I hope to build on what has been improved upon here, for both shearing and last spring’s photography shoot. Doing things more efficiently has become the norm of late. Systems evolving from my earlier practice of reacting rather than acting have come into play. I didn’t start out in this grand venture knowing anything at all about it. I certainly tried to establish systems and abandoned the unsuccessful ones with dispatch. Now, however, solutions have evolved and it is all much easier. My sheep do cooperate, at least so far. The goats are shaping up as well. Verity is an example of a well behaved creature. She is the most obviously affectionate of the mid-range young stock and shall visit a children’s camp in Andes this summer. I usually send down two ewe lambs and two does in milk. This year there are no does in milk; however there are two who may be bred. Were I to send them down they might freshen at the camp in August which might be a great deal of fun for the campers. I’ll know shortly if that is an acceptable idea. I’d love to do it.
There is an inner voice which speaks to me, quite clearly, loudly, and with few words. It may tell me something to do. Right now. Such as get ready for the next phase. Which it said a few weeks ago. And I listened. In small increments I began. It now tells me I am already in the next phase. Everything seems different to me. Colors appear in my mind that have not existed in juxtaposition before. People are turning up who are new to me. And with friendly aspects. Both interesting and even helpful. I try to be aware of what people want from me. To not have people to whom to give is a lonely thing. But one thing that I am currently most careful about is allowing life to unfold without my hand managing anything more than my dogs and my kitchen sink.
IN THE BEGINNING
A MELIA IS SUCH a pretty name. Each sheep suggests her name to me, one at a time. Amelia did hers. Such a pretty name for one of my most unappealing animals. She is short legged to a fault, low slung and small boned, barrel bellied with tiny, oddly placed ears. Her face is a beautiful black as are her eyes which, therefore, cannot be seen, and her fleece is a dull flat grey. She never allowed herself to be petted or chucked under her chin, and moved, leaping with astonishing agility, away from me should I dare try to approach her. Such was Amelia.
Her first daughter, Raggedy Ann, is of wide eyes and has taken from where her mother left off in the ear department. Hers are large full ones, set at the same straight-in–the-air angle as Amelia’s but three times the size, or perhaps four. Raggedy started out as skittish as her mother, but I had fallen in love with her and made an effort to tame her. That was very quickly accomplished, quite to my surprise. She, of all of the lambs that year, responded to her name when I had grain. I should have known. I made certain she was fed first and to this day, “Raggedy Ann, Ragged Ann” brings her running. She has Amelia’s barrel shape, but her Dad’s long legs, proportion, and head, and is a fine (if slightly amusing) creature.
Amelia eats. Her finest quality is that with an almost unapparent udder she nurses her own fat lambs, always singles, as well as all comers. This winter she supplemented the biggest pair of ram lambs I’ve ever realized, as well as the runts of some triplets, plus her own chubby girl. So it was without question that I was most lenient with her when she squeezed through the fence and began to nibble white clover on my back lawn. At first she ran when she saw me as did any of her friends and relatives who had followed her. “Yummy eats,” they’d say to one another, “look what she’s found,” only to scramble away upon sighting me.
One morning I found her alone on the lawn behind the carriage house. Startled, she jumped up and then backed away. It needed mowing, and I decided, on impulse, to let her stay. Warily she watched me. “It’s alright,” I said. The next day I stood watching her from the top of the barn bridge wall. She stopped eating at first when she caught sight of me, and then warily, started in again. Subsequently, when her friends and family joined her I’d chase them off, and Amelia would run with them, then hide under the apple tree or barn bridge and slip stealthily back to the clover. She realized almost immediately that she would be allowed to stay if alone and would be chased away if she had the others with her, and subsequently managed to evade the others as well.
Amelia wears a bell now so I know if she is in the yard rather than in my garden. “Amelia, Amelia,” I call, taking great pleasure in the pretty name. “Amelia, Amelia,” I say as she looks up at me. “Amelia, Amelia,” as she approaches. Amelia, as I give her an early morning hug.
