Puppies!!!

I had hoped to post this MUCH sooner, but it's been such a crazy week between papers and tests and taking care of the new family, it just didn't happen.  Last Sunday, our Golden Retriever, Dutchess, had puppies!

She started out under the porch, but after the first two we had to move her to the house because it was getting cold.

Charlie, our Newfoundland daddy, was pretty proud when he heard the news.

By 8:30 pm, there were six little black puppies, and we thought she was done.

But when I checked them at 11, there were 2 more, and an hour later she had a total of nine.  By that time I didn't care if there would be more or not, I was going to bed.  Sure enough, woke up Monday morning to find a total of 10 puppies waiting for me!

We lost one the second day, so we're back down to 9, but the rest seem pretty healthy.

We've had to split them into two shifts, so Dutchie will have enough milk-- and room!

They're sweet.  We have different colored ribbons on them, so we can keep track of who's who.

I'll try to keep posting pictures.  If anyone wants one, let me know.  They are a hybrid of purebreds, and if they are anything like the last batch, they are the sweetest pups imaginable.

Blue Star Mothers, Gold Star Mothers

This is my excuse for not having puppy pictures up a week ago…they are coming up next!

I wrote this as a synthesis paper for my Advanced Composition class. The main source is Penguin's World War Poetry.


                                 Blue Star Mothers, Gold Star Mothers

We are all familiar with the army and the navy. We hear about the marines and the National Guard. But there is another branch to America's defense, a branch that spreads across all: the mothers. When their strong, brave sons and daughters leave, they are strong enough to remain behind. While their children venture into battle with artillery, they battle with prayers. Every letter, every phone call, even the sound of a car on the drive makes them pause. Is it her son? Or someone to tell her there is no one left to listen for? They hang banners in their windows to remind us of something they can never forget. They see how war changes people; they see the shadows in the eyes of the men and women they once comforted on their knees. These are the lucky ones. Others see the flag, draped over a coffin like the blanket over his cradle too few years ago, as blue stars turn to gold.

World War I was supposed to be the war to end all wars, but still the wars continue. It was during this war a custom began of hanging a banner with a star for family members fighting in the war. A Blue Star Banner, or Service Flag, as it is also called, is white with a red border and stars down the center. It was designed and patented by World War I Army Captain Robert L. Queissner of the 5th Ohio Infantry, who had two sons serving on the front lines. It was later designated by Congress as the official flag to be displayed in honor of a family member serving during war or hostilities in the United States armed forces. There is a blue star, symbolizing hope and pride, for each family member serving. If one of these is killed in combat, the blue star is covered with a slightly smaller gold star, symbolizing the sacrifice made by the family (H. Con, Res. 109). The custom continues today.

"And for each one, far off, apart, / Seven swords have rent a woman's heart" (3. 11-12). So ends Marjorie Pickthall's poem, "Marching Men". Referring to the sorrows of Mary, the mother of Christ, she reminds us of those who watched as their sons marched off to fight the Great War. Janie Reinart, mother of Ohio National Guard Specialist Joseph Reinart and coauthor and coeditor with Mary Anne Mayer of "Love you more than you know: Mothers' Stories about Sending their Sons and Daughters to War", writes that she "had thought about sending her son away to school, away to a new job, away to be married, but never, never away to war" (19-20) Theresa Hooley, in her poem "A War Film," shows a young mother during the first World War who does think of it:

The sudden terror that assaulted me? . . .

The body I had bourne

Nine moons beneath my heart,

A part of me . . .

If, someday,

It should be taken away

To War. Tortured. Torn.

Slain.

Rotting in No Man's Land, out in the rain -
My little son . . . (3.16-25)
She than thinks of the mothers, so many mothers, who watched their sons march off to the war that had already claimed so many. Another woman writes to Jane Addams, chairwoman of the Woman's Peace Party:

We are, through God's grace, the parents of two big, healthy boys, and it is, when with motherly pride I look at them, that my heart is wrung at the thought of all those mothers . . . who have to send forth these treasured tokens of God, either never to see them again or else to get them back crippled or blind or demented (Denkert 127).

