Sheepish Read online

  I mentally rub my hands together in anticipation. Moving sheep is challenging and fun, and if you’re lucky it might go well. Also, it’s a great way to put off writing. I may lack confidence in my ability to create rich characters, but I understand a sheep’s flight zones. I know how to lead them and how to drive them. I haven’t been raising sheep all these years without paying attention. And because the flock is still inside the perimeter fence, all the sheep are safe, so I can relax and focus on solving the problem.

  I find where they’ve broken through the fence, so I disconnect the electricity and begin trying to get the two main groups together. I manage to get both groups walking alongside each other, separated by the three-wire fence, until we reach an opening at the end of the fence where the two groups merge. Mamas and babies run for each other. I lock everyone into the new paddock and bring them a water trough, which the thirsty animals nearly swamp as they push each other aside to drink.

  Then I work on the two ewes stuck in the third spot, all three of us running back and forth, back and forth, until I’m hot and sweaty and the ewes are most unhappy, but I finally get them into the right place. Moving an entire flock is easier than moving two sheep.

  As I’m walking back to the house, Melissa shows up on the four-wheeler. I’m proud to explain everyone is once again in the right place. Melissa is surprised I didn’t wait for her. I’m surprised, too, but then it hits me. Chasing sheep, even though it’s 90°F out, was exactly what I’d needed. The activity uses different muscles, both body and brain, and gives me instant feedback and satisfaction. I don’t worry about the farm or about my relationship or about where I’m supposed to be in life. I just do what needs to be done, and it feels good.

  I climb back up to the house, change out of my sweaty clothes, eat two banana Popsicles, then start writing again.

  Enough Happy Endings?

  Weave me a rope that will pull me through these impossible times.

  —TIM FINN

  On a farm, death is such a regular visitor that I’m no longer surprised when he drops by. We might lose a sheep to a disease. A chicken might be taken by a hawk. We’re going to lose a sheep to old age, for No. 66 is slowing down. How long will she live?

  When we started farming and animals died, I thought we were terrible farmers. But other farmers reassured me, shaking their heads and repeating the common refrain: “Where there’s livestock, there’s dead stock.” It’s one I now share with new farmers so they know what’s coming.

  The Pasture Goddesses—Amelia, Mary, and Bonnie—are incredibly brave women, staying by Melissa’s side even when things get hard. Over 1,300 lambs have been born on this farm, and of those, we’ve lost only fifty that were either stillborn or died soon after birth. We feel pretty good about that. Why is it, though, that even when the pasture pulses with life, the losses and tragedies loom so large in memory?

  One of the first years Amelia helped us, she and Melissa found a ewe who’d given birth to triplets but a week later was very ill. Melissa wondered if there might be a problem inside. A terrible thought occurred. What if the ewe had gestated quadruplets? Amelia and Melissa caught the ewe and Melissa found another lamb inside. It was, of course, dead, and had begun to decay. They called the vet, and he determined that the ewe was beyond saving. This wasn’t anyone’s fault, for the ewe had given no indication she hadn’t finished lambing. Yet this sad event tripled Melissa’s vigilance on the pasture, and she often checks to make sure every single lamb is out. We’ve never had a repeat problem.

  One morning Melissa called me on the walkie-talkie. So much was going wrong that she needed another pair of hands. In addition to lots of newborns that needed welcoming, there was a tragedy. Somehow a ewe had, midlabor, laid down on the flexible three-wire electric fence. The fence pulses on and off, and though it’s not strong enough to kill a full-grown sheep or human, it’s not as kind to lambs. Two lambs had been born directly onto the wires trapped under the ewe, and both were dead.

  I hesitate even to write these stories because they’re so hard, but it’s part of what farmers sign up for when they devote their life to caring for animals. Bad things happen. Not often, but still, death comes more regularly than for most nonfarmers. Melissa processes death by talking about it, telling the story over and over to any friend or family member who happens to call or stop by. Eventually she works through her pain and can move on. I deal with it by not talking about it with anyone, by not listening to Melissa tell the stories. When I can stand to be in the room when Melissa shares a hard story, then I know I’m moving through the loss.

