The lessons weren’t professional by any means, but they did get some people playing. A few of them kept coming back through the spring and summer to sit on the porch and play. I realize now how bold it was to move into a new place and start posting flyers for music lessons. But my brashness paid off. Those sheets of copier paper were enough to get me a few familiar faces around town and some good tunes to boot. We weren’t going to give anyone in Nashville a run for their money, but we were having fun, and I was feeling less like a stranger in southern Vermont.
At the office my coworkers were getting to know me. Some were slowly warming up, but in the traditional New England fashion, most cut me a wide berth. The company I work for is small, and the people who chose to live and work in a rural setting were pretty content with their lives. No one asked for a bubbly, audiophile, wannabe farmer to move into the cubicle next to them and start asking questions about local feed stores. To their credit, everyone was angelically patient. Slowly, I could see the sparks of friendship igniting with a few people.
One slow afternoon in the office while I was zoned out staring at a spreadsheet, I was awakened into consciousness by the friendly voice of someone leaning over the cubicle wall. On the opposite side of my little barrier was a young, tall, shaggy-haired blond guy who looked more like the models in our spring catalog than the men in the rod-and-tackle division upstairs. Most of them sported a two-month-old beard and had about twenty years and thirty pounds on this kid. He was another transplant, who had moved here a few years before me. He had walked down a few flights of stairs to shake my hand and introduce himself.
His name was Steve, he was around my age, and he played guitar. He told me a friend of his saw my fiddle-lesson flyers in Sandgate and wanted to know, would I like to get together and play music with them sometime? Both he and his friend, Phil, played guitar and thought that adding a violin to the mix would be interesting. I told him I’d be thrilled. The idea of making some musical friends at the office was appealing. Bridging some of my personal life and my professional life with guitar strings seemed like a grand idea.
Steve and Phil invited me into their band and their homes. Over the next few weeks, we’d spend Saturday mornings or Thursday nights in each other’s living rooms, playing everything from modern covers to the occasional old-time tune. We weren’t really interested in perfecting our work or renting a recording studio; we just liked to play. Phil had a young family with two children. Steve had a high-stakes job developing new products for the company. I was new to the state. All of us used the band to relax and laugh and drink a few beers, enjoying the time we set aside in our busy lives to put some acoustic instruments in our hands.
Through Steve and Phil I got to know their families and friends as well, once again amazing me at the web of connections a shared interest can deliver. Since Steve had made a lot of friends at the office, I was folded into his group and started to warm up to others as well.
Proximity breeds a wonderful level of comfort, and before long the big, tough guys who worked in the pod next to me became friends. Their names were Phil and James, both native Vermonters; they took me under their wing and became my big brothers in the Green Mountain State.
After a few practice sessions, Phil and Steve were certain we were ready to play a local open-mic night. I wasn’t so sure. They had both been playing their guitars forever and were good at it. I had been playing my fifty-dollar fiddle for a few years and wasn’t comfortable with their music yet. I had learned to wail on “In the Pines,” not pop music. But the guys were fans of some scrappy alt country songs like “Wagon Wheel,” by Old Crow Medicine Show (one of my favorites) and a few from Ryan Adams, too. They knew more about this music than I did and opened my ears to a lot of new bands. Slobberbone, Uncle Tupelo, and the Mountain Goats were the bands our nameless trio covered. We felt we had a good set of songs ready for the North Bennington music scene, so one Thursday night we packed up the guitar and fiddle cases in the back of Phil’s station wagon and drove off to play at a sports bar.
I sat in the backseat on the drive to the bar and contemplated the situation. Neither of the guys seemed nervous. They had gotten their first-time performance anxiety over with the weekend before, at an open-mic night in Pawlet, Vermont. I had never performed in a band, in front of people, ever. I was as tense and nervous as a person with a fiddle case could be. I just hoped we’d get to drink first.
