Lambing Alone

Throughout our 33 years of marriage, Sami and I both had our own separate professional pursuits. She was always a veterinarian and a mom. I was an agricultural lobbyist, a land trust executive director, a USDA employee, a land trust executive (again), a farmers market vegetable grower, a firewood cutter, and, ultimately, a shepherd. And, certainly, a dad! But we both had our separate things - we parented together, but we worked (largely) separately. Except at lambing time.

Sami, I think, always viewed my sheep herding aspirations somewhat skeptically. Like me, she loved raising livestock. Unlike me, she had a clear understanding of what it would take to make a living at it. Ultimately, she was right - I never did achieve a scale of operation sufficient to make a decent living solely from raising sheep. Her realism ultimately resulted in my returning to school for a masters degree - and my eventual landing in cooperative extension. And it seemed, once I realized my sheep raising habit could be a part-time gig, she embraced the idea of co-owning Flying Mule Sheep Company!

But from the point where we established our small-scale commercial sheep enterprise, Sami was in charge of raising bottle lambs. She loved animals, and she especially loved baby animals. Even before we dove into the sheep business, we (mostly she) raised a bottle calf that our friends Jack and Darcy Hanson gave us! She named him Brutus!

(Memories are interesting things, aren’t they - I distinctly remember meeting Jack and Darcy in Dutch Flat to pick up the calf (probably in 1994 or 1995). As I drove the stretch of I-80 between Auburn and Dutch Flat last week, I recalled hauling Brutus in a big dog crate in the back of my old Ford.)

We bought 27 ewes in 2005, breeding them to lamb in February and March of 2006. We grazed them at Loma Rica Ranch in Grass Valley - and it seemed to snow every two weeks during our entire 8-week lambing season. On March 17, we had our first bottle lamb - a ram lamb that the women in my office named Patrick (it was St. Patrick’s Day, after all). I can’t remember why he had to come home (probably because his mother couldn’t count to one), but I do remember Sami bottle-feeding him every 3 hours for that first week. And I remember how much Lara and Emma loved having a lamb in the house!

Over the years, Sami developed her own system for raising bummers. If they were cold, they’d go under the wood stove wrapped in a warm towel and atop a heating pad. Many nights, we’d go to bed with a half-dead lamb on the hearth, only to wake up to the lamb walking around the living room squawking for its mother. She would go out of her way to get raw sheep’s milk or goat’s milk rather than use milk replacer. And she would name them all - Patrick was the first, but by no means the last bummer who earned a name.

This lambing season, I’m on my own for the first time. Yesterday, during my evening check, I came up on two ewes who’d both given birth to triplets in close proximity to one another. One lamb had been born dead, another had been abandoned. And the four healthy lambs were nursing off both ewes interchangeably. I decided to trust the ewes to sort out the healthy lambs on their own; I took the abandoned lamb home and put him next to the wood stove. About the time I was ready to go to bed, the lamb decided he wanted to live - and so I gave him a bottle every 3-4 hours during the night!

This morning, a Facebook friend from Lincoln responded to a post offering a bottle lamb, and off he went to his new home. I’m glad I saved his life, but I simply don’t have the bandwidth to raise bummers this year. Part of this is a reflection of working full time and ranching part time; part of it is that I’m all by myself this year for the first time in more than three decades.

But I’m finding a deeper meaning in my desire not to keep any bottle lambs this year. Today, just a year after Sami’s second brain surgery, and six months (tomorrow) after she passed away while I held her hand at home, I find that the weight of the decisions I had to make in the last twelve months is still heavy on my mind.

In some ways, I regret breeding my ewes to lamb this year. Lambing season usually brings me great joy, but this year’s lambing has been more difficult than I expected - not due to weather or dystocias or other problems with the sheep, but because I miss getting to talk to Sami. I miss having someone with whom I can troubleshoot problems, someone with whom to share the daily ups and downs. I miss watching Sami care for lambs in the living room.