Spring enters on tiny lamb feet

Spring is set to arrive after 6pm on Wednesday, March 20^th. I don’t know about you but I am ready. I don’t know why but this winter seemed longer than usual. Maybe it’s the simple fact that we did not escape to the sunny south this year. That does a nice job of breaking up winter.

I know spring is in the air because the birdsong has changed. I hear those birds that are only around in spring. And I haven’t seen them myself yet but I have heard reports of geese sightings over Bishops Mills. That is always a welcome sight at the end of a long, cold season of snow and ice.

In years past, we were up to our rubber boots in lambs by the middle of March. I have to admit, I’m a bit nostalgic looking at other farmers’ posts on social media of their newborn fluffies. We gave up raising sheep because it was more work than it was worth, but I do miss the lambs. They were fun. Especially the ones I bottle fed.

We kept the lambs in the barn with their moms for about 8 weeks. After that, we opened the door and let ‘em go. The ewes would be the first to escape to freedom, forgetting for a moment that they were mothers at all. They kicked up their hooves and pranced into the meadow where they fell on the new grass and munched all the green sweetness.

Their babies would be right behind them, in a mass of squealing and bawling fleece. Abandoned. Terrified. Out in the sunshine and wide open space for the first time in their short lives. Hearing their bleats, the mothers would come to their senses. Turn around and bounce back over to the calls that belonged to them. Reunited with their babies.

Often the ewes would feed their young and then tuck them into the bushes, out of the hot sun and blackflies, for a nap. Then they would wander off to eat their fill. When the babies woke up, the squealing would start all over again. We could hear this drama from the house and we always knew when someone was separated from their wee one.

Occasionally a ewe would cry to tell us that her lamb had gotten himself stuck in the hay feeder. One day we went out and saw a ewe standing there beside the huge round bale, bawling her face off. I couldn’t see what the problem was. All around her, sheep were munching away, chewing their hay. The lambs were huddled in a kindergarten setting over by the rock pile, with one ewe watching over them. Then I saw it. A tiny hoof poked out of the hay that was under the massive feeder. The ewe had shoved her lamb under there for safety, but she almost lost him. As the animals fed and dropped hay around the feeder, it covered the lamb completely. He had wriggled so far beneath the feeder that I could barely reach him to yank him out.

Sheep usually react just like I do when they are truly terrified by something: they are completely silent. When they spot a coyote watching them from his perch behind the stone fence they turn and run quietly up to the barn, en masse. All you can hear is a gentle stampede of tiny hooves.

Luckily the arrival of Donkey put an end to most of our sheep kills. We only lost one or two after he showed up on the scene – usually on the days when we had a farm party and he decided he would rather be at the fence, socializing with humans, than watching over his flock.

Spring is an exciting time when you live on a farm. It’s a season of promise and planning, determination and design. We prep our gardens and flowerbeds for the summer growing season ahead, and watch as the tractors roll in to sow seeds in the fields.

Fergus the retriever is pretty happy about spring. He’s muddy as a pig today because it is mild and wet out there. He’s not much for the summer sun but he can’t handle extreme cold either. Spring and fall are his favourite seasons – and they are ours too. I’m looking forward to pulling on some rubber boots and taking him on our first patrol of the property for the season. The lambs may be gone but the coyotes are still there.

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