Lately, my life has felt reminiscent of the 1988 movie, Funny Farm, which stars Chevy Chase. It follows a couple who leave the big city for what they expect to be an idyllic life in the country, where they plan to start a family and the main character, Andy, wants to write a novel.
This movie is a comedy, and, of course, nothing goes as planned. Life on the farm is total chaos, and their lives and marriage are nearly ruined. I’ve always enjoyed the movie. It is hilarious, but also relatable on many levels.
People who live in rural areas appreciate the unbeatable sunsets and fresh air that come with life in the country, but they also know this lifestyle does not always look like a Norman Rockwell painting. At times, it falls more in line with some of Picasso’s work.
Our dog, a lovely female Great Pyrenees named Ava, has been the star of our funny farm lately. Ava is a sweetheart and an idiot at the same time.
Although her job is to protect my chickens, she sometimes focuses more on her talents for retrieving, and it’s not necessarily the kind of retrieving most people associate with a dog.
I often step outside my door to find an assortment of objects she has discovered and proudly delivered to her owners as presents. Most of them, I have no idea of where they came from, which makes them even more alarming.
Every day, I cross something else off my funny-farm bingo card. Common presents include aluminum cans, a single leather boot, or parts for a toilet. One day, she brought me a teacup. Another day there was a child’s jump rope. My husband, who grew up in our current home, recognized it from his childhood, but hadn’t seen it in years.
Other days she makes more macabre deliveries, like a decaying calf leg and hoof. I looked around for a three-legged calf and saw none, so the origin of that arrival is still a mystery.
Just to mow our yard, I must conduct a thorough inspection and pick up all carcass pieces just to prevent a flat tire. At this point, she is less like a Great Pyrenees and more like the Grim Reaper.
The only month of the year this behavior is acceptable is October, when her treasures blend in with my Halloween decor. They look a little suspicious next to the nativity when December comes around.
The number of skulls, vertebrae and femurs left next to my front door and driveway has become so alarming I try to avoid the mail carriers and delivery drivers who drop boxes at my door because I can’t imagine what they think of us. They must walk through Death Valley just to deliver our Amazon packages.
On any given Sunday, there will be a new set of bones, at which time I play “Name the Species” and try to determine what this poor creature was prior to its demise.
Chevy Chase’s character in Funny Farm also owned a dog. In the movie, this Labrador eventually unearthed a human skeleton buried in the vegetable garden. Considering this, I suppose Ava’s archaeological finds could be much worse.
Living on a farm has a way of recalibrating your definition of normal. In many respects, rural living is the “Mayberry” experience, complete with the romanticized white picket fence and wide-open spaces.
But sometimes there’s a rotting foot next to that picket fence, and to live in the country, you must be willing to haul off a few carcasses now and then. It’s just a fact of this interesting life on the funny farm.
Lacey Vilhauer can be reached at 620-227-1871 or [email protected].