Amelia lived another eight years on my farm. I just found this story among some papers in the special stuff drawer of my desk. This is the rest of her story. She is the only adult sheep I’ve ever brought into the house. No, not the kitchen, but in the lamb pen in the summer kitchen in the basement. She’d freshened with a ram lamb, a single as always, but her first ram. White. Chunky. Very nice. And had not a drop of milk for him. She almost knocked me down when I picked him up to take him in to bottle. “No. Don’t knock me down. You’re coming, too,” I told her. She followed me out to the barn, up the hill, through the gate, and into the basement. I put her little newborn with her, got her some sweet hay and grain, and gave him a bottle as she stared at me. Her milk came in on the fourth day. This ewe who had at her best kept four or five lambs going in the barn. I continued to feed him a bottle until he rejected it completely and had more than enough milk from his mother. In the fullness of time I moved them both back into the barn. In a very short time he was as tall and round as his dam. One day I didn’t see her. It was only late that summer, when berrying high up on the side hill, did I find what was left of her. Amelia.
This is not a sad story. I am a farmer. Were all of my livestock to live as perfect a life and die as simple a death as Amelia, I would think life was good. She was perfect. And loved that last lamb as she loved them all. I know she went on that side hill to die. As animals have often done in the order of things. She fulfilled me as well. As I gave her the best of myself. And she gave me the opportunity to be all that being a shepherd is. Amelia, Amelia, such a pretty name.
TO BE READY FOR A MIRACLE
BY THE DAWN’S early light. One more sheep killed by coyotes. I awoke at 4:45 this morning with the sound of an urgent voice in my mind. Go down and see if the coyotes ate the latest murdered sheep. It took another half hour to summon my courage. They hadn’t touched it. It is getting more difficult to proceed. I’m not certain if I know how. Too many defeats have occurred to wear away the dreams. All of them. I seek hope in the familiar.
My most beloved willow still lives and pleases my eye from the dining room window. I’ll have its dead branches trimmed soon. It has been on the work list for two weeks. The Pound Sweet apple tree has been trimmed and its dead branches bundled in the very nice French country way that pleases my eye. Tidy bundles tied in bailing twine.
The sun just broke through the dining room window. It shines on the page. The question is, were I still inclined to go the extra mile, would doing so make a difference?
I love the fuchsia-colored phlox in the perennial border and watched them wilt yesterday afternoon in the devastating drought that has fallen upon us. I’ll get someone to bring up the barn hose and water the flowers today. But. But. I read in a country magazine editorial the other day that drought destroys the soul. In part because one doesn’t perceive the moment when hope is lost.
I watched last night from the dining room windows, the most beautiful storm that I have ever seen. Lightning lit up the clouds. Not in flashes zigzagging across the sky, but, rather setting the clouds on fire, huge blazes of color in the north sky. I was certain that whatever the storm was, it would bring rain here. It had to be raining in Meredith and Davenport. Sleep was impossible so I went back down to the dining room to watch the progress of the rain. It didn’t come. Some small sprinkling must have happened later because the phlox are no longer wilted although the color has faded. A wise man told me that in his holy book it said the farmer is closest to God because we are always looking up to the sky, in part, asking for the right wea
ther. I replied it was to ask for the courage to handle that which we have been presented. I protest the unkindness on the part of our Maker. To try to live as our best self is an excruciating discipline of sorts. To insist that we take joy in the day. It has never been hard for me to find beauty somewhere. But what has become the hardest is to apply the gifts that I have been given to create a life that still satisfies me. I fill the vases and mustard jars in the dining room with green leaves from the quince bushes along the driveway. It makes the room cool, even though the windows on three sides are all filled with views of the green hills that surround the house and farm. There is one white and gold Gevalia® canister that is empty on a shelf by the row of windows, overlooking the perennial border. It asks for green leaves, too, and shall get them when the coffee in the cup before me is too cold to drink. The willow is being kissed by the sun and begins to assume the glittering gold leaves that so please my eye. The quince branches on the table are becoming lit as well.
