Loose Sheep and Mary

November 16, 2009 By 5 Comments

I was making my morning cup of tea (the cup I make after I decide that, in fact, a third carafe of coffee will be too much), talking to a good friend on the phone.  I paused and gasped.  Being a good friend, she asked what was wrong.

I laughed.  “I thought I saw the sheep getting out,” I said, and then recounted a tale from the summer of the sheep being in the front yard.

Then, for some reason, I went into the laundry room, and out of the window I saw them.

Out in the yard.

Enjoying the lush green grass.
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NOT IN THE PASTURE.

“I gotta go,” I said, in what I thought was a calm-I-can-handle-this voice, and hung up.

I went out to…well, what exactly was I going to do?  My role with the sheep is usually to write about them, take pictures, and, enjoy seeing them graze in the back pasture from my kitchen window.  I’ve petted them through the fence, but I’ve never tried to herd them back into their pen.  Though I knew the theory of it, I’ve been around long enough to know my book learnin’ ain’t worth much in the face of real animals.

So I did what I always do when something is wrong on the farm and I happen to be home to see it.

I called my brother-in-law.

No answer.  Left a message, fully confident that he’d be right over.

That’s why, when the nice farmer down the road pulled in, got out of his car, and started helping me get the big ewes who were not.going.to.move moving, I assured him all was well.  (I don’t blame him for looking doubtful.  I was a sight for doubtful glances, in my sweats and slippers.)

“My brother-in-law will be right over,” I told him.

He stayed in his car a few minutes, but he did eventually leave.

I called my brother-in-law again.

No answer.  Left a message.  Again.

I called my mother-in-law.

Straight to voice mail.  Left a message.

I called my sister-in-law.

No answer.  Left a message.

At this point, the reality of the situation was sinking in:  I was on my own with 20 ewes (who were quite happy to eat in my front yard, staying well away from the blacktop of the road) and two little kids in the house.

I called my husband.  He didn’t answer his cell phone, and so I called the office.  The new receptionist answered.

“May I tell him who’s calling?”

“Yes, it’s his wife.  And it’s pretty important.”

I was impressed at how fast he got on the line.

“What’s up?”

I found out later that he was pretty amused by the whole situation.  (He still is.)  At the time, I couldn’t understand why his first words to me were “Calm down.”

As it turns out, after I got off the phone with Bob and left a few more family messages, I went into the house to put on my boots.  While I was in there, I called my friend back, and I asked for a favor that will be in her top five for quite a while, I’m sure.  “Can you come over here and just…be here?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said.

The kids were screaming, though my four-year-old perked right up at hearing that there was a full-blown Adventure going on outside.  She put on her clothes faster than I’ve ever seen her, and headed out the door to help.
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I had my doubts about how much help she could be.

We went outside, me with my boots and kids with their smiles, and I started rounding up the sheep, again.  There are tricks to herding sheep and getting them to go where you want them to go.  The problem is that I don’t know those tricks.

Eventually, I got the sheep in the barn…again.  (This was the third time, I think.)  I called my four-year-old and asked her to go in the house and get the scissors.  The reason I hadn’t been able to get the gate open the last time I’d had them in the barn was that I couldn’t get the knots undone on the gate.  Normally, this is no problem.  The guys carry knives in their pockets, after all, and you don’t want the sheep getting out because of a slipped knot.
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My four-year-old came out with the scissors and saved the day.  She walked through the ewes, petting them as she went, cut open the twine, and opened the gate.

It was almost too easy.

My friend arrived to find the sheep in the barn.  I made a third carafe of coffee and we laughed as we savored it.

The lesson?  Asking for help — from a four-year-old or from the Mother of God — might be hard and might not even make any sense.  I’m always doubting, wondering, questioning.  What’s the point?  Can it really make a difference?  How can she really help me?

Well, maybe it doesn’t seem like she can.  Maybe the situation is beyond ridiculous, a law suit waiting to happen.  (Can you imagine some teenager heading to school crashing into a 200-pound ewe in front of my house?)  Maybe all the usual help is unreachable, phones going straight to voice mail.  Maybe the only help you’re going to get is going to come from what seems like the unlikeliest of places.

I find Mary’s touch in some of my craziest days.

