We sat on the low couch in a quiet room at the back of the Carrabassett veterinary center, eating Cape Cod salt-and-vinegar chips and chocolate from Madagascar. He rested his muzzle on my thigh, and I kept stroking the soft place behind his ear—the one he always leaned into when he wanted reassurance. Somehow I managed to hold it together for him as I said my goodbyes to James Murphy, my best friend and constant companion these past eleven years.
Murphy loved chips. Cape Cod salt-and-vinegar were my favorites and his too, so I brought a bag along to share. The chocolate came from my sister—she’d come up the day before to say her goodbyes, and she believes every dog should get to eat chocolate at least once in his life. So that’s what we did. We had ourselves a little “picnic” and ate chips and chocolate, while the vet got everything ready.
Murphy came into my life in 2015, not long after my Daddy’s passing and the ending of my fifteen-year marriage. It was an extremely unsettled phase of my existence, and Murphy seemed like an angel heaven sent to watch over me. That might sound corny, but the circumstances surrounding our union are too significant for this farmer to dismiss.
A devout proponent of the “adopt don’t shop” concept, I’d brought him home through a special Black Friday event at our local Franklin County Animal Shelter—Zappos.com and Best Friends Animal Society had partnered to cover every adoption fee at shelters across the country. (I waited in line for two hours that day, even though I had to pee so bad I thought I would burst! You can read the whole story here in the Runamuk archives.)
He was barely a year old when he came to me. Already well-trained. The kind of dog who’d push his head under your hand without being asked, who heeled because it was natural to do. We trained him to chase the foxes away from the chicken coop, and he did so with gusto—dutiful and noble, the way his breed is built to be.
And still I avoided thinking about “the end”.
I see it now in the slow progression of these last few years. The young dog who’d lay at the edge of the garden for hours became the older dog who preferred the comfy couch in the living room to the flies tormenting a black coat in summer sun. He stopped trailing after his ambitious human and started waiting for her to come back inside. Rain or cold, snow or oppressive heat—he wanted creature comforts now. None of the rest.
Over the weekend it became painfully apparent that his time had come. Unable to get up on his own steam and unsteady on his feet. His appetite waned—though he did a respectable job with the lamb shanks and mashed potatoes I’d given him the night before. The degenerative muscle disease had degraded his body so that his hip bones and his skull were alarmingly prominent, his eyes sunken into the bone of his face. It was obvious that he was just miserable.
Reluctantly, I made the call on Monday morning. The vet agreed there was nothing more we could do, and we scheduled “it” for Wednesday morning.
Then on Tuesday he scared me when he didn’t come when I called. Knowing he enjoyed a midday dip in the pond, I went looking for him, dreading what I’d find.
Sure enough, he’d fallen over in the water and couldn’t get himself up. He was lucky he didn’t drown right there. I had quite a time heaving him out of the pond and back to the house, and when I finally got him into the house, both of us soaked through and shaking, I knew I’d been right to make the call.
He lay there on the couch at the end, muzzle on my thigh, contented in a cozy cuddle with his person. I stroked his fur and told him what a good boy he was and that I love him.
And then it was over.
The rain picked up as I dug the deep, oblong hole at the back of the garden, right beside the nannyberry tree I’d relocated there. In that moment it seemed as though the whole world grieved for James Murphy, and I choked back a sob.
My sister came to help me through the task. I almost think it was harder for her than for me. You see enough death on a farm that it’s not such a shock to the system anymore—more a simple part of life.
I think our society has shielded most of us from death. With the rise of modern cremations we no longer have to deal with the remains of the mortal body. Hell, there’s even an option on the release form at the vet’s to NOT be present as your pet is euthanized. So you can take your living pet in, let someone else handle the dirty part, and then two weeks later you get the ashes in an urn or a box, or whatever it is.
Same thing with our elderly relatives. We have come so far that we can incarcerate our failing elders in a “nursing home,” pay others to look after them in their decline, and when they’re gone they’re buried or cremated and you never even have to look at the dead body.
I’m not sure it’s strictly good or bad. But I know we once had great rituals around death: think Samhain and Día de los Muertos. What about the wake in the parlor where the body lay for three days while the family came through? Treating death so casually—so hands-off and outsourced—isn’t the advancement we tell ourselves it is.
Personally, I think it belittles the recently dead and dishonors their existence.
So I scooped up Murphy’s lifeless form in my arms and hefted him against my chest. At sixty-some pounds it was a feat for me to carry him the length of the garden, and I puffed as my arms trembled. But I refused to move him any other way.
Gently I lowered him into the hole I’d dug, and arranged his legs and head neatly.
And then we covered him over with soil.
I’d effectively planted Murphy in the garden. His body will feed the soil and nurture the nannyberry tree. Now he can always be with me—and the flies won’t bother him at all.
