Tuesday, March 31, 2009

something about winds

Spring wind, a fact of life. Sometimes it blows to dry the lands after winters snows. Sometimes to break up the ice. Seems to me sometimes it just blows for the heck of it.
Without the winds....it would be quite warm here. The clouds have blown away, the sun is out....and it is almost warm enough to enjoy walking outside. But the wind still blows.
There is a phrase about a wind blowing something good....OK...so my mind is old....ill wind?
Well, I'm hoping these winds blow something good your way too.
We are ranging here between spring showers and wind....I was down to the old house yesterday....the men were still working on the new siding. Seems it was raining while I was away this weekend. So siding is going up slowly. They were on the back side of the house, on the roof, complaining that they were almost blowing off. I hope they didn't. I finally remembered my staple gun, and tried to fasten my 8 foot window's plastic back down....It would appear to me that 4 feet of window can have plastic over it....but not 8 feet of window.
Today my husband had to leave for a while....so I stayed here...walking to the barn or the top of the hill every few minutes to watch the sheep.
I hate leaving when lambs are coming don't you? It must be just awful to have to go put in hours at work during lambing season. We used to have plenty of help in Wisconsin. The children would come home for days or weeks to help keep and eye on expectant mothers.
My best shepherd daughter would complain about losing days out of here social life by taunting me with "I like sheep" sung in a sing-song manner. I don't blame her. I remember one busy day in the spring when she took a break in the house for about 10 minutes and came back to find me busy trying to breathe life into a lamb that was pulled. "Can't I leave you for a minute without you losing a lamb? she cried. No....I guess not.
For me lambing has always been a life or death struggle. Every year we had more lambs...and every year we had more strange things that kept all of them from living. I tried...believe me, I tried...to stay awake for every birth for the three week surge of lambing season. It seemed if I stayed awake, I could shake lambs and save a few.
Now I know there are lots of folks out there who have never lost a lamb....or a kid. There is something about holding a dying lamb that makes a person feel so inefficient, and incapable, and small. Perhaps a sunbeam into the vastness of human life here. One of the shepherds was sending questions a while back about life experiences. One was being there when a person died. Frankly, I think that is no ones business. But the whole space and time between life and death is certainly brought to mind as we tend these helpless little creatures, that we call our friends.
Perhaps you can tell, as you read, that I view lambing as a bit of a struggle. I left my husband a few years back, with only two ewes to go. One lambed overnight, and he found the lambs just fine in the barn in the morning. The other went on a wild ride of labor....finally presenting my poor hubby with the wrong feet. He pulled and saved the lamb. A good feat, for felllow who had never pulled a front facing lamb either.
It's been too cold here this spring for me to shear the few pregnant sheep yet. Sure would be nice to see what is going on....but I wouldn't want to be out in this wind without a sweater either.
I wanted to say, that when I am home I can look to see what is going on. I enjoyed the sheep pictures, and I'm sorry to hear Karen lost some of her old friend horses this winter.
I am actually surprised we haven't had trouble with our older ewes here. All I have lost, so far, was two ram lambs to the kitty. On that note, I did lose the little kitty I was feeding while my neighbor was gone. Poor baby slowed down on the street. I'll miss that cat. She was the first to welcome me to my old house in the morning. Fortunately, I have a photo.
I enjoyed the photos of the volcano, and the foggy swamp too. I did mail some photos to a friend. I am just as bad as ever with photos. The old house stands as still as possible for pictures....but sheep do not. I did get a photo of Augustine....but I cut her head off....figures....one of the prettiest ewes around, and all you can see if her behind. Oh well.....maybe you are not missing much by not seeing my photos.
Sorry it took me so long to say nothing. Maybe tomorrow I'll have a story.
Peeps

3 Comments:

At 4:02 PM, Blogger Angela Rountree said...

The wind is blowing strongly, here, too, Peeps. Apparently blowing the scent of cycling ewe over to the rams' pen as they are bashing each other today. I have 2 new lambs, and they are on my webpage if you want to peek at them.
Angela
neopolitanacres.com

 
At 5:43 AM, Blogger Allena said...

Windy up here as well, but so far no dying lambs. I totally understand, my first year I had my second set of lambs die.

They were coming head turned back. No vet anywhere, so I had to figure it out on my own, so I did it. I lost the two lambs though.

It is a struggle. Lambing is wonderful and amazing yet sad and depressing as well.

 
At 7:12 PM, Blogger Alaska Shetland Shepherd said...

Oh so wonderful to see your typing again. Even tho you can't post photos as this point, I will be glad to post for you when they arrive!

 

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