  Complaining about death when it’s part of your job seems silly, especially since what we’ve experienced is nothing compared to real disasters. The barn of a local sheep dairy burned to the ground, killing hundreds of sheep. Turkey barns are destroyed in storms, killing thousands of turkeys. Floods drown livestock that farmers or ranchers are unable to rescue. During disease scares like “mad cow” in the United Kingdom, millions of healthy animals were killed in hopes the disease wouldn’t spread. A local elk herd, nearly 700 tawny beasts with towering antlers, was “eliminated” because one of them was found to have chronic wasting disease. This is a disaster. The owner, a California investment company, couldn’t feel any emotional loss and was compensated financially, but someone had cared for those elk, and to those people, having sharpshooters kill all those animals had to be devastating.

  Falling into the “disaster” category was the fire on my grandmother’s ranch forty years ago. My grandfather had died of a heart attack before I was born, but my Montana grandmother continued to raise sheep. I wish I’d known sheep were going to be in my life because I would have asked so many questions. Unfortunately, she died before I’d even met Melissa.

  When I was about thirteen, my mom and sister and I were visiting the ranch in July. The dry land was 2,000 acres of tinder waiting for a match. One evening a bolt of lightning streaked down and became that match.

  A neighbor called, reporting a thread of smoke rising from Grandma’s land. Other neighbors roared up in pickups. They loaded the vehicles with barrels of water and burlap bags. My aunt stayed behind to watch us children, and my mom hopped in the pickup with Grandma and spun out into the dark.

  At one point my aunt was worried about everyone, so we drove down the road until she could see Mom and Grandma in the distance, fighting the fire. We stood there in our cotton nightgowns, watching the flames dance across the range, black smoke billowing darker than the sky. Time has now created in my memory a conflagration as dramatic as the burning of Atlanta in Gone with the Wind.

  The next morning I woke up to find my mom and grandma sitting in the kitchen, cupping coffee mugs in their hands, shoulders slumped as if their bones had melted in the fire. “Did the sheep survive?” I asked.

  “Let’s go look,” Grandma replied, but the answer was already in her voice.

  Mom and I rode in the cab of the pickup with Grandma, her rifle mounted on the back window. Now and then we’d find a group of live sheep, huddled together. Grandma made note of where they were so she could come back later and round them up. More often, however, we stopped at group after group of dead sheep that had been trapped by a bluff. Now and then Grandma would bend over a sheep that was still alive but too far gone to save, shake her head, and climb back into the truck.

  Grandma would not shoot the animals in front of her city granddaughter, so after she returned us to the ranch house, she went back and shot each animal that needed dispatching. I understand why she did that alone. It must have been unbearably hard.

  Our pasture goddesses keep returning every spring, so we must be doing something right. I remind myself that death isn’t as constant as it seems. Many times, I hear a ewe cry, so I head for the pasture. The ewe’s lamb might be asleep, sick, or dead. I walk the pasture until I spy a spot of white. As I approach, I can see the tiny chest lifting with each inhalation. The lamb is alive, but so deep into her own “lambie doodle” dream tha
t she didn’t hear her mother. Few actions are as satisfying as gently picking up a sleeping lamb, tucking it against your chest so it can feel your heartbeat, then rejoining the flock and placing the lamb right in front of its frantic mother.

  There are more than enough happy endings on this farm.

  Does This Bale Make Me Look Fat?

  Stressed spelled backwards is desserts. Coincidence? I think not!

  —AUTHOR UNKNOWN

  Every fall, Melissa prepares for winter by using the tractor to set out big round bales, which are about 1,400 pounds each, and five feet tall by five feet wide. The sheep will eat on the bales all winter, since in Minnesota grass doesn’t thrive in minus 30°F temperatures, buried under four feet of snow. We enclose each large bale with slotted panels to keep the sheep from wasting hay. Their heads fit comfortably through the slots so they can eat the hay without climbing all over the bales.

  One year, we decide to save ourselves some time so we move four bales together, then put panels around this quartet. Imagine four gigantic Tootsie Rolls stacked on their ends, side by side. We’ll save time because the sheep will have to eat four entire bales before we must move the panels to the next set of four.

