Full house

How much life can you pack into an acreage before the fences won't hold? My family -- husband Doug, sons Tristan, 15, and Graham, 13, and our odd assortment of animals and gardens -- tests that principle daily. We share our 3 acres in the Iowa countryside with (from largest to smallest) three horses, four donkeys, 12 sheep, six dogs, 13 cats, 25 chickens, and six doves.

In addition to our love of all creatures great and small, we also garden. Surrounding our 100-year-old farmhouse are four gardens that each measure 40´60 feet. They are planted with vegetables, herbs, perennials, annuals, roses, and water gardens. Every day we test the theory that man, beast, and gardens can cohabitate in a friendly manner. That is, as long as all the fences hold.

Plants for all season

Throughout the year our gardens provide us with a banquet of blooms and fresh produce. In the early spring, the hillside north of our house explodes in bloom with thousands of swaying yellow daffodil heads. In summer, the flower borders are filled with the extravagant blooms of old-fashioned roses, lilacs, peonies, daylilies, and trumpet vine. Some of our favorites were planted by the former owners of the farm more than 25 years ago. One old-timer is the heirloom rose Seven Sisters. We discovered her growing over the LP tank in the farmyard, blooming with a flush of glory just once each late spring. We trained her onto a more dignified roost -- an old garden fence we salvaged from a cemetery.

Summer brings rhubarb plants (also planted by a long-gone rhubarb aficionado) and out of respect, I harvest some each year for a cobbler or sauce. The small orchard of apple trees that my husband Doug had the foresight to plant the first year he lived at the farm, produces baskets of red and green apples in late summer and fall. What we don't eat fresh off the tree, we press for cider.

When frost levels the landscape, the garden's lushness disappears. As we clear off the wilted foliage, the resident herbivores stand shoulder to shoulder at the garden gate waiting for the next wheelbarrow full of clippings.

Our gardens and animals exist in a fairly reciprocal, symbiotic relationship. Manure from the horse stalls and chicken house nourishes our organic garden. In return, the weeds that flourish along with the favored plantings are hand-pulled and thrown over the fence for the grazing enjoyment of our sheep, horses, and donkeys. Rotten tomatoes, bruised apples, and overgrown plant clippings are a favorite treat for the poultry population who, in turn, provide our family with a steady supply of brown, white, and even green eggs (trust me, fresh eggs are worth the small amount of time it takes to tend the girls).

Our horses, sheep, and donkeys frequently gaze longingly over the garden fence at the lush beds of flowers and vegetables. What keeps them from wandering in and munching down carefully tended plantings?

As Robert Frost says, "Good fences make good neighbors" and never has this statement been truer than on our farm. (There is the occasional disaster when the sheep spy an open gate and make a mad rush to the garden where they uncannily zero in on the most expensive, beloved, or difficult-to-grow plant.)

Lest we sound too pastoral and peaceful, life with 70 plus animals and 9,600 square feet in gardens is not always a calm and picturesque experience.

We strive for balance among the house, gardens, and barnyards every day. Our position on the farm is a peace-keeping one. We sort of view ourselves as the agricultural United Nations, constantly negotiating the needs and borders of each species, regardless of their status as animal or plant.

The time we spend on care and feeding of the animals and tending the gardens is an investment in our mental health. The weight of the world mysteriously lightens when we are followed through the farmyard by three horses nickering for treats. And although we have many mouths to feed, our morning and evening chores take very little time. Each morning, we feed and water the hens and collect eggs, walk the dogs, then hay the horses, donkeys, and sheep. In the summer, we have flowers and vegetable crops to water. In the evenings, we do it all again. Chores can take as little time as 25 minutes from start to finish.

But when we have the time, we linger, enjoying the simple relationships with birds, beasts, and blooms.