Touched by All Creatures Doctoring Animals in the Pennsylvania Dutch Country

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Chapter One

All Creatures Large

and Lilliputian

    Edgar's and my fascination with animals and nature all began, as Fate decided, when we were too young to realize what it would all mean.

    As far back as I can remember, I have had an affinity for all creatures, large and Lilliputian. Most of this fascination began at the age of six and was the result of my Gramma Eckensberger's keen insight and creative imagination.

    I can still hear her loudly calling me by the pet name she gave me--a hybrid of Gay and, my middle name, Louise. Her voice still rings fondly in my ears.

    "Gwee-ee-ee-eezer! Gwee-ee-ee-eezer!"

    I flew to the picture window, parted the curtains and looked across our two-acre yard to my grandmother's grand, pink stucco home on the hill. There she stood on her flagstone patio that moist morning, a large, round woman in a white sundress speckled with bouquets of black-eyed Susans. As usual her flaming red hair was arranged in a haphazard French twist, strands of which stuck out like a sunburst.

    Again she called. "Gwee-ee-eezie! Gwee-ee-eezie! I have something for you!"

    She always had something for me--always some enchanting surprise. It didn't take much prodding for me, my parents' six-year-old only child with nothing to do, to race out the door and up to her large porch flanked by blooming lilacs and spicy verbena. It was spring, and my gramma's flowerbeds had already erupted into riots of ruby tulips, grape hyacinths and sun-yellow daffodils. And that was only the beginning. In summer the front yard would be festooned with a colored profusion of purple, yellow, red, blue and white wildflowers and not-so-wild flowers: bleeding hearts, snapdragons, daisies, roses, peonies, poppies and magnolias. Wherever there was an empty corner of ground, Gramma planted a bush, a tree or a collection of flowers.

    Seconds later, I stood huffing and puffing before her raised porch. The great green garden umbrella was already open and poised luxuriously in anticipation of many summer picnics. Gramma smiled mischievously from an ample face and proffered her cupped hands.

    Today's surprise.

    "This is just for you," she said in a low, mysterious voice. "But before you see it, you must promise at play's end to put it back where it belongs."

    I nodded, grinning with anticipation. Chewing my lower lip, I held out my hands as I had done many, many times before. I wondered what she held this time.

    "Be careful," she said as she drew closer, bent over. I held out my small hands. "Don't drop it."

    Then she made the exchange--from her closed fists to mine. At first I couldn't see what the mystery object was--there were too many fingers in the way. But I soon felt something warm and soft. Then I felt the little thing move. I quickly closed my fingers over it to keep it safe, but I wanted to see the object. Gradually I raised my hands and peeked inside the finger cave.

    A tiny bunny. A baby animal so small it could fit inside a six-year-old's hands. There it sat tucked into a ball, its pink nose wriggling busily, looking as content as it made me feel inside. I held my breath so as not to scare the bunny and then brought the tiny animal close to my chest so that I wouldn't drop it.

    "Look in her eyes," Gramma said. "She wonders who this little girl is."

    Its ear twitched against my lips, and I giggled softly and whispered to it. One bright brown eye looked at me, and I stared into it, trying to capture the essence of a tiny life so fragile and in need of protection--much like my own.

    "What are you doing today, Bunny?" Gramma asked in a soothing voice. "Are you busy hunting for carrots?"

    Watching the bunny closely, I listened carefully for an answer. But it didn't say anything. It just twitched its nose and gazed curiously at us.

    Gramma bent down and stroked the fuzzy animal along its back, and its skin rippled under her touch. "What are you thinking, Bunny?" To me she said, "Go ahead, talk to her for a little while, but then you must put her back in the grass where she belongs so that she can get back to her nest."

    Very carefully, I walked over to a grass patch and sat down, all the while cupping the young rabbit protectively against my chest. I must have looked a little like Alice in Wonderland, minus the fancy frock and patent leather shoes, as she conversed with her time-worried rabbit. There I sat for many minutes whispering endless inquiries into the bunny's ear. I asked her where in the flower garden she lived, how old she was, and if I could see her again. Gazing into her clear chocolate eyes, I became, for a few seconds, her bunny sister. I wrinkled my nose against hers and touched my cheek to hers. We were friends, I thought, and I knew she was thinking the same thing.

    Shortly, under Gramma's instructions and watchful eye, I carefully lay the bunny in the grass at the corner of a flowerbed. The animal hopped away, sniffing as it went, and sat camouflaged beneath a pink peony bush. A few seconds later, it was gone.

    A variation of that scenario replayed many times throughout my childhood: Gramma's call, then my run to her porch, and always, always, my grandmother's cupped hands with a mystery present.

    Among these wondrous presents she so carefully placed into my eager hands were a robin's egg, warm and sky blue; a large beetle of some type with sticky feet and raspy nails; a spiked, fuzzy baby bird fallen from a nest; a tomato worm that I really didn't like at all but held anyway because Gramma insisted; a praying mantis; a walking stick; a lady bug; and numerous butterflies and moths. With the present came Gramma's advice--to always, always look into the animal's or insect's eyes and offer conversation, and to touch its body and imagine how it lived--in short, to walk around in its feet for awhile.

    The mystery presents not only led me to appreciate nature and animals at an early age, but they also taught me to trust people. For example, Gramma never placed anything gross or nasty into my hands. I learned from these experiences that whatever she held in her hands would not harm me. Soon I realized that whatever she gave me to study she had found in nature, that it would probably be warm and moving, and that I would be able to hold it and talk to it for a few minutes before placing it back amongst the flowers where it lived.

