The Improbable Shepherd
Page 19
Some of the sheep had become notorious at getting out. Everywhere. All the time. All over the lawns. To visit almost all of the neighbors. And nearly everyone who saw them stopped and told me about them. As did I, indeed tell myself. All about them. All the time. Their next-to-last excursion was to my neighbors’ across the road. They decided to pay a visit to the horses who live there. As had one of the horses that decided to visit the sheep in my pasture.
I had had baleage put in a wonderfully misguided place. By the stone wall. By the road. And, yes, well within range of the sensitive noses of my neighbor’s horses. I’m not always the brightest. At first my sheep ignored the baleage. A series of very heavy rains had flooded a drainage ditch immediately before the baleage was placed there. The sheep panicked at the sight of the flooded field and refused to cross it.
After a couple of days, nine somewhat wildish ewes (three of which were not born here and are therefore unfamiliar with my ways) decided to cross over the running water and have lunch. Baleage. The pasture was even more enticing across the road where the horses lived and so they decided it would be pleasant to join them for tea. Immediately after lunch. There was a low spot under the horses’ electric fence. An open door to sheep in full fleece. And off they went. And stayed for a couple of days.
I have reason to be hesitant around one of the horses who took an instant dislike to me when she was in my pasture eating her perceived share of the sweet smelling baleage. She saw me standing near it, holding Fly Flannagan in my arms. A two-headed, six-legged creature, appeared to her. She reacted accordingly.
Peter Slavinski helped me to drive the sheep off his fields that next morning. Onto the road they went. I followed. Before I could direct them home, a passing motorist helped me drive them through the barbed wire into my neighbor’s pasture on this side of the road. The one neighbor that the sheep had not visited this fall.
I couldn’t get them home. I brought them cracked corn in the old familiar grain bag. To no avail. Mineral salts. To no avail. An armful of hay. To no avail. I brought my dog, Samantha. Poor choice. They must have encountered a coyote or two on their meanderings, because they decided Samantha was their enemy. Each time I went to bring them home, they flocked and stared past me down the road toward the barn and house. I realized they expected I had the dogs somewhere behind me. They had determined never to come home with me again were she to be driving them.
This afternoon, desperation reminded me of still another way to entice the sheep home. Baleage! I put on layers upon layers of clothing in anticipation of staying out a very long time. My only really warm gloves were too new and too pretty to wear carrying hay, so my hands were tucked up in the sleeves of my jacket as I carried an armful of baleage up the icy road to the corner where the sheep were pawing for grass under the snow. I know Cornell’s sheep live off grass under snow, winters, but never wanted my sheep to have to emulate them. Mythical stories about how sheep are fed abound. I never have trusted them. However, my distress was only one of many reasons I wanted my sheep home.
They would not come. One of my old girls, one with a touch of Cheviot on her face, stared me down. She had never forgotten her grandmother was Cheviot, a wild creature, and refused to come near me or the enticing baleage. I grew desperate. And knew I must silence my desperation and make myself as still inside as I could. Finally a truck appeared from the hill, turned the corner near us, and stopped. Pete, God bless him, got out and quietly walked through the snow behind my sheep. I called, “Cahm ahn.” He kept on walking behind them. They suddenly decided it was a very good idea to come home with me.
The air was still and sparkling with cold. A pale blue sky hung a thin sliver of moon above our heads. A faint blush of rose made magic of the day’s end. Snow was everywhere. White and gleaming. The ice on the road spilled diamonds before us. The only sound was that of the sheeps’ hooves as they slowly, carefully walked single file behind me. “Cahm ahn,” I said as I made my way down the road. “Cahm ahn,” as I set foot on our front lawn by the wooden fence leading to the pasture. “Cahm ahn,” I said as quietly as I could.
I opened the gate. The Cheviot-nosed ewe stopped to think a moment or two, and then walked with measured pace, through the gate. Each one followed in turn. Slowly, then quicker, until the last one ran home. I put the baleage I was still carrying on the snow. Two or three stopped to eat it. Home. Home. The sheep, then, single file, walked quietly across the pasture to the open door of the barn, and, one by one, leapt inside. I followed.
I went to see how the first lamb of the year was faring. His little belly was full. He still wore the pink coat I made him in honor of being born. Only yesterday. His mother seemed content in the pen with him. It was the very first time I had ever known that restless ewe to nurse a lamb. The silence was perfect. My mind and heart were at one with the absolute quiet of the moment. I have been asked, of late, why do I stay farming. Why do I stay? I stay because of today. I stay because of the stillness in my mind and heart, walking those sheep home, across the neighbors’ pasture, along the road, down the lawn through the gate. All of us walking together into the barn. I stay because of the silence and its absolute perfection. I stay because of the silence.
POSTSCRIPT
THE SNOW HAS arrived, and with it all of the mystery that it in its silence conveys. Its beauty lies in the simplicity that it wraps around the world outside of these windows. And the prospect of moving inward to an equally quiet place. I first came here at the beginning of winter in what is now a long time ago. I also saw the first light of day in the early days of winter, seemingly not a long time ago. My dreams for the life to be created here have not changed, except that I have added an unexpected dimension in the forms of goats, chickens, sheep, dogs, and a donkey. But, in a way, they are a continuation of the original dream. Each day presents the possibility of achieving the dream. Or rather the potential for coming close to it. I have accumulated much of what is necessary here to realize the goals that I once thought were too far removed to be realized. The missing ingredients are in the realm of possibility even if, at the moment, they are beyond reach. Each day brings its own whisper of promise. Who I am is what I do with it.
There is now a lamp on the kitchen table. I don’t like dark rooms, and keep the overhead light on, even in the day. There was a time when it was broken. I think yesterday was the third time it has been rebuilt. Not bad for a 60-year-old fixture. The linen cloth on the table gleams in the glow of the lamp. There is a small crèche figure of a sheep that my daughter brought me from her recent trip on the Danube in front of it. The table is unadorned. Unusual for me. I’ve always been one to decorate nearly everything. However, there was a time when it was the only light, evenings in this room. I don’t know when it was, but it was before the dramatic changes of the past five years. I would come in from the barn, winter nights, and sit at this table, reading or writing. Occasionally I’d make the special treat of hot chocolate with freshly whipped cream on top. The only sound was that of the wood burning in the stove. It was a peaceful time. I didn’t mind the solitude, or the comparative silence. I loved the special kind of bone-weary exhaustion that comes from doing physical work. And the light of the lamp on the gleaming table cloth. The work is easier now because of the familiarity and experience. I knew that would happen. The peace that comes from working in the barn is also deeper. I knew that would happen. I now approach the work as if the past 24 years have not happened. To climb down the ladder, or to get a boot stuck in between hay bales in the mow seem like an adventure, devoid of the familiarity of repetition, winter after winter. “I am here,” I call out to the sheep. “It is I!” They turn and look at me. They know who I am. And I am rediscovering myself.
A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR
Sylvia Jorrín has been a farmer in Delaware County, New York for 25 years. Hers is one of the few large livestock farms in the New York City Watershed solely owned and operated by a woman. For 24 years she has published stories about her life on the farm
in the Delaware County Times, and on her website, www.sylviasfarm.com. In addition, her writings on agriculture have been published in many of the region’s magazines and newspapers.