The photos in this post are from the ewe’s escapade in our yard this summer.  I didn’t have a chance to get pictures the other day.  I did think about it, but decided I’d better focus on getting them back in the pasture…  :)

Filed Under: Farm Life, Inspired by the Virgin Mary, Mary Moment Mondays Tagged With: , , ,

Perspective on Pets

November 4, 2009 By 3 Comments

holstein_cowsThe discussion over Ohio’s Issue 2 has had me thinking for a month or so about agricultural things. I have a bit of a background in agriculture though it’s been hidden for a while, put on a back burner.  Back in my high school days, FFA is what gave me a glimmer of hope and inspired my desire to be a teacher.  I have a whole degree in agricultural education, and up until I student taught, that’s what I was going to do with the rest of my life.

During college, I learned a lot about agriculture from people who actually grew up on farms.  I was involved with the dairy club, though I had zero background with dairy animals or life on a dairy farm.  I just liked cows, and I was accepted into that group (though perhaps with a few raised eyebrows).

I did grow up in the country, though, and my dad had an agricultural background.  I credit that with what I now think of as my farm girl sensibility.  Through the years, one thing that has stuck with me and has continued to be reinforced in my various agricultural exposures: most people, and especially those outside the small percentage who actually work in agriculture, do not understand or fathom what’s involved in bringing the bounty of food from the field/barn to the store to their tables.  In that lack of understanding comes some very misguided conclusions.

I can’t help thinking, considering the mud-slinging I’ve seen in my inbox over Issue 2 (which passed, by the way), that some other folks could use some farm girl/boy sensibility.

Livestock animals are not pets.

There, I’ve said it.  It’s been simmering in me for weeks.  Now it’s out there.

I don’t agree with making laws by constitutional amendments (but I forgot to vote yesterday, so my voice was silent in the whole debate).  I also don’t agree with the humanization of animals that’s going on in our country.

As our dogs and cats — our pets, which are animals — become more important, have more rights, it trickles over into other areas, like animal agriculture.  As more and more people get a farther and farther distance from their country roots, livestock — cattle, swine, chickens, and so forth — start to seem like pets of a different nature.

The danger of that is that then the same parameters you use to determine if your dog — who you probably think of as a family member — is comfortable start to seem a logical set of criterion for determining if any other animal is being well tended.

The line between abuse and humane starts to look ridiculous, in other words.  And don’t be surprised when the price of your food starts to skyrocket.

The reason for some of the practices that you might not understand, that you might mistakenly think are inhumane, is to increase efficiency, raise productivity, and, in the end, keep the price of food low.

Unfortunately, you can’t have cheap food and livestock as pets.  Perhaps even more importantly, livestock do not need to be treated as pets.  (Your dog doesn’t either.  But that’s a different discussion.)

There’s a danger in this humanization of animals, a danger for us. If animals are equal to us — and I don’t believe they are, though I’m not in any way advocating abuse — then what’s the next step?  If abortion is a right we have already, and unborn babies aren’t people until some point that we’re all going to argue over in a quest to deny the Truth, how does animal rights encourage the dehumanization of us?

I’m out of writing time this morning, so I’m going to leave it at that.  For further reading, check out The Omnivore’s Delusion: Against the Agri-Intellectuals.  It should be required reading, as far as I’m concerned.

Filed Under: Farm Life Tagged With: , , , ,

In Seven

September 4, 2009 By 2 Comments

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–1–

To the person who found me by typing “can you pray one decade at a-time” into the search, I reply, YES! YOU CAN! (I hope they found this old post or this article link or even my review of one of my favorite books of all time.  But just in case they didn’t, I’m going to say a little prayer for them when I’m praying my rosary.)

–2–

Tuesday (September 8) is the feast of the nativity of Mary, or, in language I can understand, Mary’s birthday (Marymas?). Who better to host a giveaway, and what better giveaway to get, than Ginny Moyer, author of one of my other favorite books, Mary and Me (which I reviewed here).  Win your own copy by leaving a comment at this post over at Ginny’s place.  Good luck!

–3–

I’m back to work this week, and we’ve started homeschooling (two weeks early!). However, it’s going well this week.  Better than I expected. I never would have thought that typing that first sentence, I would follow it with this one: I’m laughing a lot.  There’s nothing like a pair of four-year-olds punctuating their time with “School RULES!” and “Can we keep doing school?” to motivate the rest of my day.  I mean, work makes school possible, right now, and school makes certain other mentalities possible…so it’s really feeling like God’s plan.  I’m glad I had eight weeks of rest to prepare for this, though.

–4–

I’m still digesting all that I’ve learned in the last eight weeks, from my seven sabbatical lessons to my daily bread. I am pretty sure there’s going to be something about life in the present moment and how multitasking is overrated.  (With links, because these aren’t necessarily my thoughts, just things I learned over the summer.)