But you know as well as I do that life goes on, even as we bury our loved ones. Here’s what else has been happening on the farm this week…
DONATIONS & NEW PAID SUBSCRIBERS
On Monday morning I woke to the sound I’d been dreading these last couple weeks—the furnace whining because it was out of fuel again. Mercifully, between several new paid subscribers, a handful of farm-shares purchased, and generous donations from readers—including an $1,100 contribution to the farm—I was able to order a delivery for this coming Monday.
I’ve also received gifts from Runamuk’s Amazon Wish List: three varieties of mushroom spores, a copy of Aldo Leopold’s The Farmer as a Conservationist, and t-post hinges. I’m sure I’m overlooking something, and if I am, please forgive me—but to everyone who has sent such generosity my way: thank you. The fuel is ordered because of you. That is not a small thing.
PLANTING UNDERWAY
Planting is underway in earnest now. As fast as I can prepare beds I’m filling them, and so far I’ve put in onions, scallions, lettuce, broccoli, carrots, rainbow radishes, lettuce mix, and mesclun mix.
Early in the season like this is also a good time for what I call “structural projects” in the garden—relocating trellises, moving cold-frames, and adding a privacy hedge along the north side. Thanks to the recent influx of support, I was also able to pick up a couple more rolls of landscape fabric and another swath of plastic, which will help me manage the space and keep weed-pressure down through the summer. I also bought seed potatoes and cover-crop seed.
SHEEP IN TRANSITION
”The Greening” is my absolute favorite time of year—when the yellow-green blush of new leaves begins to spread across the hills and mountains of my home in Western Maine. The fields in the valleys become green and lush, and the forsythia signals the advent of warmer days ahead. It also means every time I went out to the garden this past week, the sheep were crying at me to let them at the grass outside their winter pens.
Once I start the process, we’ll be in the thick of rotational grazing until November, and—knowing the state of the sheep’s summer shelters—I’d hoped to hold off on the transition another week or two. But they became quite obnoxious in their insistence, and there would be no peace in the garden until they could get at the grass. So on Tuesday, I made it happen.
WHAT’S A SHEEP-TRACTOR?
Most people hear “tractor” and think of an actual tractor. But you might at least be acquainted with the idea of a “chicken-tractor”—the kind of livestock shelter designed to be moveable for the purposes of rotational grazing.
When I first began raising sheep, I built a little salt-box style three-sided shed on skids for my ewes and lambs. The rams have had repurposed truck-caps to keep them out of the wind and elements. I move both with a heavy-duty utility dolly and a lot of lady-power.
It’s been seven years, and these structures have been used and abused mercilessly by both the sheep and myself. The plywood roofing on the salt-box is rotted and sagging, and the boys have broken most of the fiberglass windows on their truck-cap. My plan is to replace the roof on the older shed and give it to the boys, build a new salt-box for the ewes and lambs, and retire the truck-cap altogether.
For the last seven years, the flock has been the heart of our efforts to improve the soil and forage on the ten-acre field—and to make better habitat for the wildlife who live there and thereabouts. They graze it down, fertilize it as they go, and the field gets healthier every season because of them.
Keeping them in decent shelter is just part of being a responsible livestock keeper.
➡️Lumber prices being what they are, I’m looking at roughly $500 in materials to do the rebuild right. If you’ve got a few dollars to throw at a sheep shelter this spring, you can help by making a one-time donation through PayPal or Venmo.
I’ve been working at the back of the garden these last couple of days, prepping beds for my direct-composting experiment and cover-cropping. Being so near the nannyberry I can’t help thinking about Murphy all tucked in under the mound of disturbed soil.
That tree was originally planted two years ago, and I moved it to the back of the garden this spring to keep it out of the path of the sheep. A shrubby tree like that draws the birds in, and the birds help keep the pest pressure down in the garden.
It’s a long-standing tradition of mine to honor my loved ones through the farm. Several sheep have been named after late relatives. A couple of cats are buried at the foot of different apple trees. And now Murphy’s mortal remains are feeding the nannyberry, which will grow and bear fruit. The birds will come for the berries in late summer, and my best friend will continue on.
Meanwhile, the season rolls on—onions and lettuce in the ground, sheep on grass, and a new sheep-tractor to build before the full rotation can really begin. The farm doesn’t care that I buried my dog on a Wednesday—it needs me on Thursday, on Friday—and every day after.
I used to think that was harsh—that the world could just carry on while my own life was crashing down around me. But now I see it as a mercy. It’s the work that carries you through.
So I’ll keep planting, and moving sheep. I’ll keep an eye on that nannyberry tree, and I’ll revel in Murphy’s presence. Having him close makes it feel like he’s still with me—watching over me the way he always has.
Until next week, farm friends.
—Sam
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