Country Roads

Shear joy
The animal planets were misaligned this week. One would think an earthquake was lurking in an unannounced forecast – perhaps the “Big One” that separates our Golden State from the rest of the Lower 48?
But, no, everything’s now as normal as it ever is, while giving me a story to write, however anticlimactic. It all started with the sheep shearer coming. The weeks had been cool, making me glad that the shearer had not removed the cozy blankets of fleece attached to my two Shetland three-year-olds, Posey and Patrick. One year’s wool growth, rounded bundles of soft, gray fluff, their dainty legs are as out of proportion as the legs of baby grand pianos.
About the time summer’s hot afternoons arrived, so did the shearer. I knew he was coming, but I didn’t recall the preparation required, which includes making sure there is electricity in the sheep house. It has sporadic electricity, but that day there was none.
We had two choices. Provide our house electricity to the sheep (locating every extension cord on the farm) or bring the sheep into the kitchen. We chose the first option. Finally Paul the shearer was able to yell that our multiple cords afforded him enough slack to shear the sheep.
Next job: catch them. Note: two sheep quickly recognize that they are the first to be shorn and they don’t want to be. Paul is a good sized guy and I am not squeamish about tackling a sheep, but it took us five minutes to corner Patrick and keep him cornered so Paul could drag him over to the tarp and settled him onto a surface not littered with pokey oak leaves and dirt.
The shearing takes less than five minutes and is a magical thing to observe. The animal reemerges as someone else – a deer with huge eyes. Posey took about the same time and we now had two strange beasts in the yard.
Posey took one look at Patrick and rammed him. Patrick, who is blind since birth, spent the next hour keeping his distance from her. The following day was worse. Patrick was running from her and she remained in hot pursuit of him, charging into him.
I asked Jon Wright at Wright’s Feed if he could explain her behavior. “You should see 600 sheep fight after they’ve been shorn,” he said. “If Patrick could see her he would be butting her as well. They don’t recognize each other. Keep them separated for a week and then they’ll be fine.”
So, with one sheep in one side of the gated yard, and the other on the other side, they were in isolation. I left them and went about my farming chores. Heading toward my son’s workshop which also provides storage space, our produce cooler, animal feed repository and general work area, I distinctly detected a high pitched peeping sound and it wasn’t coming from the nearby chicken coop. No, it was coming from beneath his work bench.
A mother hen was clucking and teaching her day-old chicks to scratch on the floor of the shop. I counted nine chicks. My heart sank. I love chicks, who doesn’t? But chicks on this farm means catching them and their mama; putting them into a separate cage, safe from the rest of the flock and the rats who live beneath the coop; providing extra feed and water for a separate population of chickens for a month; then a trip to Western Farm in Santa Rosa with five or six young roosters since half the chicks will be roosters. I won’t know who is who until the cockerels (young roosters) develop a longer leg and larger tail feathers. Chasing chickens around a coop or a yard is only fun for someone watching – not the one who wields the net amongst the panicked population of chickens, each thinking that the fiend without feathers is after them.
The task of catching those chicks amongst all the accoutrements of the workshop and the wood pile outside fell to an abundance of farm family. There were little girls, big girls, one old lady and a couple of house guests from France, all assisting in the catch.
In the end, a peaceful farm returned. Mama and chicks are safe and happy; Posey decided that she really does know Patrick and that he is merely sporting a different hairdo. The planets are resettled while heading into the “Dog Days of Summer” alignment as I note the odd behavior of our Schipperke, Hobbes.
Renee Kiff weeds and writes at her family farm in Alexander Valley.