    My love for animals began with those offerings from Gramma Eckensberger's cupped hands. Those same hands, so kind and soothing to a six-year-old's skinned knees and hurt feelings, held delights of nature that were just as soft and giving as she. As with anything she imparted, Gramma always brought the "hand" animals down to my level, literally and figuratively. She never warned me about bites or gooey stuff leaking from them; if a caterpillar expelled "stuff" on my hand, she wiped it away before I even realized it, and if she didn't catch it in time, she let me know it wouldn't hurt me and calmly whisked it away with a corner of her apron. She taught me to respect animals and nature as I respected her and myself, to appreciate that each mystery present was an individual being with a life of its own to nourish and protect. I learned that not only was my own life and the lives of my parents and grandparents sacred, but that all life, down to the tiniest creature of the garden, was important.

    About four years later, I graduated from bonding with garden creatures to appreciating those of a larger variety. The experience of horseback riding solidified my love for animals. But my introduction to horses did not revolve around private riding lessons taught by some snooty equestrienne newly arrived from the British Isles. I had no expensive riding habit, no saddle or bridle, nor a pony of my own--my parents didn't have that kind of money. What I did have was a little girl's huge fascination with horses.

    So I was especially happy one day when my mother dropped me off at a local hack stable--Melody Ranch--for a "riding lesson." As I soon found out, it wasn't really a lesson--it was simply a half-hour ride in a hack string. Fifteen kids and a leader headed out on horseback at a walk, nose to tail, toward the distant woods. We were not allowed to let our horses step out of the lineup, and once the horses decided early on who was to follow who, that was the position we had to arrive back in. The only advice the leader gave to improve my riding skills was to keep my heels down. I mastered that technique quickly, quite proud that I had learned to ride at last! When the half-hour was up, the leader, anxious for a cup of coffee, galloped us kiddies all the way back to the barn. I clung desperately to the saddle horn to keep from falling off and, obedient child that I was, frantically kept my heels down.

    Every other Saturday I went horseback riding without ever learning how. Dangerous as it was, I even survived the dreaded mad sprints back to the barn. The leaders were only kids themselves, high school students working at the stable as a summer job. I didn't want to race my horse; I simply wanted to walk my equine friend through the woods.

    What I really liked, however, came after the ride when I learned to take off the saddle and bridle and take care of my mount. I was able to spend quality time brushing down my favorite horse, Cindy, a short, stocky dark bay with a thick, rounded neck. I stroked her fur--talking to her all the while as Gramma had taught me with her mystery presents. I curried and scrubbed Cindy as she shifted in her stall. I picked out her hoofs, examining the frog for jammed stones or cuts. I combed out the mane and tail and polished her coat with a soft towel. When I was finished, the old hack mare shone like silk, ready for another stint in the hack string. After many months of hanging around the stable, I discovered I was actually happier petting and brushing the horses than sitting on top of them.

    Although my parents were never wealthy enough to buy me a horse, they did surprise me with many other pets: turtles, hamsters, guinea pigs, chicks, tropical fish, a dog and kittens. I was never without the company of animals, a good thing since as an only child I lacked other companions.

    At the age of ten, I was enamored by wildlife and domestic and barnyard friends, and dreamed of someday living in a cottage in a forest surrounded by the creatures I loved. I had no way of knowing that my future husband, who was just twelve years old, was busy playing with his own entourage of animals on his parents' farm just fifteen minutes away in a neighboring town. Growing up on a sheep and chicken farm, Eggie (a nickname for "Edgar") was adept at collecting the hens' eggs each morning, watering the dog and doing various other chores around the farm.

    Just as my gramma's hands were instrumental in my first experiencing the animal world, Eggie's hands were similarly instrumental, only in a far different way. While my hands surrounded an innocent creature in a nurturing, emotional gesture, his hands labored at an early age to help with the farm work. His "touch" was practical, necessary and deliberate, while mine was more imaginative and interpretive.

    Eggie's small hands could go places the bigger adults' hands could not. In particular, his small hands came in handy during the lambing season. Sheep are delicate creatures who often have trouble giving birth. In those days, a sheep farmer did not usually rely on the veterinarian to come to the farm but assisted ewes with difficult births himself. A few times when a mother lamb was having a problem, his parents called little Eggie with his small hands to help extract the unborn lamb.

    Twelve-year-old Eggie marched importantly up to the struggling sheep, and with his mother holding the sheep's head and his father directing him at the back end, the young boy reached inside the animal with his small hand and felt for a leg. Under his father's watchful eye, he pulled, searched for another leg, and pulled again. Often Eggie brought a new lamb into the world that would have otherwise died.

    Eggie's interest in animals extended to the farm dogs and cats, too. He would sit and play for hours with the cats, and his constant companion was his dog, Queenie, a German shepherd mix. Edgar had been born the year after his parents took in Queenie, and she lived for twelve and a half years. The two grew up together and shared many explorations to remote sites on the Balliet farm, including a rocky outcropping called Big Rock. There, the boy and his dog often sat looking over the Lehigh Valley, watching the trains run alongside the river, hearing the sounds of nature in the woods surrounding Big Rock, enjoying the solitude and each other's companionship.

    At ten and twelve, so close and yet so far, we both were immersed in our animal friends. It was no one's guess that eventually we two would meet, marry and devote our entire lives to the well-being of animals in eastern and northeastern Pennsylvania.

Copyright © 1999 Gay L. Balliet. All rights reserved.