Mixed Blessings and Sleepless Nights

I’m sure this will shock some of you, but rain in March makes me lose sleep - even in a dry year like this! I know I’ve vowed never to complain about rain again (having raised sheep through the millennial drought of 2012-2015) - and I’m not complaining now. But I also know I’m enough of a shepherd that I’ll probably not get a good night’s sleep tonight.

Let me explain! For the first time since we started lambing two-and-a-half weeks ago, we’re getting a decent rainstorm this evening. We absolutely need the rain - with the grass growing and the trees leafing out, our soil moisture deficit is reaching a critical point. We didn’t have much soil moisture to begin with; the lack of precipitation and the increased soil-water demand is concerning. There’s a chance that we’ll end March 2021 with less seasonal rainfall here in Auburn than we’d measured by this time in 2014. The grass-growing side of my brain is rejoicing tonight!

But the lambing side of my brain (and yes, at this stage of lambing season, grass and lambs is about all I have room for in my sheepherder mind) is anxious. Our production calendar tries to strike a balance between lambing during nice weather and lambing early enough to take full advantage of the spring flush of grass. Unlike many of the larger operations in the Delta and San Joaquin Valley, we don’t have sufficient fall forage to lamb in the fall, and I’m not willing to feed the hay necessary to lamb in mid-winter. Our compromise is to lamb in the late winter and early spring - when the grass is usually primed to take off. And when the weather can still be iffy. March, I think, is the cruelest month for a spring-lambing outfit like ours.

We are very intentional about our grazing and flock management year round - but especially so at lambing. We save our most sheltered pastures for lambing - our paddocks have enough tree and brush cover to provide shelter and windbreaks for the ewes and the lambs to get out of the weather. We’ve started using some nifty lamb raincoats developed in the UK - biodegradable plastic “lamb macs” that cost us less than $0.50 each. We make late night and early morning (before sunrise) rounds through the flock to make sure lambs are nursing.

Ultimately, though, we have to trust our sheep - and ourselves. We’ve spent years selecting for ewes that are great mothers - ewes that can count at least to two (and often to three), ewes that produce enough milk, ewes that know to shelter under the trees we’ve fenced within their paddocks. For the most part, our ewes have earned our trust!

But...

But I know I’ll wake up tonight if we get a sudden downpour. I know I’ll wake up when my partner texts me after he’s walked through the sheep at 10 pm tonight. I know I’ll awaken even earlier than normal tomorrow morning, and that I’ll be checking the flock before the sun rises. And I know I’ll be grateful for whatever rain falls overnight. The blessing of rain is worth a sleepless night during lambing.