We walked into the bar with our instrument cases in hand. It seemed like a light and friendly place — an Irish-inspired brass pub with heavy athletic overtones: green and brown walls with tennis rackets nailed to them (you get the picture). A very loud band was already playing in a tiny corner of the already tiny bar, right next to the bathrooms. My first-ever gig would happen about seven feet from a urinal. We set our cases along the wall and ordered drinks.
At the bar were some friends from work who’d heard we were playing. It was nice to see familiar faces, but also nerve-racking. It’s one thing to mess up a gig among drunken strangers but another thing altogether to mess it up among sober witnesses polishing off their plates of pasta — especially sober witnesses you’d see at the office in a few days. I was really starting to second-guess myself. I was nowhere near as talented as Steve or Phil. And to top it off, my instrument didn’t have any way to be connected to the speakers, so chances were slim that my little fiddle would even be heard amid the ruckus.
Our name was called off the open-mic roster, and we took our places on stage. There is a moment of pure excitement and anticipation in getting set up to play music in front of a crowd — the plugging in of cords and amps, the arranging of band members and microphones. If you’re careful and pay attention, you can pause to take in the audience’s expectation; they’ll always give you the benefit of the doubt. I took my place on the far left side and tried to place the sound holes of my fiddle right below the high-volume microphone hovering over it. I was standing there in front of the packed crowd, staring out at friends, when Steve started the first chords of “Wagon Wheel.” My shaking hands began to saw out the opening fiddle notes. We were off.
The actual song was a blur, but I knew if I focused on what I had memorized, at least I wouldn’t mess up the other guys. I stared at my strings and tried to make sure I hit all my marks. The boys were singing the choruses and I was singing along with the verses. When my solo came up, I played the simple drone notes as best I could, loud and proud. Someone in the audience put his hands in the air to clap. I had never been more grateful to an inebriated individual in my entire life.
When I dragged the last note of the song across my fiddle and the crowd gave a pleasant clap, I exhaled for what felt like the first time all night. Someone yelled, “Turn the fiddle mic up!” and we did. After a few more songs, we took our place back at the bar and celebrated with a round of Guinness. I was still shaking as I sipped the tan foam. Shaking but pleased. I had done it. Barely anyone could hear my little violin over the wail of the people and guitars, but I did play it, in public, in front of people. It probably didn’t change anyone’s life or even come up in conversation later that night, but I wasn’t going to forget it. I had taught myself to play, made friends, practiced with a small band, and legitimately performed in front of a live audience. It was its own form of cultivation and felt just as amazing as eating my first slice of homemade bread or growing my first tomato in the backyard.
SHEEP 101
I RETURNED FROM MY LUNCH BREAK at work one day to find a folded copy of the NewsGuide at my desk. The NewsGuide is our local weekly paper, the kind of publication that announces garage sales, classifieds for used motorcycles, and minutes of the Catamount Rotary Club meetings. This particular issue had a University of Vermont Extension class circled in red Sharpie ink. I picked it up and started to read the announcement some agricultural fairy godmother had left for me: “Beginner Sheep Raising Class. Held in various locations throughout the state. UVM livestock specialist Chet Parson will instruct this daylong workshop
in basic shepherding.” The cost was minimal, and the location was only forty minutes north of my cabin in a farm education center called Smokey House.
As I stood there reading, a friendly voice rose up from behind me.
“Did you see that class?” It was Trish, a fellow designer in the office. We’d gotten to know each other through a mutual love of fiber and knitting. I was still a beginner compared to Trish, who not only knit but also spun her own yarn. Through our chats at the office, she’d learned about my farm dreams and knew I wanted my own flock. She had left the paper on my desk, thinking it would be fitting for me, a place to start scratching my itch and see what really went into raising a few sheep in New England.
“Are you kidding me?” I gushed. “I’ll absolutely take that class. …” This was perfect. Just a few months in Vermont and the state was handing out flyers for my dream lifestyle. I signed up online, mailed my check, and was told to show up early on the Saturday morning of the workshop.