And indeed, few, if any, make it through war untouched. In her children's novel, "The Singing Tree," Kate Seredy gives a vivid picture of a family in Hungary during World War I. They are safe from the fighting, but still the war reaches out its hand, scarring the ones they love. One woman, after her husband's brief (and unauthorized) visit confides in a neighbor: "This man . . . He was not my Peter. He was a stranger I don't know and, God forgive me, I cannot love (Seredy 162)." He had changed, now lashing out against the neighbors and home he had once loved-- He had learned to hate. How many mothers found their sweet little boys turned to angry, hate-filled men by this cruel machine they called war? Much of the poetry from World War I is dark, angry, and frightening—reflecting the horror of the trenches. This horror didn't end with the war. We read poems like "The Survivor Coming Home," and see Robert Graves close with the lines "'Safe home.' Safe? Twig and bough / Drip, drip, drip with Death!" (6.29-30). If this is difficult for us to read, think how much more so it must be for a mother who not only reads it, but sees it in her child's eyes…a nightmare no hug can erase. Mary Anne Mayer tells us too, that the war didn't end with her son's return. Though his physical wounds healed, he still seemed distant. She could look into his eyes and see there were stories she would never hear. One blue star mother of World War I writes her son:

When you come marching home old fellow bring me back the same boy I gave my country, - true, and clean, and gently, and brave . . . Live for her [his future wife] or if God wills, die for her; but do either with courage (Gordon 130).

Of the three sons sent, two stars were to be covered with gold. This has happened to so many mothers, after seconds, minutes, months, and years of hoping and praying their babies make it home safe.

    How does one endure those long hours of separation, waiting and wondering not knowing if their loved one is safe or suffering? When each day may bring the call that he has been hurt or killed? Poems like Jessie Pope's "Socks" show the wandering mind of a mother knitting for her soldier. He was so brave saying good bye. Was he warm enough? What were the newsboys saying? No, it isn't his battalion. There is so much he doesn't know! But he'll be alright, surely. (1-20) One wonders how long she can believe that, how long she will fight the tears. Mary Anne Mayer tells us she could not echo her son's brave prayer, "God, let Your Will be done, I got no control here." She wanted her son home safely. (33) The rosary and Daily Mass for all the soldiers gave her strength, however; for "who would better understand the suffering of our troops than Mary, who stood and watched the Passion and death of her Son?" (32)

    Although Janie Reinart and Mary Anne Mayer both saw their sons home again safely, there are many who have not been as fortunate. There is an image forever engraved in the mind of the Mrs. Mayer: the mother of one of her son's fallen brothers, sitting in front of the Pieta statue, that tragic figure of Mary holding Christ after His Crucifixion. "It is really the wives and mothers etc of these boys with the glassy eyes who do the real suffering" 1^st Lt. Edward Lukert wrote his wife during World War I. "They are laid away in countless graves but a telegram is dispatched to the 'nearest kin,' who lives to remember and mourn and grieve" (161). How many telegrams were sent? How many more only received a card saying their son or daughter was missing in action? One Civil War mother received a letter from a woman whose family had cared for her son when he died. Imagine her sorrow at hearing that her son's last words were: "My dear mother, if I only could see you once more before I die!" It was a wish that was never granted. (Liggan 95) In a letter to her son, Richard, who was killed in Vietnam thirty years before, Theresa O. Davis writes of the emptiness that she felt at hearing of his death, though she had to "put up a front" for her younger children, who had already lost their father to war. "I still miss you." She writes. "I will always miss you" (Davis 440)

    "Under the level winter sky / I saw a thousand Christs go by." Marjorie Pickthall begins "Marching Men." "And for each one, far off, apart, / Seven swords have rent a woman's heart." (1-2, 11-12) She begins her poem with tribute to the sacrifice of so many men and women who have suffered, even unto death, for so many people they will never meet. She finishes the poem with a reflection on their mothers, who suffered and suffer still. Each deserves honor, and none should be forgotten.


Works Cited:

"Blue Star Service Flag." 12 April 2010. http://www.military-money-matters.com/gold-star    -service.html image

Carroll, Andrew, ed. War Letters: Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars. New         York: Scribner 2001.

Davis, Theresa O. "Letter to her son, killed 30 years before." Carroll 440-441

Denkart, Mrs. M. "Letter to Jane Addams." Carroll 127-28

Gordon, Kate. "Letter to Son" Carroll 130

Graves, Robert. "The Survivor Comes Home." Walter. 171

Hooley, Theresa. "A War Film." Walter 190

"H. Con. Res. 109--108th Congress: A concurrent resolution on the Blue Star Flag, outlining its         history and encouraging continued use." GovTrack.us (database of federal legislation).     2009.    April 11, 2010 <http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=         108_cong _bills&docid=f:hc109enr.txt.pdf>

Liggan, Martha. "Letter to Mother of Confederate Soldier." Carrol 94-96

Lukert, 1^st Lt. Edward. "Extended Correspondence." Carroll 156-162

"Mary After the Crucifixion." A scan of an antique holy card. No other information available

Pickthall, Marjorie. "Marching Men." Walter 43

Pope, Jessie. "Socks." Walter 189

Reinart, Janie, and Mary Anne Mayer. Love you more than you know: Mothers' Stories about sending their Sons and Daughters to War. :Gray & Co. 2009.

