Coop A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting Chapter One This morning while splitting wood, I attempted to clear my left nostril using a rustic maneuver known as the "farmer snort" and misfired badly. My Eustachian tubes have yet to assume their former diameter. I bubble-gummed an eardrum, shot fizz out both tear ducts, and may have permanently everted one eyeball. I believe I sprained my uvula. The act of blowing one's nose without benefit of Kleenex is a skill appreciated along a wide spectrum of background and endeavor--synonymous terms include fisherman's tissue and air hanky . But I grew up calling it a farmer snort, because them's my people, and them's who taught me. The lessons were not formal. Watch and learn, learn by doing. Same way I learned to spit. Although Dad nearly derailed me there. We were walking from Oliver Baalrud's barn to the house for a lemonade break between unloading hay wagons when I puckered up and gobbed a stringer down my miniature bib overalls. I'd been watching Oliver all day. He was a diminutive Norwegian and an accomplished spitter--not big tobacco-ey streamers, just frothy little pips, but he did it constantly, and the flecks flew sharp and straight. Gosh, it was just the neatest thing. He could do it while talking, pitchforking, or backing up the tractor. I wasn't even in kindergarten yet, but I was trying to march beside my dad like a little hay-making man, and I guess I figured spitting would be the thing. When I goobered on my bibs, Dad didn't break stride. Just looked down and said, "Don't spit until you know how." Boy, that set up a conundrum. How you gonna learn if you don't do ? I guess I got around it. Later, when I lost my milk teeth, the new set came in with a pretty good gap. This helps with the aiming, and has a rifling effect. Given a gift, you work with it. I can sit in the kitchen and knock a horsefly off your doorknob. Executed smartly, the farmer snort is a source of transcendent clarification. In short, it really lightens your head, and consequently your day. Conversely, a snort misplayed can put a serious crimp in your karma. As with most things in life, your odds of success improve through focus and rehearsal. Determine your dominant nostril; visualize success; think through the snort--that sort of thing. I have encountered people who claim to be able to perform a hands-free double-barrel farmer snort. I am skeptical and not about to hang around while they prove it. The first time I saw my wife farmer-snort, I felt a renewed flush of affection and thought, Now there is a woman who can endure . I split wood because I boldly predict that next winter will be cold. Climatic creep notwithstanding, one retains the long johns. Ever since I departed the home farm some twenty-four years ago, I have warded off winter with a twist of the thermostat. Now that we've moved to the farm, we have backup electric heat, but the preponderance of warmth in our house is generated from within a square steel box in the living room, and the thing must be fed. I have this spot where I like to chop; it overlooks a swale that breaks into the valley below. Now and then I pause to unbend my back and absorb the view. I feel hardy standing here, muscular and flush with the full pulse of labor. There is sweat in my stocking cap, my typist palms are nicely sore from gripping the ax, and the splintered wood at my feet is tangible evidence of my attempt to provide for our little family of three. Our farmhouse--just up the slope from where I stand--is a mishmash of remodels and add-ons clad in scuffed aluminum. The windows are uncoordinated, and the floorboards are straight out of a carnival funhouse. Moving from the kitchen to the living room, you step up a four-inch riser; keep moving on the same plane around the central wall, and you will circle right back to the riser, having never stepped down. This creates an M. C. Escher effect and helps explain why my mother-in-law refers to the bathroom hall as "that wheelchair ramp." But at the heart of the structure is a log cabin built in the 1880s, and it is dead solid. A few of the hand-squared logs are still visible along one side of the living room. They are the width of a boar's back. Pausing ax in hand to gaze off across the territory, I picture myself as some austere pioneering backwoodsman on the order of Abe Lincoln--albeit dumber, stubbier, and unlikely to alter the course of human events, unless you count snoozing at a stoplight. It's a good day for splitting. Fifteen below at dawn, and even in mid-afternoon the oak is frozen tight. Wet wood split in summer absorbs the ax with a punky tunk! You spend half your time wrenching the sunk blade free; the beveled steel cheeks press out a watery froth. Today at subzero, nearly every stroke terminates in a crisp ker-rack! The halves part neatly, releasing a scent like musk and cheese. The exposed wood is laced with crystals of ice that refract the sun and salt the grain with an interstitial twinkle. I split a while, then stack a while. The baby is due in early April, just over three months from now. After a slow start, I am astounded at the speed with which Anneliese's belly is growing. Whatever is in there, it is a kicky little creature, and prone to nocturnal hiccups. Nearly every night when we lie in bed, Anneliese's midsection begins to lurch sharply and at measured intervals. It is my understanding that the sensation is equivalent to the baby playing foosball with Anneliese's innards. It is tough to drift off with a miniature single-stroke engine boing-boinging between your liver and bladder, and compounding the problem, ever since Anneliese became pregnant, she has been struggling with insomnia. Coop A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting . Copyright © by Michael Perry. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting by Michael Perry All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
