Zen and the Art of Donkey Maintenance by Robert Crisp Page B

cramped henhouse twenty-four hours a day. Their free-ranging not only helped the economics of egg production but kept down any insects and grubs with a preference for young vegetables. A covering of thorn bushes was the only answer. There was certainly noshortage of thorn bushes and within a day my garden resembled what would be recognised by every district commissioner in an empire on which, alas, the sun has set forever as a
boma
or maybe a Masai cattle
kraal
. The problem could, of course, have been resolved by wringing the chickens’ necks but they were supplying me then with three eggs every two days and Deborah had big plans for bringing the outside
fourno
into use and making scones and cakes and pastry as well as our own bread.
    It would help, too, if I diverted the interest of the hens from seeds by increasing their grain ration. I went up the road to the
magazie
to buy ten kilos of wheat, put my hand in my back pocket to pull out the envelope containing my last 1,000 drachma note and found it empty. That note was worth twelve and a half 1967 British pounds. It may not seem a great deal in contemporary terms but it was not only 100% of my total financial possessions; it was the end of all immediate plans for capital investment essential to maintain our gross national product at a viable level. And if that sounds like familiar gibberish, it is only because nations have the same economic problems as individuals.
    Two days of frantic searching turned up no trace of the missing money. I was irritated rather than dismayed because I had kidded myself that I really had arrived at a situation in which I could do without money. Looking back over all the possibilities I had a feeling that I had dropped the envelope during an earlier visit to the
magazie
and that it had been swept up or picked up by one of the half-dozen children that were always playing around Stavros’s place, including his own. I decided to try a little psychology.
    The next time I went to the
magazie
I announced tothe Stavros family and all the customers that I was going in to Gythion to report the disappearance of my 1,000 drachma note to the police station just in case somebody had found it somewhere and handed it in. I was sure, I added, that the Mani people were honest enough to do that. The next morning Nikkos – son of Stavros – came to the hut to say that his father wanted to see me. When I arrived at the
magazie
Stavros handed me my lost envelope with the 1,000 drachma inside.
    â€œOne of the children,” he said, “found it in a hedge.”
    I didn’t ask any questions but told him to give the finder 100 drachmas on my behalf. “It will do,” said wife Maria, “to buy Nikkos a pair of trousers.” My delight in repossessing this vast sum was evidence, at least to me, that I was not as independent or as immune as I had thought and hoped. But isostasy was not finished with us yet and perhaps we had been building up too much a debit account of happy events.
    February came to an end with a dramatic switch from warm to cold weather. Meeting Stavros on the road one early morning he pointed to the near hills of Taygetus.
    â€œYou see the snow on those hills? That is the first time it has fallen there this winter. If the cold comes into the valley here my tomato crop will be ruined. I have just transplanted 5,000 small plants outside.”
    He also told me that in the night foxes had taken three of his hens and mauled three others. I hurried home to strengthen my own anti-fox defences. The hens were well established in their new surroundings by then, and, wherever they roamed in the day, always came back at nightfall.
    The cold persisted and one morning, when I wentdown to the well there was a thin sheet of ice covering the water. A passing hunter gave me the bad news that frost had killed off most of the tomato plants in the valley including those of Stavros. I knew that he would start all over again but he