I Flunk Yet Again

In this prolonged apprenticeship to farming, I have been subjected to many tests. I have scored poorly on most of them but on Monday (Yes, yet another misspent Monday) I outright flunked.

It all started on Sunday when John came to shear the sheep. The girls and I walked down to watch and I had a chance to vent about only getting 3 lambs this year. I had unwittingly thrown sand in the faces of the farming gods. Naavah got restless so this next part of the story took place after I had walked her back home; I didn’t witness it myself.

John is shearing away, speedily and with great gentleness when out pops a lamb just as he grabbed the mother. This was something of a surprise but Dan and John bedded the new mother and infant down in hay away from the turmoil and finished shearing.

It was almost dinnertime when Dan raced back up to the house (Alessia had long since returned, dropped off on a coffee run). He was as close to distraught as I had ever seen him. The lamb was in distress. So Dan and Yael went down to try to nurse the lamb. They were gone for hours! And hours. Finally they returned, damp eyed and dejected. The lamb wouldn’t eat. The mother wouldn’t cooperate. And the lamb was lying inert on the hay.

Since the next day was Monday and Dan had early meetings, the family had to head down to Auckland that evening. That left me alone on the farm with a dying lamb. My instructions were to go down to the shed in the morning and bury the lamb.

So with a heavy heart and great misgivings, the next morning I finished my morning chores. Then I stalled around a little longer and it almost noon when I finally grab the shovel and head down. As I approached the yard, I see Mama standing near the gate into the paddocks. I decide to get her safely into paddock #2 with the rest of the flock before tackling the funeral. I was a tad leery about how she would view my intrusion.

So I opened the gate and tried to shoo her through #1 and into #2. Fat chance! She bolts off into #1. While I am quietly cursing (I hate trying to round up stock from #1, aka Mt. Everest), I feel a nudging at my pant leg. There is a tiny, tiny lamb butting my knee.

As I bend over to croon to her, Mama lets out a roar of rage and flies down the mountain side and skids to a stop just out of arm’s reach. Lazarus deserts me in a New York minute, races up to Mama and the two sprint for family halfway up #2.

So perhaps I didn’t totally fail. I did get the ewe into paddock #2. But I just couldn’t figure out how to bury a live lamb. Call me an underachiever yet again.