A few days later. There was some rain. It feels ungrateful to say, but not enough. There is a lamb in the house. His dam didn’t let her milk down. He’s big. And nice. And ensconced in a corner out of the light of the kitchen. When he was first found this morning my brother asked me if he were to be a bottle lamb. Oh no, I said. Well, he is now. The Barred Rock hen is in the house as well. She was sitting on 10 eggs. Due to hatch soon if fertilized. I found one tiny chick in with her this morning, some shells, and only six eggs left. The chick came into the house in a basket. Immediately. But what to do with the hen? I found a plastic bin and put some hay and the eggs in it. Grabbed the chicken by her legs and climbed over the fallen down hay bales in the loft and made my way to the house. The hen was then bundled in with her chick and eggs into the plastic bin. I put a window screen over the top. It was too small. I then put a chair over it. And a log on top of the chair back. She has water and grain and seems to have settled down nicely. There may be some more chicks in a day or two. With any luck. And then, may they be hens and not roosters.
I had a ghastly scare this afternoon. No water came out of either the hydrant or any of the taps. It terrified me. The well here has never been known to go dry. But there always is a first time. It seemed to be kicking on too often of late, and I thought there was a possibility that the four-year-old motor had for some incomprehensible reason died. There were three lambs, one only a few hours old, in the lambing room as well as their mothers. And no water. Twenty-two six-month-old lambs and a donkey in the south pasture. And no water. Twenty-four chickens in the portable coop and 21 chicks and one hen in the coop on the lawn. You get the picture. Aside from dogs, cat, hen in the nesting box and it seemed apparent one lamb was about to become a bottle lamb. With no water with which to make milk replacer.
I opened the gate to the south pasture to let anyone who understood what that meant be able to go out and drink from the trickle that the creek had become. The donkey realized immediately what I was doing and flew on winged hoofs out and into the far pastures. Only some of the young stock realized their freedom had been won. They left as well only with a bit more caution. I went into the lambing room, grabbed the newborn in one arm and let the ewes and their offspring out into the barn proper. There was a joint compound bucket to hand, and I first went to the pear trees enclosure down by the brook to get the hose leading to a water trough in the pasture. My first thought was to drag it to the slope leading to the house, but it was too heavy. So I filled the bucket with water and, the lamb tucked under my arm, made my way up the slope to the house. A last bit of hope whispered into my ear. I turned the faucet and nothing happened. The only thing to do was to hit the phone. No hope there. I tried the faucet once again. Water. Water. Water.
The fear of having no water hit the part of me that is the weakest. I have been with increasing intent concentrating on letting go of the control of events and allowing life to simply unfold. God’s will. When I first started the farm I decided, rather than bothering my Maker with every little detail, I’d simply ask to be told if I want to continue. In no ambiguous terms. One summer I didn’t have a ram nor did I have water to the barn. Nor did I have a source of hay. This may be it, I thought. Within two weeks, Marge Rockefeller called offering to sell me hay. John Firment from whom I bought the farm came and told me where the shut off was to the water line. And a man who bought two ram lambs at the auction sold me one of them for $17.55. The hay was good. The water was good. The ram was less than useless. However, I stayed.
I now await another miracle. One of the spirit and the heart. I make not even a gesture to help it happen although I work hard on mending my own heart and creating manageability here as I go through the days. To be ready for a miracle. The lamb asks to climb into my lap to take his nap. I do hope he will make it. He is very, very nice. The gold finches sing as they fly among the phlox picking seeds from the pigweed. The drought continues. This is a day the Lord has made and who I am is what I do with it.
WUTHERING HEIGHTS
I WENT UP to the field, Wuthering Heights, one afternoon a day or two ago, to see what the effect was of the rain we have been enjoying this week. The grass is very, very short, but it is emerging at last. The twin pasture, the one we didn’t fence, one half of the original project, has to date been growing faster. Five-inch high green grass has emerged from the brown grasses, the remnants of last year’s growth. The fenced-in field is now showing regrowth as well, fairly thick. Very nice.