  Unfortunately, our clever idea turns out to be not so clever. It doesn’t take long for the sheep to somehow defeat our panel system, and soon they’re frolicking on top of the four bales. Not surprisingly, one slips, and her back end wedges itself in the convergence of the four bales. Melissa tries for half an hour to free her, pushing, shoving, and murmuring words of comfort and encouragement. Finally she appears in my office. “I need your help.”

  I change into my work clothes, a bit peeved at the interruption. I am, after all, my ornery grandmother’s granddaughter. I march out to the hay bales, letting the gate slam behind me, then confront the ewe, who’s basically a ballerina on tiptoes wearing a tutu of hay bales. “Hey!” I yell.

  The ewe shoots straight up into the air, slides down the bale, and runs off. Melissa’s mouth drops open. “Wow,” she says.

  “Anytime,” I reply, pleased no middle fingers were required. Then I return to the house, change out of my work clothes and start writing again.

  An hour later Melissa is back. “Got another one.” I go through the clothes-changing routine, slam the gate, and confront the ewe in the same situation as the last one, her backside jammed down between the bales. “Hey!” I say.

  Nothing happens. She stares at us. This one is obviously stuck, and good. We slide a long two-by-four in between the bales, trying to push her butt up. The two-by-four snaps. While Melissa returns to the barn, I hang out with the ewe, who by now is eating from the bales forming her prison. I’m about to remind her that eating isn’t going to help the situation, but since I tend to eat more when stressed as well, I skip the lecture. As she munches, I begin fantasizing about a slice of bread, slathered with butter. Or a toasted bagel, slathered with butter.

  Melissa brings out a long metal pole, which we poke between the bales. The sheep squirms at this, perhaps not liking the feel of a metal pole being poked at her butt, but she remains firmly lodged. We can’t use the tractor to move the bales because there’s a fence in the way.

  By now it’s dusk, and it’s getting hard to see. Melissa brings down the pickup, a chain, and a grappling hook. She sinks the hook into the top of the bale, the only part she can reach, drives away, and the hook comes sliding out. We repeat this step an embarrassing number of times, succeeding only in moving one bale about two feet. The ewe drops down onto her hooves but now is totally surrounded by the bales. I’m getting discouraged. “Maybe we should bring her a bucket of water and deal with it tomorrow.”

  Finally Melissa bravely takes the hook in hand, and literally dives up and over where two bales meet. Her head is down in the ewe’s little prison. All I can see are her boots up in the air. “I’m stuck,” she says.

  “Maybe I should bring you a bucket of water and—”

  “Not funny. Stuck tight—can’t breathe—hook’s in bottom of bale—pull with truck.”

  I’m terrified the hook will slide out and impale Melissa. But after a bit of arguing on my part and some gasping on Melissa’s, I jump into the pickup and drive forward until I hear a shout. I leap out in time to see Melissa slide to the ground, and the ewe spring over her through the opening I’ve made.

  The ewe bleats all the way up to the barn, no doubt composing her complaint to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Melissa and I return to the house, relieved to have solved the problem. No fences were broken. No damage was done to the pickup. No buildings were dented. The sheep is safe. And no one—human or ovine—was impaled by the bale hook or crushed by a hay bale. These moments in my life are oddly satisfying.

  To celebrate, I consume both a slice of bread and a toasted bagel, both slathered in butter.

  Tending the Vineyard

  Grapes are the most noble and challenging of fruits.

  —MALCOLM DUNN, HEAD GARDENER TO THE SEVENTH VISCOUNT POWERSCOURT, C. 1867

  We keep our house stocked in wine by growing wine grapes. We don’t make wine ourselves—that’s a little too DIY for me—but sell the grapes to a winery. We carry buckets of grapes into the back door of the winery and walk out the front with many bottles of wine. It’s a beautiful system.

