This May Monday, bouncing along Witchtrot road with a belly
of coffee and a halo of sun glinting off the new leaves, the week could not
have felt more full of promise. I was sure I would find time to write, but
there was too much to do at the urgent pace of a Maine spring day. Now it is
Tuesday, beset with rain; the sense of promise is gone, but fulfillment is
closer, as the earth slows to take a drink.
People are calling this the winter that never came, but when
the first birds and insects broke the silence, it was clear we were waking from
something; not the long, deep slumber of a typical Maine winter, but at least a
nap. Those first twitters were followed by the roar of peepers and all of a
sudden it was summer in spring, long hot days and drying grass.
Into this strange, warm new world were born four Icelandic
lambs, a breed that has been virtually unchanged since the Vikings brought them
West. I helped deliver the first two, guiding the two small black hooves and
one black nose out like delicate folded tripods. I had warning of that birth,
seeing the ewe separate from the herd and look at me with a beseeching
expression hours before she was due. There was time to put her in the stall
alone, and when I woke at midnight to check on her, the water bag was just
emerging. I stayed up all night, drying the lambs and making sure they were
nursing. The second ewe went into labor four days early and without warning, on
a morning when my daughter was sick with the stomach flu. I went out to check
on the sheep and found the ewe nursing one lamb; she had rejected the other,
which had toddled off to another ewe in search of milk. Sheep are such devoted
mothers, licking their newborns, nickering to them and watching over them
constantly, that it is heartbreaking to see them butt away one of their own.
After several long days and nights trying to reunite mother and ewe – feeding,
petting, and sometimes restraining the ewe so the lamb could nurse and
hopefully re-acquire her own mother’s smell - we consigned ourselves to bottle-raising the baby. This
meant waking once or twice in the middle of the night, warming her milk and
going out to the barn to feed her; first every two hours, then every three,
then every four. After two week of this she was strong enough to make it
through the night, and we slowly started to piece our lives back together.
Now our field is full of jumping lambs, our nest boxes are
full of eggs, the apple trees and blueberry bushes are planted, and after much
plowing and tilling and rock removal we have prepared patches of ground for our
other crops. A frost last weekend (low of 26) made us glad we waited to put in
our seedlings. When the kids had
their spring break and my parents came to visit, we invited our favorite
neighbors to join us for a BBQ. One of the families rolled up in their giant
blue tractor; the others walked across the field from their house to ours
carrying homemade pies. We barbecued a shoulder from a goat we had butchered
last fall, and served home brew. After dinner my father played his guitar and I
fiddled; we played Ragtime Annie as well a new tune (Amelia’s waltz) that is
something of a local favorite here. Then the kids got tired so we all tucked in
early, Maine-style. We did the
same last weekend, at a “May Day” party where we brought our bottle lamb for
the kids to pet and I fiddled for the may pole dance.
Zora has become quite a little storyteller. Her imaginary
world is full of animals and babies, and whenever something happens in our
lives, it is sure to show up in her parallel world. I am now frequently asked
to babysit her Emu during the day while she is at school. Jonah had a spate of
being a juvenile deliquent a few weeks ago, telling two girls in the space of
one week that he loved them and then, at his school’s Spring Concert, stowing
rocks in his pocket to throw at parents who might try to take his picture. I
discovered the plan in time, but felt wholly depressed that my child would
consider such a thing. His phobia about cameras seems to override all reason and
spur him to acts of violence he would not normally consider. We have been making an effort to spend
more time exercising him after school, now that the weather is nicer; he loves
playing soccer. The kids are both avid swimmers and we have been enjoying our
membership at the YMCA, visiting the pool once a week. Last weekend, Zora’s
best school friend Amari joined us. Zora’s fearlessness in the water was so
infectious that Amari went from being afraid to enter the pool to swimming its
length with her “floaties” on. Amari’s mother Andrea is a Spanish teacher at
the local high school, a single mom, and a singer who plays all over the area. I
was told a few weeks ago by a store clerk in Dover (20 minutes away and
population 30,000) that I reminded her of someone – it turned out to be Andrea,
of all people, that I reminded the clerk of. Andrea and I like to play music
together on our daughters’ play dates, and she has invited me to fiddle along
on a song at her gig this Friday. So I put down the writing now to try and work
out a suitable accompaniment, wringing what I can from the minutes of this
rainy day.
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