There is a drainage ditch there, providing water for the sheep in the spring, part of the summer, and well into the fall. I’ve found what once must have been a small stone bridge creating a crossing. One stone has shifted, and a willow has taken its place. Were I to cut the willow, it would be possible to replace the stone. With any luck I’ll have it done by the men who will soon move the pallets of stone that were left behind in the field last summer.
Jefferson once wrote that the thing he loved the best on his farm was riding around it on horseback and looking at things. I understand that. It is a deeply satisfying thing to walk this land of mine. Looking at all things, tiny things, important things, and things of no significance whatsoever. My land is not good enough to ever be called beautiful. But it is, at its best, absolutely lovely. And at its worse it remains to be a nice little farm.
One of the many reasons I am here is that I wanted an endless palette, one with which I could engage my life. Stone walls to be recreated. Orchards to be planted. Trees to be replaced. Brush to remove.
There is a stone wall surrounding my wood lot. All manner of seedlings have jumped the wall and become, in turn, saplings and small trees. They are relatively close together and have grown tall, thin, and straight. A few are oak. They shall stay. The rest need to go. I’ve started to clear this some time ago. Twice. And what has been cleared has stayed relatively brush free. The stone wall is magnificent. And largely intact. Behind it is a strand of huge trees. Beneath them is almost no underbrush. Were the saplings to be gone, the wall could be seen, as well as the orderly neat stand of huge trees behind it. There is a blue stone wall up there, as well, that I don’t like very much, although I am expected to. It is the fashion to like blue stone walls. And a waterfall that I’ve never seen in full flow. But everyone else in the family has. A spring has manifested on the property line. Wrong side, unfortunately. And, on the southeast wall are not only some very prolific apple trees, but a row of rugosa roses. I pick the rose hips every year, to make a bit of jam. They’ve never jumped the wall, unfortunately, and are on the wrong side. I pick the rose hips anyway. A hundred rugosa seedlings are arriving here shortly. I’m not planting them on the line fence, however.
The secret rock has not moved, of course. But the brook has. And now its outer edge is only a few feet from the rock itself. It is one of my favorite places. The rock is huge. And water runs through and beneath it. From certain other equally secret places the sky is visible through the opening underneath the rock. Someone, once, a long time ago, built 10 feet of stone wal
l next to the magic rock, a perfect place to have a picnic. Nothing to change there. It is simply perfect.
Not very far away, is another huge rock. It is almost a perfect square. And its top is perfectly flat. It sits below a thorn apple tree. A branch or two just low enough to have easy access. And that rock is the one that makes me wish I had a full-time hired man. Trim those branches, please. Quite inspiring, that rock.
Slightly beyond that rock is a stone wall that always makes me wish I were rich. It is a massive wall with huge vertical sheep tips in disrepair. All of the sheep tips, vertical rocks on a horizontal wall placed so sheep can’t jump over them, on my property are relatively flat and of the same size. These are quite different. Huge almost impossible for one to move, sturdy, and beautiful in their own way. I think this wall was made by a different mason from all of the others on this farm. The rock pile nearby is comprised of rose stone and much smaller rocks at that. Clearly this was not the source of the stone. I don’t love the hillside above these pretty places. I would were it covered with grass rather than moss. It cries for lime that can never be spread. And clover seed which will never be bought. The hill is too steep for the lime truck. And the seed will never grow without it. I’ve got a favorite place in the woods where I go, but rarely. It is near the top of the hill. The woods rise sharply there to reach a stone wall, still in relatively good condition. And on the other side of the wall is a flat and grassy place. Tall trees are evenly spaced there, almost as if chosen. And perhaps they were. It is shady there in summer. Silent in winter. And in all, the calm, well-ordered, nearly manicured little wood that I love so much. It is, in fact, a man-made place, at least in part. But who the person was who made it and why, I shall never know. Were I only able to go there more often to think and dream.
The Improbable Shepherd Page 17