The Vain Shepherdess

When I leave the farm I like to look nice. Few people have ever seen me in my baggy Oshkosh overalls, which are about two sizes too large but so roomy I can move and bend and twist, agile as a cat.

Yesterday I was gone for most of the afternoon and evening, and as usual, left the bibs at home. Instead, I wore my favorite pair of jeans, which are tight enough that I look darned good, if I must say so myself, but with just enough 'give' that I can actually drive sitting down. You know the pair---they thin your thighs, and make your butt look cute and your legs look longer. (I'm living proof you don't have to be pencil-thin to feel good about yourself in this pair of jeans.)

So it's late in the evening, and I haven't changed pants yet. Melissa's out in the pasture moving the sheep, and it's taking longer than it should, so I decide to slip on my boots and go help. No reason to change into my bib overalls because moving sheep to the next paddock just entails clapping your hands, whooping a bit, and walking behind the flock to encourage it to move in the direction you want.

I got down there, and found the sheep had already been moved. But farther down the hill I could just barely see the top of Melissa's head running back and forth. Running is never a good sign. I worked my way down the hill to discover that two lambs had been left behind. They'd either been sleeping, or off horsing around in the tall grass and not paying attention.

Moving two lambs is impossible. Imagine a horseshoe. The flock is at one tip, and the two lambs are at the other tip. To rejoin the flock, the lambs must walk all the way around the curved end of the horseshoe to get through a gate. We tried to get the lambs to do this, but they wouldn't go. They wanted to go from tip to tip, but there were two electric fences in the way.

"Run!" Melissa yelled as the two lambs scampered past me once again. I sort of shuffled faster in my oh-so-flattering jeans.

"I can't," I yelled back.

We finally forced them into a corner with a netted fence. One leapt right over the fence (these are little guys, about 20 pounds and built like linebackers) but the other got stuck in the fence right at my feet. Here was my opportunity.

"Grab him!" Melissa yelled from the far side of the thistle patch. I bent over at the waist, but couldn't bend my knees. My pants were sweaty from running and---did I mention---a little tight. I couldn't bend anything. "I can't," I cried. Since I don't have gorilla arms, my hands flailed uselessly about an inch above the struggling lamb. My arms weren't long enough and I couldn't bend my knees!

"Get him!" Melissa cried as she ran toward us.

"I can't!" I was about to just let myself fall on the lamb, sort of like some denim-clad tree being felled, hoping not to crush her, when she broke free and zoomed away.

"Or you could just stand there looking good in those jeans," Melissa said with a sigh.

"Oh, that I can do," I said as I watched the two lambs disappear.

We finally had to walk up the hill and move the entire flock, all 120 sheep and 3 llamas, back down the hill, around the curve in the 'horseshoe.' The two lambs ran to meet the flock, and all was well. When we tried to then stop the sheep and get them to turn around and move back up the hill, they looked at us like we were insane.

"You moved us up the hill, then down the hill, and now you want us to go back up the hill?" one ewe said. "Those jeans must be cutting off the circulation to your brain."

We finally convinced them to move back up the hill to the new paddock. (You're probably wondering why we didn't use the border collie---the area was too tight and he might have caused a panic, and he's going deaf, so wants to do his own 'thing,' which isn't always our 'thing.')

Back at the house, I was so hot and sweaty from chasing sheep I almost couldn't get the jeans off.

So if you see me walking around town in my bib overalls, please don't raise your eyebrows at my really poor sense of fashion. Just know I'm trying to be a prepared shepherdess, instead of a vain one.

Goatless in Goodhue County

Today I almost stole a goat kid. Here's why:

We've had goats for over ten years, and they give birth to kids in March. I cuddle and play with the kids; they entertain me all year long. Goats are just like dogs, only with four stomachs and horizontal pupils.

