Every Friday morning I post an essay. In the beginning, I thought I would never come up with something to write about the next week. No one is more surprised than I am at how I have blathered on all these years. It’s the Lake Woebegone Effect; life unfolds, and there is nothing ordinary about life. The ducks will have you know, even small lives have big thoughts.
Most weeks are uneventful. I do some online lessons and spend time prepping for the group classes I teach at The Barn School.(opens in new tab) My farm is like yours; there’s always something that needs to be repaired and tasks to be done as seasons change. It’s time for the tank heaters. I arrange my life to spend most of my time with animals. I consider that a resplendent success.
This week, I cancelled my work so I could be a Registration Judge at a local polling place. The day before the election and on election day, I threw hay before dawn and made sure everybody had water. Then I jumped in the shower, put on out-in-public clothes, and headed to the fire station in my small town. We waited for everyone, a crew of fourteen, to arrive at the entryway. We must all enter and leave the voting room together. It’s a rule, and then there are a few thousand other rules for the time in between.
You wear a lanyard with an ID card. The lanyard is the color of your political party: red, blue, or purple. I felt a bit exposed, but they want it clear to everyone that it’s a bipartisan group. We were seated next to judges not wearing our color.
The first day was pretty quiet. In Colorado, 98% of the population votes by mail. When someone came in, we checked their ID against their voter information in the state log. If all was confirmed and in order, the system printed a sticker that was put on their print-on-demand paper ballot and marked that they had voted. Some voters brought in a “cheat sheet,” and others took time to study in the booth. When done, they put their ballot in a locked steel box.
The hard part of the day is sitting still so long. The very best part of the day happened randomly. Suddenly, the man printing out the ballots boomed out in a rich voice: Attention! We have a first-time voter! And everybody in the room erupts into cheers. The new voter looks slightly alarmed but eventually gives a shy smile. I think it was just as much for all of us, workers and voters. The camaraderie a little like jury duty.
Monday was an eleven-hour day with an hour for lunch. More sitting than I would do if I was on a road trip, more sitting than I would do no matter what. We got breaks. Each time we stepped away from our computers, we must double-lock them, and each time we come back, do the two-part sign-in. It’s a process. We’re very careful.
Then we waited. We aren’t supposed to look at our phones, so we stared at the clock. Some talked quietly, but I daydreamed. It’s what folks with hearing loss do.
I pondered herding. It’s like teaching a dog to chase a car, but only some cars and only some of the time. We must always use the correct signals, and the brakes must work immediately when asked. The rest of the time, Jolene should sit next to me on the curb and watch the cars run past. Other times, I might ask her to bring me all the cars. Herding is filled with contradictory cues that can be baffling. All of this while the sheep are finding ways to not play along.
A thought dawned on me last week. I’d never take a horse to a show, pull him out of the trailer, and go straight into the competition ring. In dressage, we believe the most important part of the ride is a good, solid warm-up. I haven’t seen it in herding. So that’s what Jolene and I are doing while not herding in the pasture. We warm up our calls and answers, low and steady. We school calmness.
This week Jolene was sitting on the ground next to me when all six sheep ran past us. We just looked at each other, one of us doing her job and the other in disbelief. Jolene was fabulous. How can I tell? The three Blackbelly ewes give me a weekly report card. They are skeptical sheep with enlarged, undomesticated egos. They are dog-trained sheep who expect us to be civilized. They don’t thank me. They say, we notice you have a little more control of your wolf. About time.
The duck drama continues. They get turn-out while I clean. They trot their webbies around and quack uproariously. I can’t get them back in alone, and Jolene flatly refuses. I’m beginning to trust Mister, but the thing about corgis, even Cardigans, is that they aren’t burdened with the need to please us. Their instinct leans toward eating or sleeping. Half the time the ducks turn around and attack him. Then, since he is a stress-eater, he runs into their pen to steal duck chow. It doesn’t go well.
The next day was election day. We met at 6:30 AM and were busy all day, sometimes with a few voters waiting. Other times, a voter would come in, and all six of us would be sitting in a line looking at them. I thought it was pretty wonderful that people didn’t have to take too much time out of their day. Suffrage doesn’t mean suffering after all.
By 5 o’clock, everybody picked up their kids from daycare and suddenly the room was filled with crying babies in strollers. The noise level rose in direct proportion as my hearing dropped. Was I too deaf to do this, too?
The poll finally closed at 7 PM on election night, with a handful of voters still filling out their ballots. One was a mother with her teenage daughter, talking their way through the ballot. The other two were a mother and daughter voting together. We quietly waited with our computers open until they were done, so they wouldn’t feel a need to hurry.
Then it took us a little over an hour to shut down, count numbers, pull together the paperwork, and make sure it all matched. The votes were in their locked containers the entire time. Then we all left together after loading everything up to be delivered to the voting center by, yes, a red and a blue site coordinator. I barely remember feeding before my head hit the pillow.
I was a teenager during the Vietnam years, and I had some unpopular opinions. We’re a military family from farming stock. It’s hard to be more conservative than that. I was the family Blackbelly sheep, claiming my right to an opinion. They said I was just a foolish girl who didn’t understand. But all these years later, my opinions have changed so little. I expect it’s like that for a lot of us. We’re just like our parents or the exact opposite.
It did my heart good to see people come together to vote, sometimes whole families. Many young voters and voters in uniform. All races, all ages, all our small lives that add up to America. I heard an Irish comedian say we were not a melting pot. We were more of a charcuterie board. That’s what I love about us.
It takes all kinds to do this work. We were veterans, retired school teachers, ordinary Americans. Most of us were Gray mares. Nothing about this job felt heroic. Three men and eleven women living small lives, willing to do office work for their country. It required an eye for detail and the ability to follow rules. I imagine it’s a little like working at the DMV. But then a lot of the most important work is done by people sitting behind desks.
The morning after the election, the sun rose with possibility into a rainbow-colored sky. Mister climbed into my lap. His version of herding is to sit on me. Mister says, you can’t just leave me with her for two whole days. Jolene pressed into my side hard all night, greeting the day as mad as a duck. She scolded, how dare you?
And their votes were counted as well.
Infinity Farm, where all the women are strong, all the horses are good-looking, and all the dogs are above average.
…
#noai #humanart
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Women Aging Cantankerously
Just… I love this.
Thanks, Shirley