  When planted correctly (not upside down) it takes a grapevine about four years to mature and produce a crop. For each year leading to that fourth year, we pinch off the buds so the plants focus on making roots and growing stronger. Finally, Year Four arrives. We let the buds blossom into clusters of little fuzzy white things, which turn into grapes. Green for most of the summer, the grapes begin darkening in August. Plump, deep-red clusters hang heavy on the vines. In late August, Melissa and I attend the Minnesota State Fair to answer questions about growing grapes at the Grape Growers booth. We return home to find birds have consumed our entire crop.

  One acre of grapes gone in about twelve hours. Nuts.

  Every year after that, the battle against the birds starts in early August. One afternoon I see a flock of grackles rise up slowly from the vineyard. I imagine they are so stuffed with grapes they can barely fly. Furious, I retrieve our shotgun and load it as Melissa has taught me. I storm out to the middle of the vineyard, aim toward the sky and pull the trigger.

  I’m not sure if I really ended up flat on my ass or if it just felt like it. My ears rang and my shoulder ached. I put the shotgun down, trembling. What was I thinking? There’s no better way to understand the terrible power of a gun than to actually fire one.

  The next summer when the birds return, I leave the shotgun locked in the gun cabinet. Melissa’s gone for the day and the birds have begun swarming all over the grapes. I must do something, so I grab a massive stick, a book, a chair, and a cell phone; then I spend the warm, sunny afternoon in the vineyard. I read for a while, then walk one row of the 400-foot vineyard, banging on the trellis posts. The vibrating trellis wires send the birds flying. I return down another row, call a friend to complain of the rigors of farming, then settle in to read a few more chapters. It’s a ludicrous and futile activity, of course, but I must have needed an afternoon of reading and banging on posts.

  Shotguns and banging posts aren’t realistic, long-term solutions. Melissa read that Tina Turner music had been effective in keeping birds away at airports, so she runs speaker wires from the shed to the vineyard and begins serenading the birds (and the neighbors) with “Proud Mary” and “What’s Love Got to Do with It.” Turns out the birds in this area are hard-core Tina fans and tell all their friends.

  Desperate now, the next year we purchase expensive mesh netting and begin covering the vineyard every August, just as the grapes are reaching Nummy Stage. Every few days one of us walks the vineyard and frees any birds that have worked their way into the nets but can’t get back out.

  Grapevines require lots of pruning, which means holding one’s arms up high for long periods of time. Melissa has been pr
one to headaches for most of her adult life, so pruning becomes a most painful chore. Between my paying job teaching writing and working on my own writing, I don’t have much time for the vineyard. Melissa does her best, but without regular pruning, a vineyard becomes a teenager with bed head.

  My vineyard job is to mow the grass between the rows. The grass keeps down weeds and holds the soil in place on the gradual slope. I plug my MP3 player into my headphones, fill the old riding lawn mower with gas, and lose myself in the sun and music and grass-cutting satisfaction.

  When the hour’s over, returning to the shed requires that I drive down the sloping windbreak toward the barn, which is surrounded by cattle panel fencing, a heavy steel mesh with little give. One day everything on the mower fails at once. The brakes don’t work. The engine’s stuck in gear even as I shift from Drive to Neutral to Reverse to God-Help-Me-I’m-Going-to-Crash. I even turn off the ignition as I pick up speed. Nothing. I’m heading straight for the fence at the bottom of the hill.

  Farming is a dangerous business. Tractors overturn. Implements maim. I knew it would happen to me one day. I just didn’t think the moment would make me look so silly: bouncing down the hill on a little orange mower, clinging to the petite steering wheel, my mouth wide open to better let my scream escape. At the last minute I manage to turn the non-power-steering wheel to the right and bounce my way alongside the fence and down yet another hill. The mower finally comes to a halt in front of the barn. I slump over the sweaty steering wheel, exhausted after my brush with death.

  We purchase a new mower.

  Melissa cares deeply for the vineyard, even though she isn’t able to give it the regular haircuts it needs. But she is able to spray the plants every ten days for mildew. Her options are to tote a backpack sprayer or drag a canister on a little dolly. Both lead to headaches, so she buys a small metal cart to pull behind the four-wheeler and tricks it out for vineyard duty, with tanks and a vertical boom to spray the vines at three different heights for complete coverage. Melissa is the most thorough person I know. No leaf shall go unsprayed.