I finished stuffing hay into the feeders on each side of the barn and stepped into the paddock as the sheep dodged me to get to their food. I watched them tug tufts of hay out of the panels and turn to look at me, hay spilling out of each side of their mouths as they chewed. Their heads always slightly cocked to the side, quizzical, as if to say “what’s next?”
I stood in the November darkness, the sky an inky dark blue, and thought about how far we've come since I last wrote. The sheep arrived in early July and our border collies hustled them down to their new home. We spent the majority of the summer wrestling electronet, either laying it out or winding it up. We began rotational grazing which meant that every three days the sheep moved to greener fields. Monday and Thursday mornings found Paul, myself and at least one of our dogs in motion. A good morning meant about an hour take down and set up, minerals filled and water trough cleaned, moved and refilled. Once off a paddock, the goal was that the sheep would not return there for as long as possible. Ideally we would put the sheep into a paddock only once per summer grazing period.
My favorite part of rotational grazing was watching the sheep move to the new field. The moment we walked onto the pasture they knew what was coming. They would charge to the corner of the fence and wait, impatiently, for the time when we would open it and lead them to the new paddock. Often, as I would stand with the gate open for them to run through, they would add an extra kick in the air for good measure, to let me know how happy I had made them. It worked, those happy sheep-dances made my day.
Things went well. Fence stood, stayed hot and the sheep grazed. Small goofs; Paul left one gate open a few times, the sheep detectorists figured that out quickly and raced up the hill. Running sheep are quite an amazing thing. Our sheep are rather like small cows so to see one running, at full speed, is surprising. I would send a dog up after them and soon they would come trotting back down the road in a line, a bit of a chagrined look on their faces, a quite satisfied look on the dog’s face behind them.
One evening I stood in the lower field and watched a coyote watch me from the edge of the woods. Small and wiry he eyed me before skulking in the cover of the low bushes. The sheep knew he was there and the coyote knew where the sheep were, but they lived together in a quiet truce for the summer. Often we would hear coyotes calling in the warm summer evenings. Ever maternal, I would race to the door, snap on my head lamp and charge down to the lower fields, a border collie, or two racing after me to see what the excitement was all about. My headlamp would catch the eerie glowing eyes of the sheep, huddled, seemingly carefree, under cover, ruminating on why I was there. I’d walk the entire perimeter of their paddock to be sure the fence was standing tall without a breech. My headlamp a beacon for pesky summer mosquitoes who seemed to be the only carnivores around that evening.
Five weeks in I noticed Beulah separating from the flock. She seemed unhappy but when I walked toward her she bolted for her friends making me think she was just being Beulah. However, when I went down later in the day she was tucked under some bushes far away from the munching herd. I went closer and noticed a wet spot on the fleece on her back. I touched it and it smelled like ammonia. I remembered that I had read about fly strike in the horrid-sheep-things section of my well worn books and raced up the hill to talk with our vet. When I read about horrid-sheep-things, fly strike struck fear in my very core. I knew we would need to deal with the messy and mucky but I prayed that we never, ever, ever had to deal with fly strike. And yet...we did.
Think the show “Stranger Things” on steroids.
Our plan for that afternoon was to spend a lovely day walking on the shore of Lake Champlain and maybe stop in for some Indian food for dinner.. I remembered that as I pulled on my rubber gloves to assist our vet. It took the vet, Paul, Josh and I to wrangle an understandably unhappy Beulah and shave her back to expose the maggots that were snacking on her.
I had bought every sheep thing on my sheep list in prep for what might go wrong. The one thing I did not have..clippers. The one thing we needed for fly strike?...clippers. So our vet arrives, with clippers, and we get to work. You know it is bad when your vet gags and says how disgusting this is. However, in the middle of it all, she did tell me that if I hadn’t noticed it quickly, Beulah would probably not have survived. She had a fever of 106. But she did survive and so did we.
We now have clippers.
We spent the fall building a barn and setting up their winter paddock. In Vermont, when you begin the month of September, you know you are racing the clock. We could feel the wind shift in early October and I told Paul we had better hurry with the barn.
We dismantled the perimeter electronet the last week of October in a cold, driving rain. The sheep standing, heads tilted, watching us wrestle the net into bundles and toss them into our wagon.
Late October the dogs walked the sheep back up the road to their winter digs. Two days before our first snow.
Saturday I lost my herding mentor and close friend, Stephen Wetmore. He and I had several years together working dogs in the beautiful fields of his farm. Laughing together over mistakes and cheering over successes. He visited the raising of our small barn and offered advice on sheep.
I walked out toward the barn early Saturday morning after learning of Steve’s death and stopped in the cold, November sunshine. I stood quietly and spent some time with him in the fields of my mind. I wondered what I would do now.. after a few moments I knew what he would say, “Melissa, go and feed your sheep.”
And so I did.
Melissa Perley