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October  2008

A new adventure has begun here.  In more ways than one.  It is an adventure that promises to have many parts.  I was offered, for a reasonable price, a small flock of sheep.  Horned Dorsets.  From the breeder of Burgo Fitzgerald. 

            It is the first day of autumn.  Ads have begun to appear in the local newspapers advertising livestock for sale.  Grain and hay prices have skyrocketed this year.  Farmers are choosing what to sell, whom to keep and why.  The why of it is probably the most important.  I've seen an ad for sixty Dorset sheep to be sold as a flock for eight thousand dollars.  They would cost someone ninety dollars a piece at least in hay alone to feed, and in all likelihood a hundred each which would add another six thousand to their cost bringing the total involvement up to about fourteen thousand, plus grain, salt, shearing, et al.  The ad said they were organically fed but not "organic" which leads me to believe they were raised on unfertilized fields but not anything special in the grain department. 

            The sheep I was offered are young stock.  Two year olds.  Running with a ram all summer.  Possibly bred, therefore.  The one thing I don't have is any money.  I'm also short in the hope and enthusiasm departments.  The modest amount of enthusiasm that I can muster of late has not contributed very much in the way of focus with it.  The even smaller amount of hope does not lie in the direction of the farm.  However, that said, the thought of a small flock of Horned Dorsets to accompany Burgo Fitzgerald on his appointed task was an inspiration in itself.  I tentatively accepted, in part, Frank Tiffany's offer and proceeded to try to figure out the best way to effect this.  An old friend came immediately to mind.  We had first met when I boarded some sheep for him a number of years ago.  Arthur has still retained his interest in sheep, but for the moment he and his wife can't be on their country property with the consistency necessary to keep them.  Perhaps a partnership could be arranged.  And it was.  The sheep shall probably arrive this week.  They shall be managed as a separate flock.  Live in the carriage house to begin with, so they can be tamed, to both me and my farm.  Arthur and his wife Joanne can come visit them whenever they'd like.  Burgo will live in the carriage house as well.  Their grain and second cutting hay can be kept separately upstairs in the loft so an accurate record can be kept of their expenses.  We can then split any profits, which can be reasonably expected.  The ram lambs produced from this flock shall be of the configuration that appeals to some of my customers.  The ewe lambs shall remain as additions to the flock.  Eventually, should they proliferate, they can be sold as a starter flock themselves.

            I've already named Burgo, and Arthur has asked Joanne to name three of the ewes in this little flock of Horned Dorsets.  I may add to the mix the very old lady sheep I bought from Frank a long time ago.  She may, or may not have been covered by Burgo this summer.  It remains to be seen.  Early December, that is.  She is about eleven years old.  A domineering creature is she.  I started to say a managing creature, of the other ewes, however, it is I whom she manages. 

            Life is good today.  I'm waiting for a call from the miracle worker who comes here from time to time to set up the time to pick up said ewes.  That in itself is a good thing.  On many levels, one of which is I haven't set foot off of the farm except to go to a funeral, in more than two weeks.  I'll take with me yarn with which to braid collars for the new sheep to distinguish one from the other.  The goldenrod of my latest barn sweater, the shocking pink of what may be the next one, the hunter green from a long time ago.  The ride itself will be an adventure.  Five Horned Dorsets in the back of a pick-up.  An adventure, that. 

            Once upon a time, in the early days of this farm I used to ride, some afternoons with a trucker who brought cows to farms.  One day, he asked me if I felt like going to Arkville with him to deliver some cows a dairy farmer had just bought.  I'll never forget pulling into that barnyard.  The farmer, his son and a young woman who could have been the son's wife, stood by the barn door.  The look of intense concentration on their faces has never left me.  The farmer walked slowly over to the cattle truck.  The young woman opened the barn doors.  The trucker clattered open the big back doors and out walked a small herd of Holstein cows.  Into the barn.  It was a moment of deep and profound hope.  Palatable.  No ambiguity there. Hope, etched in the pain of past defeats.  Cows that didn't measure up.  Cows that were to produce and didn't.  Milk checks that fell short of paying the grain bills.  And now, in that single moment, the possibility that all could become well.  May the memory of that moment never leave me. 

            Today I, too, shall have such a moment.  Despite grain and hay prices skyrocketing and enthusiasm depleting, I too, shall open the door of my carriage house and usher, scramble, persuade five new sheep to be my hope for tomorrow. 

Day two or is it three?

            The five big Horned Dorset ewes were dragged, pushed, pulled into the truck.  Four are two year olds.  One is four.  They traveled without incident.  The first was hustled into the carriage house as the others huddled together.  The second was dragged in.  The third ran in on her own.  The fourth scrambled in, two people pulling.  And the fifth, seizing the opportunity jumped out of the truck and ran away.  And away.  And away.  I followed her across the road into my neighbor's cow path, hoping to see, hear, smell my flock and come back to join them.  But all, except the doe, Candida Lycett-Green, were unusually silent.  The neighbors weren't home when I left a message for them.  Still aren't.  They had loggers up near the beginning of their wood lot.  They may have scared the ewe on.  She has big horns, and is equipped to defend herself against a coyote.  But not a pack.  A lamb I sold to someone on Smith Hill Road ran away one time.  And turned up a week later in a cow pasture in Treadwell.  Where there is life there is hope.  But not enough this morning. 

            It's raining.  The roof leaks with a tiny, steady dripping sound in the living room.  I haven't made a fire yet.  My flock got out this morning.  My neighbors are still not home and my phone didn't ring, 6:30 A.M, to tell me.  I saw the sheep across the road and, not daring to hope, called them in.  Perhaps the errant ewe was among them.  She wasn't.

            I've woven, tied, sewn with tiny careful stitches a life on this farm that is uniquely my own.  I've pared down and pared down to even less than what are often thought of as life's necessities.  "Proceed" was some advice I was given not long ago by a very wise and practical man.  Today, the best I can do is hang on.

Sylvia Jorrin

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