Spring came early and late

Spring came early to the north woods, tricking us into thinking that summer would as well. I put my ficus benjamanica out on the deck before Easter and we’ve had more than ten freezing nights since then. We tapped our maple trees the 12th of March, hoping that we hadn’t missed the sap flow during all the warm February and March days. Three days later, we heard the first tip, tip, tip of maple sap into the cans hanging on the trees. The sap ran for two weeks, even though it only froze twice in those two weeks. After more than thirty years of sugaring, the only thing we knew for sure was that it had to freeze at night and get above freezing during the day for the sap to run. And here we’d had our first sugarbush at a new site and the trees continued to run, day after day, night after night, when the temperature barely dipped into the thirties. The syrup we made was darker than usual whether because we were at the end of the season or because it never cooled down at night and the sap began to spoil; but it still had good flavor. We pulled our taps two weeks ago; the sap from almost every tap was yellow, a sure sign we were done. The blood root were just beginning to bloom, just as they have every year in the past when we cleaned up after sugarbush. In the last two weeks, it has been cold and freezing many nights. Yesterday when I was trimming branches along the trail to the bush, blood root leaves still curled around new buds, although most of the white flowers were done. When I walked back along the path later, The trunks were stained with sap under the cut branches. How much more syrup would we have collected if we’d waited for the normal cold spring weather to return?

Guardian of the flock

Alpacas are part of the story of predator control for sheep flocks. We’ve had an alpaca for about six years and I have to admit that basically, I have Kaylie because she’s so cute. She runs like a muppet, has a top knot, and very hairy legs. I love the way she looks and moves. I also love her soft, soft fleece.

But her real value to the flock is as a guard animal. This weekend, Loki, a visiting mastif, raced toward the barnyard gate. Suddenly, in a flurry of movement, the sheep dashed around to the back of the barn and Kaylie stood alone, between the barn and the gate – head up, alert, ready to take on any threat. I don’t know what she’d do if a predator actually breached the fence and got into the barnyard. Alpacas are known to bite and can have a deadly kick.

It was the gate that stopped Loki; not an alpaca that weighed less than he did. But her height, her black fur, and her upright ears have intimidated dogs in the past. Once, Buddy, a visiting dog whose owner wondered if he could herd sheep, came into the barnyard on a leash. Kaylie screamed, the sheep disappeared behind the barn, and Buddy his behind his owner at the far end of his leash. – as far from Kaylie as possible.

Our first line of defense against predators is always a good, tight stock fence with two strands of barbed wire on the top and a strand on the outside at the bottom. But Kaylie is our extra insurance. With her in the pasture, I sleep well even when the coyotes howl.

Bottle babies

photo by Amber Walker

Bottle babies can be a real pain. When you bend over to feed lamb a, lamb b butts your nose, bringing tears to your eyes. They suck your fingers in a vain attempt to get milk while waiting for their turn at the bottle. They tangle with your feet when you walk through the barnyard. They baa incessantly in your ear while you feed their siblings.

Bottle babies happen for lots of reasons. Bucklet’s mother didn’t have any milk. Christmas’ mother died. 63’s mother was too ditsy to stand still for a lamb with sore joints to keep up with her. Sometimes ewes with triplets don’t have enough milk for three babies and we bottle feed the weakest one. Sometimes lambs have sharp teeth or a painful suck and their moms keep trying to get away.

Bottle babies can be a real pain. But they make you laugh on gray days. They continue to recognize you and approach unafraid, no matter how old they are. They wrap themselves around your heart. They make you cry when they die. Bottle babies can be a real pain, and yet they always add to the joy of lambing.

Feeding hay on the ground

Most sheep raising books say never, ever feed your sheep on the ground. It’s a good way to infect them with worms or coccidia. I’ve been in barnyards (even mine after a good rain or in the late spring) that make ground feeding an obvious hazard. But I also know several good shepherds who fed their sheep onto snow as long as the snow was fresh and clean.

That’s the technique we use. When there’s clean snow, we spread hay onto the snow. It forces our sheep to exercise, important for the health of the mom and the fetus, and it distributes their manure throughout the pastures rather than just around the feeders. Come spring we can tell exactly where we fed hay onto the ground - the grass there is greener and grows faster because of the manure.

This year has been a barren, snowless time for feeding. Both Dave and the sheep were unhappy using the feeders. Dave didn’t appreciate how fast they filled with stems the sheep didn’t want to eat and which he then had to clean out of the feeders. The sheep didn’t like the way the tasty leaves sifted through the stems to the bottom of the feeder. They complained all the time. When the snow finally came, we all rejoiced. Once again we can feed hay on the ground. Of course this year, within a week the snow is almost gone. But while it lasted...

Little Things

After the big wave of lambing has rushed over us, we can take the time to notice little things. Those treats are there all the time, but only appreciated when we aren’t rushed or sleep deprived, when we open ourselves to seeing them.