This winter our goat Wendy started wasting away. The vet determined it was a fatal disease that lies dormant until a goat turns two (the disease is either genetic or caught somewhere, and I can't ask Melissa because she's at a friend's, and my mind doesn't retain medical stuff.) We didn't know how she'd gotten sick. We had no choice but to put Wendy down.

Her kid and Grace's kid were perfectly healthy, but could develop the same disease when they turned two, so we had no choice but to sell them for meat. This would be more responsible than selling them to some unsuspecting farmer and possibly introducing the disease onto his farm as well.

That left pregnant Grace. We had her tested...she was fine, but without Wendy and the kids, she was alone and unhappy, and it's a lot of work to just take care of one goat. We sold Gracie to a woman wanting to increase her herd.

March came, and because we were goatless, no goat kids romped through the barn. We missed them. But since the disease can remain in the soil for two entire years, we agreed to remain goatless for two years.

Today a woman called frantically looking for goat milk. She'd just agreed to raise a one-day goat kid, orphaned when its mother died. "Yes, yes," I said. "Come, come. We have frozen goat milk." She said the kid didn't like the nipple she bought at the farm supply store. "No, that's the wrong kind. You need the Pritchard teat. Come quickly. I have an extra one."

Thirty minutes later the woman was on my front step, receiving instructions on how to feed the baby. I was worried she wouldn't do it right. Maybe I should offer to take the baby. "Would you like to see her?" the woman asked. "She's in the car."

I almost knocked the woman over as I raced for her car. On the front seat sat a cat carrier. Inside was an absolutely adorable one-day old Boer goat kid. Boers are all white, except for their heads, which are a soft caramel brown. I peered in at the baby, who was fast asleep. The goat kid looked something like these two babies, which I found on Google Images:




My fingers twitched. Without asking permission, I reached for the latch on the carrier door. "I need to touch her," I said. Baby goats are amazingly soft and silky, and this little one was even softer and silkier. She slept on as I petted her.

I wanted this baby. Crazed, I turned and considered the woman next to me. I had five inches on her, and a good thirty pounds. I could take her, easy.

Then reason prevailed. Sighing heavily, I closed the carrier door, wished the woman luck, and went back inside. I marched to the calendar and counted down: 18 months until we are no longer goatless in Goodhue County.

Zen and the Art of Shaving a Cat


Lambing is all done, I've done my author 'thing' in Atlanta, so now it's time to get down to the really important business of spring: shaving our barn cat Pumpkin.

Pumpkin has long, thick hair that mats badly over the winter; by spring it's formed tight weaves that pull at his skin and make it hard for him to scratch or clean himself. Last spring our friend Amelia helped shave the cat, but she's crewing on an 80-ft sailboat off the coast of Maine...some excuse.

Since Melissa is skilled with the clippers, she needed unskilled labor (me) to hold the cat. I was afraid, very afraid. While he's friendly, Pumpkin is a barn cat, and doesn't take kindly to being told what to do, or to being restrained.

I dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, found a thick towel, and opened a can of nummy cat food (as a bribe for the cat, obviously.)

I was ready.

We sat on the front step and the first side went well as I held and Melissa shaved. But the novelty soon wore off, and Pumpkin wanted to leave. There was much cat wriggling, wrapping of cat in towel, more cat wriggling, more wrapping, more cat wriggling, and several near-escapes. When his efforts to escape didn't work, he started growling low in his throat, not a friendly sound.

Somehow, we finished the job without any bites or scratches, and ended up shaving off mats so large they could have doubled as a redhaired man's toupee.





I was so proud of myself. Look at me--I'm a farmer and I shaved the cat. I'm brave and fearless in the face of sharp claws and a growling feline.

But then I realized that all I did was face something that scared me, and people do this every day. People confront bosses or neighbors or deliver bad news or give speeches or just do something that's outside their comfort zone. I don't think we give ourselves enough credit for all the scary things we do.

People 'shave the cat' every day; there just may not be an actual cat, or actual shaving involved.