Au Revoir, Sheep

The sheep are gone; the chickens are gone. It’s me and Wilder and Pip and the high noon sun. I’m sitting on the back porch, writing sweaty words into my moleskine, drinking hot coffee emotionlessly and staring at the dead elms I need to chop down into pastures I’ll need to mow. Or as they say in the biz, I'm workin’ on my tan. The sheep are being backed into a barn an hour south, where they are meeting an unruly tom turkey named Rowan. He's flailin' his glorious tail feathers and gobblin' some nonsense. They’re scared and confused, looking around and asking where are we...

They’re on a children’s book adventure now, scary nights after uprooting a comfortable life, but everything will be alright because adversity leads to growth. Their new owner is sweet and loving. She knows what she's doing. They will come to love her quickly. They will come to love their new home, and they will come to love their new work, reclaiming pastures. They know their work. We've been doing it for years. Eat stuff, poop, repeat. Just tell ‘em where and treat ‘em right.

I’m looking over the porch railing as I reach for some sun – Wilder’s dopey grin as he chews on an old pig’s ear, panting in the sun – at reclaimed pastures, popping with dandelions. There’s more yellow than green, it seems. That old Coldplay song comes to mind. “Look at the stars / look how they shine for you / and everything you do / yeah, they were all yellow…” The dandelions are stars in a verdant universe, I am the poet sighing on the hillside....

Am I ….retired? Just gonna grow corn and sing Joe Diffie songs ‘til I croak? You think I’m referencing “John Deere Green,” one of the greatest honky tonk love songs ever written, but I’m referencing “Cold Budweiser And A Sweet Tater.” If that ain’t some bachelor soundtrack muck boot scootin’ around the kitchen while the dogs bounce around confused and happy, then you ain’t no bachelor. I got 25 dozen eggs in the fridge, babe – fry up some bacon, crack open a drink, and let’s dance! I’ll go pick you some flowers while you drop some shredded cheese into the pan.

I love the way the summer sun blurs my vision a bit. Everything turns murky blue. Imagine being underwater but it’s sunlight and not water you’re slurping down. I sat on that back porch and watched some bird high on a dead elm, a bug in its mouth, thinking about this and thinking about that. Turns its head this way, and turns its head that way. Over and o'er. After a few minutes, it hopped one branch up. What a decision! To have the life a bird has....

Isn’t that the life we crave as farmers? Can’t we just sit and observe and spit out so much love that when we mix it with the earth it creates the healthiest, happiest medium for growing the very healing we need as humans? I’m watching my arugula come up every day, a millimeter at a time, and I can’t wait to scrape a fork against a plate and hold back the tears as I eat every one. Wholesome, fulfilling. Just add olive oil and salt.

Farmer Jen backed her U-Haul van into the driveway. I've dreaded this moment all week. I’ve spent the last month preparing for giving the sheep away by being indifferent to them. It feels like a breakup. It gets harder every day to give love to livestock when you know they are conveniently going away on May 16 at 11 am.

But Emelda and I are soulmates. She comes up to me and I scratch her up in ways my dogs would whine with jealousy about. She looks scrawny after the shearer had his way with her. She’s an old girl – 13? 14? – but she’s full of life. She’s last place in the nightly race to the corn bucket, but she fights her way in and the lambs cede to the boss.

Kay came to help with the sheep. I sat on a hay bale in the driveway, roasting in the sun, while she doted the girls one final time in the barn. I stared at the celandine growing around the driveway and cried quietly. A bug crawled on the bale above my shoulder, took a moment, flexed its wings, then flew ten feet away. An empty water bucket sat next to me, filled with sheep supplies like hoof clippers and Nutri-Drench. I stared that bug down. What are you thinking, pal?

I thought about Roxy dying last November and how I held her when she died. I had to call out of work and drag her back to the barn, bury her like a loved one. Just a sheep. Just one of six sheep that Mary Iselin stuffed into the Chevy Blazer one May morning in 2022. Kay and I lost our minds together and bonded in ways only some humans do on that long drive home. I wasn’t going to tell a soul how sad I was as I pulled her yellow ear tag off before returning her to the earth, how I would never tell anyone she was my favorite animal to ever exist. If you wonder if I’m sad about giving my sheep away, it’s because I miss Roxy, who decided one morning in November to sit down and let me hold her as she passed.

Jen and I had a good laugh as we realized we were both wearing UNH t-shirts. She tugged at her blue UNH shirt from the driver’s seat, a nod to my grey UNH hockey shirt. She is almost complete with her Sustainable Agriculture degree – though she has a focus on Regenerative Ag, which is why I like her so much. Regenerative is the answer; sustainable is the cheap band-aid. If you aren’t focused on resilience, you won’t be solving the problem, I’m afraid. As for me, I just like Hockey East.

We backed the van as close to the barn as we could, then I set up a strand of electric netting from the barn around the van and back. We used hay bales as steps and barricades. Jen laid bedding down in the van for the sheep. She came in the barn to meet the sad sheep, who have been locked in the barn for 36 hours to create a sense of hunger and urgency when I released them into the strange new places they’d be going.

“Are you a Pisces or an Aquarius?” she asked Aster, whose birthday is February 2022. I think Aster is probably a Pisces, as she’s a full of the feels. Though being an Aquarius wouldn’t shock me, as she’s been known to headbutt her cousin Clover for no reason other than for fun. It’s a bit wild to realize most sheep are Pisces or Aquarius, as that is the season lambs are born.

Soon we tried to lure the sheep into the U-Haul. Kay carried a scoop full of beloved cracked corn into the cozy van, but the girls weren’t having it. Kay sat up in the van, sheepless. The sheep stood in the shadows of the barn confused. Emelda nibbled at a plantain.

The sheep ran back into their stall. I followed. I grabbed Clover. I’ve got a sheep hook for a left arm. I muscled the poor girl toward the U-Haul. Jen applied a harness. Clover went limp but I dead-lifted her 150 pound sheep rump into the van. Jen tied her to the wood paneling and Kay fed her corn. That’s the last I ever saw of Clover. I went next for Mittens.

And Aster.

Then it came down to my Emelda. The final farm critter. She wouldn’t go into the van, so we put a harness on her. Jen pulled gently while I lifted her scrawny, ancient sheep butt into the van. Once she was in, Kay stuck corn in her face and I blocked the exit with bales of hay. Kay slipped out and we slammed the door. Jen jumped behind the wheel, I removed the electric netting, and we saw the sheep off. I made eye contact with Mittens through the window. I know better than you, lamb. You’ll be happy. I love you all more than you'll ever know. The poems I've never written about you....

Moments later, after Jen had lurched off with the sheep in an air-conditioned vehicle, I hugged Kay.

“How are you?” she asked.

“Sad,” I said.

“Same,” she concurred. “It’s gonna be quiet around here.” I watched her drive off, her Bronco matching her hair.

I sat on the back porch and got my sun. A thunderstorm banged and boomed over the Sandwich Range; the sun in North Sandwich was glorious. I glanced in such a nonchalant manner at gloomy, mysterious Whiteface, from the comfort of the crooked old camp chair I’ve been enjoying respite in for years.

A few hours later the torrents came. I stared out the French doors and I danced my kitchen floors silly to a summer Spotify playlist. I watched the trees bend in the wind during the dusky t-storm. It was violent, but I felt calm. The rain brought forgiveness and solace. Whiteface sat back there, behind the cloud and chaos. Stoic. It's been there forever. It'll be there forever.

I felt my emotions wash into the earth as I watched the rain. I want to be washed into the earth. I thought about the times I've known my sheep have been stuck in the rain. They're built for it. I feel happy with that thought.