–5–

Our Jack Russell Terror has an inborn talent for finding critters. It’s an endearing trait.  Really.  On a farm, you need a critter dog and he’s really good at it.

Except with possums.

It’s the nature of possums to be the kind of critter he should like, to get into the barns, to go after the dog food and any number of other garbage-y stuff.  They are worse than raccoons (which is saying something!), in part because JRT can’t kill them.  They play dead.

It’s pretty interesting to watch, and the girls and I happened to be outside playing and bug hunting the other day, when JRT brought us his possum catch.  I told my four-year-old, she of the Never-ending Curiosity, that even though JRT was carrying the possum around and it looked dead.

“It’s dead!” my four-year-old insisted.

“Well,” I told her, “let’s walk down to the barn and see if the possum is here when we come back.”  (This also gave me a chance to teach her an important farm lesson: if you see a possum or coon during the day, stay away and get an adult.)

When we came back, the possum was on his feet, the dog was long gone (having showed us, been admonished to “KILL! IT!,” accepted that as praise, and moved on to the next critter), and my four-year-old was fascinated.  I called the dog over, and he did what he always does with possums — he gave me a confused look, then noticed the possum moving, pounced on it, looked up at me triumphantly, thinking it dead again.

My husband, the Chief-in-charge of Critter Control around here, didn’t get home until we went into the house and the possum made his escape.  He heard the tale, though, from our excited four-year-old, and I think maybe that took some of the sting out of his late hours.

–6–

Speaking of farm life, it’s breeding season for the sheep. That means we have a ram out with the ewes, and the ewes are sporting colored patches on their back ends.  That’s a good sign; it means the ram is doing his work.  It’s also a chance to explain the natural order of things to that child who is asking all the questions around here.  It also means that Shepherd D will have lambs come January (and, actually, he should have fall lambs soon, so we’re going to have some science time in his barn later this month).  I just love lambs (and the photo opps).

–7–

We went to the library three times this week. My four-year-old found the section of horse books.  Guess what we’ve been reading all week?  (No complaints from me or my husband!)

Jen invented and hosts our Quick Takes fun every week, so go give her a visit at Conversion Diary.

Filed Under: Farm Life, Quick Takes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

All’s Fair in Sheep and Rides

August 4, 2009 By 2 Comments

Within one week, our sheep-showing family had both the county and the state fairs. We weren’t able to make it to the county fair, but we made it to the open show yesterday at the state fair.

I didn’t take as many pictures as in the past, and I left my camera in the barn when we ventured to the Midway. But I think I captured the essence of what the state fair means to me: family and fun.

Here are a few highlights of the day, and if you’re inclined to see the rest of the pictures, they’re here.

Chaos in the ring…all the kids, some helpers, and smiles all ’round. It was a good day.

Ribbons and banners and smiles, oh my! Here Little D is showing Uncle Bob the ribbons and banners from the junior show over the weekend (which we didn’t attend). His lecture included nuances such as the lineage of the sheep that won and plans for future shows. He’s been paying attention for years now, and he’s my go-to guy when I have a sheep question at the show.

Nothing like a morning of running around a barn to wear a girl out. All the baa-ing in the barn couldn’t keep her awake!

Filed Under: family, Farm Life Tagged With: , , ,

Dandelions as Something Other than Pesky

July 27, 2009 By Leave a Comment

While I was mowing, I couldn’t help but reflect on the success of dandelions in my yard. I mean, they’re EVERYWHERE! A few weeks ago, they were bright yellow punctuation marks to the lush green of our nothing-fancy lawn. Babs would point to them and sniff her “flower” sign, and we rediscovered the joy of bright yellow dandelions. We would pick her one, and she would consider it and then carry it around with nothing less than pure and utter joy. She would point to another one, and another one, and another.

Read the rest at CatholicMom.com.

Filed Under: Farm Life, Garden, writing

Amber Waves of Grain

July 4, 2009 By Leave a Comment

We’re busy celebrating Independence Day with family today, but I can’t help reflecting on the fields of wheat all around us, as I did when this post was originally published in 2007.

Summer holidays often coincide with important farm activities. The Fourth of July is often second cutting of hay and wheat harvest. Though we raise neither, we’re surrounded by both, and in the days of late June, I always find myself wishing I had taken pictures, longing to capture the vivid gold as the wheat fields transform.

This year happened to be the year when the farmer of the field next door planted wheat, and so I have had my fill of gazing out at the rippling green-then-gold. And yesterday, just before our blogging buddies came to visit and fill our yard with laughter, the combine came and started cutting the wheat.