Yesterday I noticed (as if for the first time) how the light from outside the barn door glowed through a lamb’s ears. Last night I marveled at the warmth of a new mother’s teats as I expressed milk for her hungry lamb. This morning I smelled clean wool as I pressed my body down on an anxious ewe while Dave gave her a shot.

Those little things – the sparkle of snow crystals in the moonlight, the crisp imprint of a lamb hoof in new snow, the soft rustle of sheep settling into fresh straw – those little things are such a big part of a good life.

Solitude

We need solitude. I think that’s why we live in the country. It’s not that we don’t like people; we love it when friends and family come to visit and we enjoy every minute of their stay whether it’s measured in hours, days, weeks or months. We enjoy the stimulating conversations, the music we make, the arts and crafts we create, the cooking we do together and even the work we accomplish together. Family and friends make our lives meaningful and rich.

But we also need the time when it’s just us and the animals, the fields and the forest, and no people for as far as the eye can see. Blizzards enforce our solitude. As long as we don’t have to be somewhere else when a storm rips through, we fill the wood box and the bird feeder, shut the sheep in the barn and hunker down, surviving quite well on the meat and vegetables in the freezers and the pantry shelves holding jam, honey, tomatoes, pickles, maple syrup, and Dave’s home brewed wine and beer. We do much more than survive as our driveway fills with snow and our only connections with the outside world are the telephone, the computer and two pair of snowshoes. That solitude enriches and nourishes our souls.

Special Delivery

Welcome to the latest multi-sensory lambing simulation. So far, it has to be all in your imagination, but someday.... However, even in its simplest form, this will be a special delivery.

You’re going to do this all by yourself. Well, actually, not all by yourself, Dave is here to lay across the ewe’s shoulders to keep her from running away. She’s been in labor for over two hours and it’s time to figure out what’s going on.

Okay, wash your hands, leaving them soapy. Kneel behind your patient. The smell of wool, manure and amniotic fluid fills your nose. Touch the fingertips of your right hand to the thumb tip forming a wedge and slide your hand through her vulva into her uterus. Now close your eyes to better ‘see’ what your fingers feel. You can hear the rustle of sheep settling into the fresh straw bedding, the small baas of lambs looking for their mothers and the loud, strident calls of the mothers.

Your hand squeezes through the hard ring of her pelvic bones into a warm space with hanging veils of what feels like wet silk or plastic wrap. There! Your fingers touch something smooth and solid. Explore it. Feel the division between two parts. Follow the division back a short way until the smoothness becomes rough. You’ve found a hoof.

You need to find either another hoof or a head next. Slowly move your fingers until they encounter something else hard. Explore. Does it feel the same as the hoof? Is there a dividing line through it?

The dividing line is longer and the surfaces it divides are rough and soft, not smooth and hard. Run your fingers along the line again. That line is the lamb’s mouth. Sometimes you can feel tiny teeth there. Slide your fingers back, deeper into the ewe’s uterus, while still touching the lamb’s head. Feel the slight indentation of the eye sockets. Find the domed back of the lamb’s head.

Now you have a head and a hoof, enough to deliver a lamb. Not so fast! Because your fingertips don’t have eyes, you have to be sure that the hoof and the head are part of the same lamb. Slide your fingers down the back of the head, over the soft folds of the ear. Keep moving; trace the anatomy of a shoulder to the long bone of the front leg, the ankle bones, two long toes bones and then to the smooth hoof. Yes! All one baby.

Grasp the hoof between two fingertips and your thumb. Pull gently, feel it slide toward you. Suddenly, the hoof pulls out of your grip. Good, a nice active lamb. Gently run your fingertips back up the leg, across the shoulder and up the neck. Cup your fingers over the back of the lamb’s head and gently pull toward the opening to the ewe’s vagina and the bog, cold, outside world.

The lamb moves toward you. Shift your fingers again to the hoof. Ease it through the vulva, out in the open. Feel around the pelvic opening with your other hand, second hoof. Face. Slide the fingers of your second hand over the back of the lamb’s head while pulling down and out on the first hoof. As the lamb’s shoulder clears its mother’s pelvic opening, a nose joins the leg.

You can open your eyes now. Your finger tips have done their sightless job. White nose follows white hoof as you continue pulling. This is a long lamb. Pull, pull, pull. The ewe grunts and moans as you pull. Finally, the lamb’s hind legs slide out of the space where it has lived and grown for the last five months.

Grab a towel, clean the head off first. Wipe the amniotic fluid away from the lamb so it can breathe air. Smooth the towel down its nose and then begin rubbing the curly white haired body. The lamb takes a shuddery breath and sneezes.

Now, you may take a shuddery breath, sit back on your heels, and relax.

Dave moves the lamb to it’s mothers head and her tongue comes out, licking the lamb clean and dry, encouraging it to breathe. Dave hands you the barn notebook. Date, time of delivery, sex of lamb, identity of the mother. You check the ewe’s ear tag. 20 orange.

20 orange. The ewe we were afraid had a uterine torsion. Such an easy delivery when we worried that it would be so hard. This was indeed a special delivery.