A few weeks later, on a sunny, cold morning in late March, I found myself at the Smokey House Farm Center, sitting in a metal folding chair in a classroom lined with maps and farming posters. About twenty people, of every age, shape, and size imaginable, were milling about, calmly paging through their handouts. Next to me were a couple in their mid-sixties and to my other side were a couple in their late twenties. I seemed to be one of the few single people in the room — possibly the only single person. Did I read the fine print wrong? It didn’t say anywhere on the website that this was some sort of couples retreat (“Better Relationships Through Second-Cut Hay Purchases”). Apparently, sheep bring people together.
I was feeling slightly self-conscious about the fact that I had come without a date. I’m not ashamed to admit I scanned the crowd for a solo thirty-something guy in rumpled clothes with a border collie at his feet and a steaming cup of coffee in his hand. (Better luck next time.) My wishful thinking was quickly interrupted by a crisp, friendly voice from the front of the room, announcing that we were about to get started. I looked up at what could only be Chet, our instructor.
Chet was a graying, bearded fellow in a ball cap. He stood among us like a high school coach prepping his team before the big game. He exuded experience … exactly the kind of guy you’d want around three months into raising your first flock, when something unimaginable went wrong. He spent the next three hours pontificating about wannabe farmers, expounding on the legacy of New England shepherds, and giving us what I can only describe as a field guide to sheep breeds. He covered the popular breeds for our region — the hardy meat stock, as well as handsome wool breeds popular with the hand-spinning market. Chet also went through the sheep I was most interested in: the dual-purpose breeds — sheep you can either wear or eat, depending on your preferences.
When it came to raising a small flock, my intentions were fairly humble. All I wanted was a small group of healthy animals, maybe five or ten, I could raise for both the closet and the table. The dual-purpose breeds like Romney, Cormo, Rambouillet, and California Red would offer wool of spinning quality and still pack on enough pounds to fetch decent market prices. I wanted to raise breeding ewes that would drop lambs in the spring for market and drop fleeces, too. I wanted enough animals on my someday farm to have a supplemental income and keep me stocked with lamb chops, but not so many that a single woman with the help of a good dog or two couldn’t maintain them. This class was making my notion of keeping sheep seem like a real possibility. I squirmed in my seat.
All around me, people who were just as excited and curious were asking questions and talking about their farms. They asked about what kind of fences to use, where to set up water tanks, and if it’s true you should buy goldfish for your stock tanks to eat algae. I’d never even thought of that! I drew a goldfish by my notes, while a recently retired couple explained how little they wanted to mow their lawns and hoped a pair of sheep could do it for them. We all had our reasons.
Then it hit me: Most of these people already owned land. I was squatting on someone else’s backyard and trying to will it into production. I tried not to let that get to me or dampen my hopes. So what if I didn’t have ten acres and a green tractor? I had a pasture (kinda). And I had a landlord who already allowed dogs and chickens. Maybe she’d be okay with three sheep and a small pen, some portable fences, and a shed. Raising sheep on rented land wasn’t that crazy.
As the class continued, Chet told us that at one time Vermont was Sheep Central. Long before my great-great-grandmother hopped a boat to America from Presov, Czechoslovakia, 80 percent of my current state was pasture and 20 percent was woodlands. (Now those numbers are reversed.) Apparently, a fellow named William Jarvis signed an agreement with Spain to allow Merino sheep to be raised in the state of Vermont. Napoleon was wreaking havoc in Europe, and the Spanish didn’t want the breeding lines of their native sheep in danger of being depleted. Thanks to that mess, Jarvis was able to start a flock at his famed Weathers-field Farm (from the original English word wethersfield, as in a castrated ram’s field).
