Denis Lehane: On the farm with Suni and Butch
Two astronauts join Denis on the farm, in this week's Lighten Up.
Suni and Butch have been with me here on the farm with the past two weeks. They are a great help.
You might remember Suni and Butch as the pair stranded up in space.
They spent months up there, above the clouds, before someone had the good sense to bring them down again.
And so now, to acclimatise themselves with planet Earth again, NASA sent them to stay with me for a spell, for I'm as close to the ground as you can get.
Indeed, I'm barely above ground most of the time.
"Please don't let them stray too far," a top man from NASA requested, before handing over a big bag of money to cover their room and board.
Like young calves, I suppose, after being cooped up for months, the fear would be that they would climb ditches and ramble like the devil himself.
"Have no fear," I assured him. "We will get on like a house on fire."
Anyhow, they arrived on Tuesday, and I greeted them at the door with a fine 'cêad míle fáilte'.
"You are most welcome to Kilmichael, Butch and Suni," I said, before offering them the hand.
"Thank you so much, Mr Lehane," they replied almost in unison.
"Oh, call me Denny," I insisted, as I kicked out a hen. "I'm not a very formal sort of a fellow," I assured the two now famous American astronauts.
And with that they wiped the feet, came inside and we had a nice cup of tea by the fire.
"And how long were ye up in space?" I asked, for it seemed like a very sensible question, given the circumstances.
"Oh, too long," they both replied almost in unison again.
"Yes, too long indeed," says I.
"And were ye bored entirely?" I asked.
"Oh we were," Butch said. "Only for the every Thursday and reading about your anecdotes on the internet, we would have gone out of our minds."
"Well, thank God for 'de paper," says I, and they both nodded their heads in agreement.
Anyhow Suni and Butch have been giving me a helping hand on the farm ever since. Swapping moon walks for cleaning out calf houses.
Counting cattle and rounding up strays, instead of peeking into the unknown in search of ET and his cronies.
They even helped me replace slates on an outhouse, even though both refused to go up the ladder, citing reasons to do with a fear of heights.
"In the name of God," says I. "And how did ye go up to space and ye can't go up a ladder now?"
"Yerra," said the pair, "We kept our eyes closed for long parts of it."
"Honestly, you learn something new every day," I declared.
But better again, the other night as we knelt down to say the rosary, I asked them did they say the rosary up in space?
"Of course. Every night," the pair said.
"And how do ye know if it was night or day up in space?" I asked, for my knowledge of astrology (or astronomy even) doesn't stretch very far.
"Oh," they said. "It was real easy to know the day, for the sun rose in the daytime."
"Rose!' I cried. "From where in the name of God?" for I was righty confused.
"Yerra from behind the mountains," they said.
Well, I declare to heaven, every day is like a school day with astronauts on the farm.
And so for the foreseeable future and beyond, Suni and Butch will continue to farm with me here in the wild frontier of Kilmichael, adjusting to life on planet earth and learning all over again, how to survive with minimal effort.
While, at the same time, I will hopefully learn a bit more about space and all the fun and fascination pertaining to it.
