I used to be a regular reader of the CDC’S Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, back in the early AIDS epidemic years. Every seven days, a cold, clinical gut punch which at that time almost always confirmed your worst fears of death and despair. That report came to mind as I contemplated writing this week’s bulletin, fearful that if I told you yet another tale of the sad death of a beloved creature I might have to rename this “the Turkana Farms Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Blog.” What a cheery gift at the end of your work week!

It would be dishonest, however, to ignore how euthanizing my ewe Ayse did set the tone here over the last few days. Even though her quality of life was undeniably awful and she was approaching the generally accepted upper limit of a sheep’s life span (she would have turned 13 next week), deciding to terminate brought back painful memories of the death of my late partner, Peter, after he suffered a grievous fall.

Peter had made his wishes known: He did not want to be kept alive if he couldn’t be restored to full function. He did not want to be intubated. But, urged by doctors, I talked him into a one-day intubation. Then, when he could no longer speak for himself, again the doctors convinced me to extend it for several days until his son could arrive and the inevitability of his recovery or failure became clear. I believed Peter died furious at me for betraying his wishes, but with the doctors promising a chance of full recovery I couldn’t help but hope. When it’s life and death, and you don’t know whether it’s more merciful to end or continue, the power to choose is agony.

But Ayse’s death triggered more joyful memories than regretful ones. As I walked back from the barn with the vet, I passed a young sour cherry tree that I see at least a half dozen times a day. I noticed that it was suddenly laden with fruit — ripened to a bright shiny red seemingly overnight. Peter had given me several of these fruit trees for my birthday the spring just before he died. This year, for the first time they have finally all borne fruit.

It was Peter’s vision to plant these fruit trees along the path from the chicken coop back to the barn, and I followed his instruction rather than go with my initial instinct to place them along the driveway. It got me to thinking about all the ways in which he formed this place.

Most obviously, the landscape. It was Peter who moved the driveway from its practical straight line alongside the house and created a circular drive, wrapping around an oval lawn and perennial border, creating a private oasis that suited the relationship he wanted with the world — no easy path to the front door. It was Peter who had the pond dug on the west side of the house and used the dirt to create that lawn and border on the east side. Peter decided to enclose the front yard with a picket fence. He created the rock garden of succulents out of a shelf of shale in the shady portion of the back yard west of the fruit trees. And he placed the vegetable garden in the sunny section to their east.

Peter always knew how the farm would best operate as well. About a year or so after we bought the place, Peter helped create a de facto neighborhood association (dubbed Farm Neighbors) of about half a dozen mostly contiguous properties, totaling about 200 acres, along two parallel roads. Peter proposed we jointly hire a farm manager and have the properties managed as a single unit. Nothing came of his suggestion then, and we went about just selling our excess produce for the next twenty years, but remarkably, this year, by dint of circumstances, we find my property, and the next two adjacent farms, hosting a herd of cattle, owned and managed by another farmer, rotationally grazing over our collective approximately 120 acres. Peter’s vision, in essence, realized, and his prescience vindicated.

The interior of the house reflects Peter’s vision, wedding practicality with aesthetic beauty, all the more. I’m afr