By the time I am done teaching at six each evening it is heavy dusk. Not quite full-on dark, but getting there. I walked down the road to gather sheep and stood by the garden looking up at a melon sky surrounding a fringe of clouds still lit by a far away sun. As I stood, I noticed my sheep at the south gate making small gutteral grunts to remind me of their presence and the October silence. I come down here each evening, but somewhere between last time and this, quiet had descended. Labor day is the official end of summer but through the early evenings of fall I am still able to hear the sound of crickets. Like the Robins and Hermit Thrush, it becomes background to our daily living. Until it doesn’t. Now, as darkness drops sooner each day, I walk quickly bringing sheep up. Muir and I move together to put them into their paddock then I race him to the house (he always wins), happy for the woodstove-warmth of the evening and the smell of dinner.
Two new wethers (a wether being a castrated male sheep) have joined our original flock of ladies. My goal was to add two new sheep to the flock before they come off pasture at the beginning of November. I did some searching but didn’t have luck finding what we were looking for. As the wind shifted from the north, I figured it would be our ladies who we brought up to the barnyard for the winter months. But a sheep farming friend whose husbandry I have always respected, let me know that she had an almost two year old and an eight month old wether for sale. After talking, looking, and more talking with Paul, I decided to bring them into the fold.
Persi (short for Persimmon) and Quince arrived on a recent Sunday in a horse trailer. Kim opened the back doors and they tentatively stuck their heads out to see where it was they had landed. With some coaxing they walked into the paddock and the new stall that we had built for them in the barn. Private quarters for a bit.
Later that evening, Bronte and I brought the ewes up from the pasture, nostrils flared and eyes opened as they took in the new sheep. Quince, the lamb, not tall enough to see over the fencing, lifted his black nose high into the air. After a few moments some of the braver ewes peered in through the wire fencing, and nose to nose they met Persi.
We kept them separated for a time, this for both health and social reasons. As with chickens, there is a distinct heirarchy in a flock. The first time we took the new pair down into the field with the rest, Mrs. Chubbers, the head ewe, immediately leaned into Persi to remind him who was matriarch and therefore would be walking lead. Quince trotted along on legs too long for him, like pants of the wrong size. He has yet to understand that a sheep is supposed to be a bit standoffish toward humans, and so each time I come into the barn he greets me with a nuzzle from his soft, black nose. He and Persi quickly learned the evening apple routine and I walk by clanking the metal bucket full of apples and find their faces peering at me with anticipation through the fence.
On the other hand, the original cast understood the social status perfectly well and Charlotte made it a point of dropping her head and swinging it, hard, into both Persi and Quince at every opportunity. Interestingly, Quince was the first one to drop his own head and meet skulls with his neighbor: afterward shaking his head as if to say, “that wasn’t as fun as I thought it might be.”
I‘ve taken to sitting in the corner of the barn in the evenings, watching the playground. I have to admit that I couldn’t help intervening a few times after watching Quince lift his little tail and race around the yard avoiding being bashed. I did think I’d see his buddy, Persi help some, but he is a bit of a social suck-up and wants to be sure he is part of the “in” crowd.
As I sit in the straw watching this unfold, I can’t help thinking how similar this situation is to kids starting at a new school: the first scary trip on the school bus. Or like my son, Jesse, beginning a new job in place that is a full plane ride from home, walking in dressed-up only to find everyone dressed down. My mother moving out of the familiar and into the strange and empty. We all know how this works.
It will get easier for Persi and Quince. And I do admit to taking a little pleasure watching two males try to find their way in a flock dominated by females.
And, although I know things have changed a lot since I was the new kid on the playground, at least fewer people put their head down and butt you on the way to lunch.