Sitting in a historic building, hearing a shepherd talk about his livelihood’s history, surrounded by people as intoxicated by the idea of lanolin on their palms as I was — it was pure heaven. I decided that if I ever bought a ram from Vermont, I would name him Jarvis. My thoughts were interrupted when someone handed me a taxidermied rumen — a sheep stomach hollowed out so that we could see what we’d be filling up with grass in a short while. It smelled like old soup.
When breaks came between lectures, I sidled up to people and introduced myself. I figured we were already in a sheep class together: clearly, we had an icebreaker. I talked with an ex–broadcast journalist who raised Sebastopol geese and dreamed of a flock of rare Soay sheep. He and his wife were here to learn what starting that flock would entail. Another woman sitting to my right had always dreamed of having a fiber flock. After years of spinning other people’s wool, she wanted her own.
Another young farming couple I met already ran a meat CSA. They were new to sheep but had seventy lambs being delivered tomorrow. For that couple today was not an afternoon of speculating about hobby farming; it was a crash course. I had never been so jealous of anything quite so terrifying. Tomorrow this happy couple would be rounding up dozens of lambs. I would have done anything to be in their place. Now I knew why they were asking so many questions about pasture rotation. It was what they’d be doing Tuesday afternoon while I was in an e-commerce meeting. Some days you sigh deeper than others.
There are a lot of ways to keep sheep, but the main options seem to fall into three categories. Some people just raise spring lambs for the table; this keeps things simple and cheap, since summer grass is free and winter hay is not. Alternatively, you could have a full-season flock that you overwinter, shear, and live with all year but do not breed. And then there are people like me, people who hope to experience the entire spectrum of ovine thrills with a “fully fleeced flock,” as it’s called. I would be buying lambs, rotating pasture, breeding with stud rams, buying hay, and becoming a midwife.
All of that sounded perfectly logical until Chet started sharing the complications of lambing. Now we were seeing the darker side of shepherding, the real stuff. Apparently lambing goes as planned “99 percent of the time,” Chet assured us with a grin, but there were a few “situations” we needed to know about. He showed us some of the many ways a lamb could be presented to the world incorrectly. The screen behind him showed lambs being pulled from the womb by their back legs and shepherds in elbow-length gloves going inside a ewe to organize hoof placement, turn bodies, and (I am not making this up) tie ropes and pulleys to akimbo limbs to pull out a stuck lamb. Then there was the additional complication of twins (which is common) and even triplets.
I watched, fascinated, but increasingly nervous. I had just assumed those little guys plopped out on warm grass one day and hung out with Mom until I saw fit to separate them. Not the case. Some lambs die, some get rejected or forgotten by their mother
s, some ewes die, and sometimes all of the above happens, and if you don’t have a heat-lamped lambing crate ready for orphans and a vet on call, you could be in a world of trouble. I kept taking notes, nodding, and asking questions. I was not going to waver. The lambing complications did not deter me as much as they made me shake my head and hope I’d never be in a predicament that requires twine and lubricant.
I was a little shaken, but still excited, when we broke for lunch. After we ate we’d be heading down to the barn to get our hands on some livestock. I walked out into the March sunlight and stretched long and lanky as I could.
Even though the temperature hung in the mid-forties, most of us picnicked out on the grass. Bundled in sweaters and scarves, we talked about our future flocks. None of us knew each other personally, but the solidarity of shepherds is strong. There were no real strangers here. We all wanted sheep in our lives, so we were all comfortable with each other. Sitting Indian style on the grass, munching a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on bread I had baked the day before, I felt very pleased with the world.
After lunch we stood outside the red, weathered barn waiting for Chet. Everyone was playing his or her own version of cool, sitting on the outside steps of another outbuilding or leaning against a car, but we were all dying to get inside that barn and get some wool between our fingers. Some of the other participants were able to mask their excitement, but I was having a hard time hiding mine. Even the most level-headed among us turned their heads at every stray baa or whenever the hired, coveralled farm help opened the sliding doors.
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