It’s not the harvest itself that makes me ponder and think about what the Fourth of July is all about, though. It’s the field itself, filled with a color that Crayola has never quite been able to capture to my satisfaction. I remember Grandma mentioning it once, one summer when there was wheat across from her old farmhouse and we kids were visiting for a week or two. There’s a point, she said, when the wheat fields are just that certain shade of yellow-gold, and it just makes you feel…something different than you felt before. Seeing that expanse of rippling wheat still makes me think about all we have here, in the United States. It epitomizes the great abundance of resources we ignore, and the many blessings all around us. That amber field also reminds me of the importance of togetherness, of just how critical it is that our many different opinions remain true to who we are and who we were founded to be. One weed ruins the picture, but you don’t often see wheat fields with weeds, thanks to the wonders of modern chemicals.

As it ripples with the wind’s gentle breath, I see how something that seems insignificant can have an enormous impact. It reminds me, that golden ripple, of how I’m here “just” to do what God put me here to do – if I’m “just” a mother, or “just” a wife, or “just” a faithful friend, then I could be making a big difference, though I may not see it from where I stand, a single stalk of wheat in the field of life.

Filed Under: Farm Life, reflection

Rerun: Snow in April

April 7, 2009 By Leave a Comment

In honor of the snow flying around outside, I’m rerunning this post from April 2007. My husband no longer works in agriculture (though he “plays” in agriculture when he can), but I thought that those of you who like my farm life posts would enjoy this. (I enjoyed rereading it and remembering that April two years ago, so that counts for something, whether or not y’all like it.)

–

If you work in agriculture, and specifically with those farmers who have to get their corn and beans (and perhaps other grains) planted, and there’s snow in April following the wettest harvest in a decade, you can have a couple of different reactions. First, you can revel in the extra time you’re gaining, because no one’s in the field, though they’re not happy about it and they’re keeping you busy anyway (doing things they probably should have done in February, but never mind that). Or, you can buckle down and get ready for the worst possible scenario for a spring planting season – one where the breakdowns are never pretty and ALWAYS an emergency (more so than normal) and one where there is NO room for mistakes. Faulty equipment? They don’t want to hear it. It’s YOUR fault, because you’re the one they call. You have to help them, and if they run into you on the one day you don’t work this time of year (that would be Sunday, when your family gets to claim some of your wearied awake time), they have no qualms about filling your ears – while smiling at the wife and commenting on the cuteness of Small Fry – because their need is so great. THEY don’t get a day off, why should you?

And yet, this dear husband of mine wants to BE one of those farmers. It’s ingrained in him as surely as the desire for open spaces and fresh air. It’s written on him, in the way he drives around and talks of the weather and ponders the land. He has a deep-seated yearning for it, a hunger that I can’t quench any other way. Even if he never gets to DO it, there’s a part of him, in his mind, that will always dream of working the land, coaxing the miracle of life out of it, working hand-in-hand with Nature and God to make your dinner possible.

I’m sure there are other fields of work where there’s this intense pressure, condensed into a small space of time (medicine comes to mind). You get steamed and cooked and fried, all in one sitting. When I first entered the world of working in agriculture, it burned off all my romantic notions about farm life (I was raised on a camp, not a farm, so even all those years of college didn’t fully prepare me for the reality). I always thought spring was the worst, when things were the most intense and the stakes were the highest. If your corn doesn’t get planted, after all, there’s no second chance. If you miss your window of opportunity – or if you get a sudden, unexpected blast of freezing weather in mid-April (April 15 is the safe date, after all, and we’re past that) – then you could be looking at a year of lean times. If you sell your grain wrong, or if you plant the wrong kind of beans, or if that fungus that’s messing everyone up hits your crop, well, then, it’s all over for you, isn’t it? Maybe not. There are federal protections, right? Well, maybe. But there’s this issue of pride. There’s the thing about relying on your own good sense, on the money – not to mention time – that you’ve dumped into this project. There’s that aversion to hand-outs and welfare and not making good on what you said you’d do.

And so, with snow in April (but hopefully no more to come), I can’t help but brace myself, because I won’t be seeing much of Hubby in the next few weeks. It’s going to be intense, and much worse than usual. He’s going to be exhausted at about twice the usual rate, and pushed to the very limits of what he can endure. While I’m off pushing Small Fry in the swing, he’ll be in the cab of a tractor – or dangling off the edge of a planter – getting that pesky GPS stuff to work right. He’s the only one who can do it. No one else will do. (Any pride I feel in that statement is diminished this time of year, because it means that my time with him disappears.)

So, bring on the sun. Let’s get rolling with this planting season!

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