The Secret Life of Sheep

Saturday afternoon, I watched sheep and lambs as they grazed in a Rio Linda pasture.  A llama badly in need of a shearing watched over the flock and patiently dealt with the lambs.   It was a peaceful setting that I knew so well.   

“They’ll be lamb next week or so.  Gonna retire some ewes, too,” said the resident lamb expert standing next to me.  She put her camera to her face and started shooting.

Visions of lamb chops, lamb kabobs, and rack of lamb on stark white restaurant platters came to mind and temporarily took me from this scene of rural paradise.

Ewe.

Raising sheep for fiber is based on the same farming concept  used when raising crops.  But with sheep particularly raised for its fiber, you weed out the ones who won’t produce top fiber and don’t go into trauma and drama about the ones who are going to (forgive me) get the axe.  In the business of raising animals, you can’t keep all of them around as pets.  Common sense will tell you that it’s not cost effective.

When it comes to not having any common sense and being a sucker for animals, count me in.  I get attached to anything I feed.

Don’t get me wrong.  These people love their animals.  Each one has a name, and people in the business can tell you everything about each animal, its history and its registry.  Sheep have bloodlines, and like any farm animal, they need to be looked after and cared for. 

If you raise sheep or deal with fiber as an artist, you’ll know all about sheep.  To the point you can rattle off the names of breeds like Merino, Cotswold, Corridale, Charollaise, Cormo, etc.  Sheep come in all shapes and sizes and are raised for fiber, meat or both.  And I've been around spinners and weavers who will only use a certain wool for their creations.    

These days, I don’t even think about what it would be like to live on two acres or more.  I tend to my ¼-acre of suburban delight and plant vegetables and yank weeds out of the soil in the spring, deadhead roses in the summer, rake a ridiculous amount of leaves in the fall, and read gardening books and articles in the winter.   

In my neighborhood, we’re allowed to have chickens, but if I raised chickens, I know I would sneak in a goat or two as pets.  I wouldn’t mind having a miniature horse.  But now that I’m good with retirement, what I have now in terms of activities keeps me busy, and sometimes, in a good way, I feel overwhelmed.

From my experience, living on a farm and dealing with plants or animals means having to deal with loss.  At an early age, I already knew how much damage a knife or a gun could bring to an animal or a human being.  I learned that life is nothing but a series of seasons or cycles.  No matter what, we keep going.

So with what I’ve learned about sheep, I can only be grateful for those who raise them.  I don’t have it in me to raise animals.  When it comes to anything related to farming, I’ll stick to flowers, plants, shrubs, and trees.

Pass the roving, please.