Fifty Acres And A Poodle (2000)

I did warn you I liked farm stories. Despite the wet-blanket-in-a-greenhouse effect of 90% humidity, I always go out to the local 4H fair each July. I spotted a girl walking a sheep around on a leash and gnashed my teeth in pure jealousy. I soothe my frustrated inner farmer by touring the animal tents. Below, a particularly cute Holstein calf from last year's fair.


Fifty Acres And A Poodle is not exactly a horse story, but it's somewhat related. And, frankly, few horse stories have a sense of humor (well, you try cracking a joke while rescuing your beloved palomino stallion, Texas Sunset, from a kill buyer so he can race in the Kentucky Derby to win back the family ranch and show that mean old Jessica/Brittany/Alexandra you are TOO the best young rider in the Pony Club) so anything comic is a welcome change.





Fifty Acres And A Poodle: A Story Of Love, Livestock And Finding Myself On A Farm
Jeanne Marie Laskas
2000, Bantam

At 37, Laskas was a happy, self-sufficient writer living contentedly in an arty neighborhood of Pittsburgh with her aging cat. But to her considerable embarassment, she had a dream of farms which was largely rooted in a sitcom. Green Acres was the place for her. Even though:

I was a person who liked to go to the mall. I was a person who had no conflict about liking to go to the mall.

And then she realized that her old friend Alex is really something more like her really great potential love of her life Alex. And that the city, the wonderful urban surroundings she's thrived on for years, is beginning to wear on her.

Lately, in this city I love, this neighborhood I love, all I seem to notice are the intrusions. Hot air. Reeking garbage. Lunatic neighbors. Bus fumes. I am inventing filters. Stinky-garbage filters. Lunatic-neighbor filters. Noxious-bus-fume filters. Sometimes I imagine plugging a big air conditioner into the front of my head so I can block the rest of the world right the hell out.
That's not right.

And after much back-and-forthing, they buy it. A forty-acre farm forty miles from Pittsburgh with an 1887 bank barn and a pond and a house sporting a huge modern studio from a former owner off one end. And move in just in time for hunting season, complete with endless explosions from the woods nearby. And within days, her previously dubious boyfriend, urban guy and psychiatrist Alex, is hobnobbing with hunters -

When Lucy comes back with the fries, Alex stands and says goodbye to his new friend. "And hey," he says earnestly, "congratulations on your... dead deer."

- and she's appalled herself by reverting to girlishness.

I stand here thinking I should speak my mind. Because there is no way. There is no way I'm going to allow hunting anywhere near me. And I am a woman of the 1990s, active and independent-minded, fully in charge of my life. It is so important to me that I stand behind my beliefs and be heard, be known. This is a golden opportunity for me to spread my magnificent wings and soar.
I say: "I'll have to ask my husband..." It comes out like a series of chirps, dying bird chirps.

I won't spoil the rest by writing more. This memoir is funny, flippant and hugely entertaining. The only drawback is that it sometimes goes too deeply flippant, never quite managing to drop the pretense of wry cynicism at serious moments.


Books
Laskas has written two follow-up memoirs, The Exact Same Moon and Growing Girls. As you might suspect from the title, the latter focuses on parenting and her daughters. As you might suspect of a memoir dealing with raising female children on a farm, there are even more horsey passages.

Links
Author's website










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Animal Magnetism (2009)

A short review of a memoir by Rita Mae Brown, author of the popular Sister Jane foxhunting mysteries. To explain the last two links, which are left hanging by the review itself, among the topics Brown's wide-ranging book addresses are horse slaughter and the death of the racehorse Ferdinand.



Animal Magnetism
Rita Mae Brown
2009, Ballantine Books


This book is about the many lessons I've learned, the animals who have loved me, endured me, and taught me, and my bottomless love for them in return.

The prolific writer and author of the popular Sneaky Pie cat mysteries and Sister Jane foxhunting mysteries rambles pleasantly in this memoir, always returning to her love of nature, animals and life.

Born in Pennsylvania, Brown was raised in a family that identified intensely as Southern and eccentric.

Mother had a refreshingly low opinion of monogamy. Naturally, one did one's best. If a wild moment came upon you, the best course of action was to be discreet...

A little of that flavor of playful southern charm can go a long way, and Brown doesn't belabor it. She flickers over to her mother's interest in foxes, and her own childhood study of them. While the book ranges over topics as diverse as farming, politics, cats and family history, it keeps returning to horses and foxhunting.

Horses, like women, dazzle. The result: brains fly out the window. Even experienced horsemen can lose their composure. You pay for beauty.

While I long ago reach my lifetime quota of country wisdom and southern oddity, there are just too many good lines in this book to hold her tendency toward both against her. One final crack:

A dog will whine if it's upset or needs something, but no animal whines in the manner of a human. It's deeply boring when a woman does it and beyond the pale when a man does it. Patriarchy brings extra benefits, extra burdens. You want the benefits, accept the burdens.


Links
Author website - Sister Jane books
Author website - excerpt from Animal Magnetism
Oak Ridge Fox Hunt
The Bloodhorse article about Ferdinand's fate
Thoroughbred Retirement Fund

Other books
Brown has written a lot of books, so I'll just list the foxhunting mystery series in which horses, hounds, and everyone else gets a voice.


Outfoxed
Hotspur
Full Cry
The Hunt Ball
The Hounds And The Fury
The Tell-Tale Horse
Hounded To Death