Seredy, Kate. The Singing Tree. 1939. New York, NY: Dell 1975

Walter, George, ed. The Penguin Book of World War Poetry. New York: Penguin 2004

Wendel Berry Meets Louis L'Amour

Between school and Easter I have not had the time to post anything.  I could add a few other excuses, too, like a cold, and a film shoot, and LIFE, but that's another story.

 My Advanced Comp. teacher suggested that I post my first paper from that class, the one that I was trying not to write when I started this blog, and the one that prevented me from posting again sooner.  It is a synthesis paper that brings together the essays of Wendell Berry and a short story by Louis L'Amour.  I highly recommend both authors.

                        Mirror Valley Meets Wendell Berry
When outsiders come in and try to change the ways a community does things, we find two problems. The first is that the community doesn't trust the strangers. The second is that the strangers don't know the community. In order for us to effectively solve problems in an area, we must first become a part of that area, and then educate ourselves and others in order to find the best solution for the problem.

"Merrano of the Dry Country" is a short story written by "western" author Louis L'Amour. It tells the tale of a young man who returns to the community that drove his parents away to claim his inheritance. They hated his father because he was different, a Mexican "greaser," and because he married the girl they all wanted. The ranchers of Mirror Valley hated Merrano because he dared to return, and dared to stay when they tried to drive him out. And they hated him because he succeeded where the others were failing.
    Louis L'Amour and Wendell Berry had very different lives, yet both have many of the same ideals. The themes of strong community, respect for the environment, and self sufficiency are common in the works of both men. In his essay We have Begun, Wendell Berry outlines those things that should be "obvious" to a person familiar with the land they work. He says:

1. This is land that needs to be farmed with great care by people who know it well.
   
2. It needs perennial vegetation—trees or grass.
   
3. The steeper slopes should be permanently forested.
   
4. In any year, most of the land that is not forested should be in grass.
   
5. Any farming that is none here should make use of grazing animals.
   
6. The bottomlands, ridgetops, and gentler slopes can be planted in row crops, but they should not be continuously in cultivation. On most farms no more than 5 or 10 percent should be plowed in any year, the crops should be grown in small plots or in strips. No land should remain in cultivation for more than a year or two.
   
7. Even grazing should be done with close attention and care, and on an appropriate scale, in order to avoid both overgrazing and the heavy treading that will expose the soil to erosion. (13)
   

When we read the description of Merrano's ranch, we can see how it reflects nearly every point. That the land is farmed, or ranched, in this case, with care is obvious in the knowledge Merrano shows of the area. He knew water would be a problem, so he created dams to hold the water for the dry season. He knew what grasses were native and he planted them, along with an orchard. This covers Berry's second point–that there should be perennial vegetation. Merrano makes use of grazing animals, but is very careful not to over graze. In contrast, the ranchers of Mirror Valley do not follow this idea of grazing on an appropriate scale; rather they put too much stock on the range, and the result was too little water, too little grass, and eventual drought. The ranchers saw the huge herds of buffalo and believed that the range would support as many cattle. In Merrano's words, the ranchers "came into a rich, new country, and nothing [would] convince [them] it would not always stay rich" (L'Amour 50). Unfortunately, they were wrong, and because of their error they were in danger of ruin.
But can we really blame the ranchers? This was a land the likes of which they had never seen. This is, I think, true for many of the ecological problems. People don't know. They think they know, but they can't see far enough ahead to realize the implications of their actions. Even seeing the results of the overgrazing, it was easy for the ranchers to blame it on "climate change" (L'Amour 46). But it wasn't the climate that changed; it was the way the land reacted to the climate. The eroded soil could no longer hold what little moisture it received. So how can we change the way people react to the land? In his essay "The Working Wilderness," Courtney White asked Julia Davis-Stafford, of the progressively managed, 100,000 acre, CS ranch in northeastern New Mexico, how to change the land ethics of the ranchers, as the ethics of the Davises were changed. Her answer to him is an answer for us: "We didn't change our ethics. We're the same people we were 15 years ago. What changed was our knowledge" (Working Wilderness 162). This distinction between ethics and knowledge is an important one, because in recognizing it we can avoid jumping to conclusions about one side of an issue or the other, and in acknowledging it, we can open ourselves up to a greater understanding of the issue at hand.

The beauty of fiction is that it can give us a more complete understanding of an event than we usually see with a "true" story. This is because, with reality, we are stuck in the position of the observer. There are things we do not, and cannot know, although we may assume them. As Wendell Berry said, "Imagination knows more than the eye sees." When we read a story, we know what is going on in the characters' minds, at least so far as the author is willing to show us. Also, in a short story such as Merrano of the Dry Country, the problems are simple. The cattle are dying, and nobody likes Merrano. The solutions are also simple. Get off your high horse and listen to Merrano. But what about real life? Can these principles of community, knowledge of the land, and peaceful resolutions really work outside the world of fiction and essays? Certainly not as simply, but definitely yes.

