequisite is a sense of humor. I confess. My affirmative training methods were all their idea.

The shed is nearly done now. Painted, the flooring down, and the baseboards joining the edges. Doing the work made me feel more capable than I have since losing my hearing. I remembered that my first words were I’ll do it myself. Not much has changed; I’m still pretty handy. As I was painting on Christmas Eve, a friend from high school called. When I told her what I was doing, she cackled and said my mother would be proud. She’s right. That woman was always reworking castoffs and finishing them all with a fresh coat of paint. It’s what farm people do. They make things out of spare parts.

She repurposed my first hideout. We got indoor plumbing in the Minnesota farmhouse just before I started school. My mother sealed up the outhouse, and it became mine. It had a tiny cabinet and a kid-sized table and chair. No dolls allowed, but I’d grab a cat or two and lock them in with me. If it smelled bad, I don’t remember.

 This shed is almost twice the size of my studio in the house, which looks like a broom closet compared to this bright white space. I’ll do my writing here, but there are still power questions. The shed will be off-grid, so still learning about that. I resolved the internet questions, so I can record my Gray Mare podcast here. I haven’t moved in, but there’s some furniture that I’m shuffling around.

There’s a recycled brass and cast-iron bench. It’s horribly uncomfortable, but it was an antique bed I purchased after I sold my first one-of-a-kind design. I used the money to buy something I’d keep. I was twenty and needed to remind myself I was an artist when I didn’t yet have the courage to say it aloud. By the time I closed my studio/gallery in Denver 30 years later, I knew that training horses required more creativity than any art I’d done. It all started with this bed.

After leaving home, I didn’t have the resources for college. In the early years, my art barely supported me, so I schooled myself on the classics. I was a voracious reader, studying literature, philosophy, and political science. After I moved to the farm, I was too exhausted to read. Then things really sped up. I’ve never worked harder or longer hours, educated this time by horses. I still travel for clinics and teach online. But I also have a comfy chair so that I can put my feet up, glance over the pond, and read the old-fashioned way.

I hung a patchwork quilt made by my first boyfriend’s mother, with her name and mine stitched on the edging. We stayed friends, and I got to thank her for letting me be in her home while mine was disintegrating, always understanding more than I could explain. She died too young, but she has a place here. Recently, I got a thick envelope and tore it open. Out fell a vintage Colorado souvenir hankie. I knew it was from my dear Elaine, gone five years now. A letter bomb of memory from her husband, my friend. It is hanging on the wall above the bench. But with me here.

This shed as a place of my future, made up from my past. It’s for the part of me that isn’t about horses. The part of me nearly starved these last beautiful years. I’ll use this place to collect my neglected and lost parts. The dogs are helping me with that.

After a few weeks of Jolene and Mister glaring at me across Edgar’s pen, it was time for them to come see their shed dog barn. I put leashes on, and we went to the gate and stepped through. As I turned to close it, Edgar shot like a missile from the far corner of his pen. His ears pinned, his teeth bared, he went for the dogs. I spun and said in a low voice, you quit. Edgar stopped in his tracks, probably from the look on my face. Then he gave us a double-shot view of his back hooves and cantered away.

Mister leaned on my leg and furrowed his brow. I didn’t know he could. It meant using muscles that usually hold his ears up. He had a look of sheer amazement. Mister and Edgar have been over the fence from each other for years. Was Edgar holding this grudge all along? Edgar would like you to know donkeys have never liked dogs because they’re just coyotes in weird costumes. Dogs are predators, and horses are prey. Edgar held the line between them. You might think that this is all fairy-tale cute. Edgar says humans are famous for underestimating instinct. He would like to remind you that he took on those two Rottweilers just last fall.

I turned to high-foot it to the dog barn when I noticed one leash had an empty collar attached. Jolene was gone. I can’t even imagine how a fight between Jolene and Edgar would end. Had Edgar left so quickly to chase her? I scanned the pens. Where was she? I needed to get Mister to the dog barn and then go find her. But as soon as I took a step, Jolene bounced to Mister’s side. She was sitting behind me, where a good Viking cattle dog waits just out of view. The three of us got to the dog barn quickly. Once we were safely in the yard, Mister thought he might faint. Mister would like you to know that he is a H-DINO. Herding-dog in name only.

Edgar followed us and pressed his muzzle to the fence, about corgi height. I confess I’m a little proud of him. He is 84 donkey years old. And not dead yet.

The dogs kept their distance but looked around. By summer, there will be a deck and some flowers for them to dig up. We sniffed around inside. The little drop-front desk got moved and put back. When I finally sat down, Mister climbed up and looked out the window. Then he slowly lowered himself. He’s the original weighted blanket, and we were off to dreamland. Our first official nap in the Dog Barn and Literary Lounge.

It’s January, full on windter now. Living on a prairie, we get the extra D for free. Wind is the no-charge condiment, the icing on the pond, the rock-hard freeze to the earth. This too shall pass. Living on the land means you tell time by the quality of the light. Bless the sun for coloring our days and the seasons for carrying us on. Bless the dogs who walk us home.

To be continued, because we do.

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My books include three creative nonfiction books, two memoirs, and two poetry books. Available at all online booksellers, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and signed copies from me. Please consider leaving a rating or review.

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Women Aging Cantankerously