Published: May 29, 2008 08:14 am         

Tail end of a long line

When I sit on our back porch, with or without a glass of something iced in hand, I can look down the lawn, past the back of the barn, and all the way down the end of our east pasture. That’s about a football field’s length. The three ewes, when they’re all the way down there, show only their backs as they drift through the lush grass.

But around them, springing out of the grass and dropping back out of sight, are dots of white and black.

That’s the five lambs, springing up like fleas and then disappearing in the grass. Then they repeat the antic a few yards away. It’s endlessly amusing for them — and for me, with or without a glass.

I’m happy with the lamb class of ’08, and a bit sad, too. They’re the last ones that will result from breeding and birth here. My diminishments make it good sense to give up tending sheep through the winter, carrying buckets of water to fill their tub, hauling bales of hay downstairs from the barn, through the snow, and into their shed.

And so, after we send the last class of lambs on their way in October, their mamas will be moving, too. Rachael, Tess, and Uma will be heading north, up Fly Creek Valley to help Tom and Kristin Pullyblank get a flock started. Up there, the ewes will take over quarters just vacated by the four porkers the Pullyblanks are now raising. Of the class of ’08, four lambs were born while we were out of the country, pootling around Quebec and Ontario with the Throwers. The lambs showed just before we did; neighbors Don and Terri Houser jumped in to help our house sitter Brian Phillips with the midwifery. In fact, little help was needed. Rachael and her granddaughter Tess each produced a set of twins; one in each set is white, and one black. When we got home, mothers and four offspring were doing fine. Thanks, friends! The Throwers, of course, were “chuffed to bits,” as they’d say, to come home to new lambs; I know Barbara is showing photos of her godlambs to all her friends. But the Brits, as we, remained puzzled by Uma, the third ewe.

This was to have been her first birth, but all evidence now suggested that the little Kahtodin rent-a-ram didn’t get around to her. Or perhaps her daunting height was a bit too much.

But shame on us for doubting him. A week after the birth of the four, Ron Miller pulled into our yard and drove his pickup down to the sheep paddock. Ron’s been shearing for us for a dozen years, and we’ve become good friends. As he sets up his equipment, we always talk our way through the winter’s weather and mishaps, and speculate on the likely date for planting tomatoes and squash.

I’ve treasured Ron’s visits and will miss them as much as the sheep.

Well, as Ron began his shearing of Uma, I explained that she’d evidently not taken this year. “Whoa, don’t be too sure!” said Ron, shaving her belly. Sure enough, a small but respectable udder appeared. “Either she’s lost a stillborn and this bag is receding,” said Ron, grinning, “or she’s going to surprise you in about a week.” That was decades of sheep experience talking.

And surprise us she did. A week to the day, I entered their sunny paddock and almost stepped on a lamb huddled against the shed. I thought, of course, it was one of the four and worried at once about its thinness and seeming frailty. Sometimes lambs don’t thrive, suddenly lose ground, and die.

But then I glanced behind me. There stood Rachael and Tess, their four offspring pounding lustily at their udders. And, around the corner of the shed, here came new mama Uma, complaining loudly about my nearness to her lamb.

It was a small one, white with touches of mocha brown around her haunches and on her face.

Her eyes were circled with the brown, making her look like a clown half into makeup. But to my relief, she stood up as I watched and began a full-body search of Uma for those faucets.

Two weeks later, she’s still smaller than the others, but she’s already running with the gang they’ve formed. The five of them jump and gambol, chase the chickens, climb up a ramp to play king of the mountain. They even touch noses with Blue through the fence.

Back on the morning I found her, I picked up the new lamb and carried her into the shed, followed by a protesting Uma. Holding her lamb under one arm, I set up the sides of the bonding pen and put the lamb inside. Uma followed her at once, and I locked the pen behind them. I figured that Uma would need a few days to adjust to motherhood and was pleased when she stopped her baaing and began to chuckle maternally each time her lamb bleated. Bonding was under way.

Three days later I opened the pen. Uma bounded out at once and headed outside for green grass and sunshine. The clown-faced lamb stepped out uncertainly into the shed and stared after her mother. All that brightness through the doorway! She bleated, and Uma answered from outside.

There’s a sill to negotiate in leaving the shed, one step up and one down. The lamb pawed at the sill and then got both front hoofs up on it. With a hop, she got back hoofs up, too, and stood teetering. She glanced over her shoulder and gave a distressed bleat.

“Don’t look at me!” I said. “The world’s out there, waiting for you.”

With that, she jumped outside with a wag of that mocha tail. It seemed like a wave. I waved back.

Find out about Jim Atwell’s book, “From Fly Creek — Celebrating Life in Leatherstocking Country” at www. JimAtwell.com.