In Bringing the Society Back In- Grassroots Ecosystem Management, Accountability, and Sustainable Communities, Edward Weber studies three communities, Willapa Bay, Washington, Henry's Fork Watershed, Idaho, and Applegate Valley, Oregon, that have had successfully overcome serious disagreements by working within the community to resolve differences. Like in Merrano, the issue had escalated to the point of threats of violence. However, the two sides were a little more complicated. Each of the communities relied on the health of the environment for the health of their communities and economies. And each of the communities found themselves divided between the environmentalist groups and the loggers, ranchers, and farmers who made their living from the land (45). As Wendell Berry puts it, "The effort is not only defined by the problem but is limited by it (75)." Neither side could find resolutions, because neither side was willing to see beyond their own problems. As one person put it, it was "owls versus jobs, fish versus people," an entirely too simplistic approach to the problem (Weber 48). No one believed that both the environment and the economy could win.

Fortunately, there were leaders and citizens within these communities who realized that there had to be a solution (Weber 60). They began a conversation with one another, as Merrano did with the Drakes. Wendell Berry says of conversation:

Nobody beginning a conversation can know how it will end. And there is always the possibility that a conversation, by bringing its participants under one another's influence, will change them, possibly for the better. (122)

As a result of these conversations, the citizens created institutions to reconnect society with the government institutions, thereby giving people their voice back. Previously, there had been this feeling that the government was "inaccessible, biased, inefficient, and ineffective" (Weber 52). Also ineffective was the method of breaking things into subcategories, and trying to fix each part separately. The allegiance created by one community pointed out:

A sustainable community needs to be developed by the people who make up the community. It cannot be designed by a consultant. It cannot be implemented by experts hired specifically for the project. It needs to be implemented every day by the people who live and work in the community. (qtd. Weber 194)

Berry talks about how the knowledge should be carried from the university to the regions it supports, in the agricultural extension system, and how information needs to be likewise carried back to the university, telling them what works and what doesn't (124), again bringing the community and education together.

This is what we see in L'Amour's story, as well. Once the ranchers were able to realize that Merrano wasn't just a greaser and that he knew what he was talking about, mainly by the example he was able to show them on his own ranch, they were willing to change what they were doing. As long as he was an outsider, they wouldn't listen. Why should they? Hadn't they run more cattle than he had, and on that range? But by going in and seeing the grass, and seeing the water, and seeing the healthy cows, they were able to realize that these were things they could and should do, too. And they did them. The cases on the west coast are not isolated incidences, either. Courtney White talks about ranching communities who, like the Davises, have come together as a community to implement new ideas in conservation. "Alone, it is doubtful that any one ranching operation can survive economically or socially by itself anymore," White quotes Frank Hayes, in his book Revolution on the Range. "Together they can make a difference among themselves and as a group. (qtd. in White 75)

It's the easiest thing in the world to sit back and say what other people ought to be doing. It is also easy to keep doing what we are doing, and consider our failures to be the fault of something beyond our own control. It is much harder to work with others and take the chance of learning something new about them, and about ourselves. Yet the rewards for the latter far outweigh those of the former. These are things Wendell Berry and Louis L'Amour have both recognized and shared.

Works Cited

Berry, Wendell. The Way of Ignorance. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint Press, 2005. Print

L'Amour, Louis. "Merrano of the Dry Country." L'Amour, Louis. The Strong Shall live. Bantam    Reissue / September 1992. New York: Bantam Books, 1980, reprinted 1992. 43-79. Print

Weber, Edward P. Bringing Society Back in : Grassroots Ecosystem Management    Accountability, and Sustainable Communities. eBook ISBN: 9780585446721.    Cambridge, Mass.: MIT    Press, 2003. Accessed netlibrary.com 27 Feb. 2010    <http://www.netlibrary.com.proxy.elm4you.org/Reader/> Ebook.

White, Courtney. Revolution on the Range: The rise of a New Ranch in the American West. Washington, D.C.: Shearwater Books, 2008. Accessed on Amazon.com 1 March 2010    http://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Range-Rise-Ranch-American/dp/1597261742/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267491445&sr=8-1#reader_1597261742 Ebook.

White, Courtney. "The Working Wilderness: A Call for a Land Health Movement." Berry, Wendell. The Way of Ignorance. Berkley, CA: Counterpoint Press, 2005. 159-180. Print