In the latter days of January each year, when the ground was still frozen hard and you could see your breath as you walked outdoors in the mornings, a crop of new lambs was born on the farm. Amazingly, most but not all of them survived.
Lambs were some of the cutest of all the farm animals. Like a lot of newborns, their legs always looked too tall for their bodies. It was fun to watch them, “baa-ing” after their mamas, bouncing around on their black hooves, and wiggling their tails when they nursed. I thought I would love to rub my hand over their woolly backs, but neither the lambs nor the ewes would let me get close enough to do that. Not to mention that I was afraid of the buck sheep.
Mom was especially fond of the sheep because her Aunt Rexie had given her the first few ewes after she and Dad were first married. Even when it wasn’t practical for us to continue to raise them any more, Mom was reluctant to sell our little flock. I heard her talk about it. I guess I liked the sheep partly because Mom liked them so much, but also I thought it was awful that sheep were the prey so often. I thought there was nothing sadder than a little lamb that had lost its mother. Even today I sympathize with them. Who hasn’t felt like a lost lamb at times? Who hasn’t been unable to defend themselves at times?
During the summers Dad would hire a group of workers to come to do the shearing. The wool could be sold for a little extra cash at that time when there was not much money coming in. One group of men were from a family who lived on Indian Creek. They were good workers. David remembers this group especially because there was a little boy about his age who played with him, climbing all over the rafters in the tobacco barn. It was very rare for us to be around black people at that time, and I was a little bit afraid of them. But Dad liked them and invited them to have dinner at our house. I couldn’t remember much about how the clipping was done, but apparently David remembers even though most of the time he had been playing. He said that one of the men cranked a handle, and a rod connected to the handle ran to the clippers. The rod had an elbow so that the man doing the clipping could turn the clippers this way and that. I do remember that the machine was noisy which made the sheep even more nervous. I know that the shearing was a necessary job, a hard job, but I always felt sorry for the sheep. They looked so frightened, and I was sure they didn’t like their new haircuts. It might have been a consolation to consider that the sheep were probably more comfortable in the hot summer without their thick wool coats, but I didn’t think of that advantage back then.
Alline and Clarice have both said they had one job in taking care of sheep that they hated. My two older sisters were doing a lot of the outside work, even though they were still barely more than children. They had to drive the sheep into shelter for the night. Imagine the two of them… probably not much taller than the sheep themselves. But they did their best. The little house used for shelter was the same house where my dad had been born many years before. It sat over the hill from the black tobacco barn and near the present-day pond. The house was small and the sheep did not like to be crowded inside. To make the chore even harder, if there was a ewe with a new lamb, she would have to be put in the separate side room so the baby wouldn’t get trampled. It was a hard, drawn-out job every night…. not a happy memory for Clarice and Alline. Just ask them and you’ll see their reactions for yourself. I promise you that they have not forgotten this chore!
Of course, all of their hard work was for the sheep’s own protection, for there was always the chance that prowling dogs would attack. Raising sheep required such vigilance. As I remember what my parents and siblings did, I wonder that they didn’t just become discouraged and give up. Sheep were prey to roving dogs over and over again, and trouble could happen night or day. Perhaps you have heard that at one time Dad had a sheep skin “cushion” which he used on the seat of his tractor. That “cushion” came from a ewe that Dad found killed in the Kissee field. (Ask one of my brothers to explain where the Kissee field is).
Of course, there were many days when the sheep did graze peacefully. (See the attached pictures.) They would move slowly over the hills and low places, feeding on the grass in the mornings, resting and chewing their cuds in the afternoons, and coming back faithfully to where they were currently sheltered when night was approaching. That is how I like to remember our little flock. But there were other times….
As years went by different places were used to try to keep the herd safe. In a conversation a few years back, Alline told me she could remember a long time ago when she was still very, very young, when the sheep were housed in the barn nearest the house. (I assume that there was only a half a dozen or so of them at that time). One day the sheep were down near the spring that runs in the woodland below the barn. Dogs attacked. The sheep tried to run up hill toward the barn, but the dogs easily outran them. Dad drove the dogs away, but not before one ewe was badly hurt. She was too heavy for Dad to carry to the barn, so he built a sled and put the sheep on that to transport her. Later he made a small pen just outside the barn on the side nearest the house where the ewe could feed during the day. Alline told me she thought the sheep did survive.
It was frustrating that sheep often would go astray when they were out to pasture. In those days farmers had a very simple surveillance system. One ewe which was thought to be the leader of the flock wore a bell around her neck which, of course, rang as she would lead the rest of the herd over the fields. If there was a rapid clanging of the bell, heard over and over, it meant a predator was chasing the sheep. And of course, the repeated sounding of the bell at night always meant danger.
It was fortunate that my mom was a light sleeper. I can remember more than one night when she would call out, “Marvice, the dogs are in the sheep!” Dad would be up fast, pulling on his overalls, grabbing his shot gun, and running toward the barn. Alline told me she remembers being scared to death when that happened. Me too. At the times I remember, the sheep were not herded indoors, but were gathered for the night up close to the black tobacco barn.* In my memory it seems as though there were many times when the bell ewe awakened my parents. And sometimes the sheep were harmed in spite of Dad’s best effort. Losing stock this way was just one of the rugged parts of farming.
But sometimes Dad did win.
David remembers two specific incidents. One happened when dogs attacked in the day time. One morning not long after breakfast, Dad and David were in the living room. The sheep had already been turned out to pasture for the day. Mom had stepped outside for some reason when she heard dogs barking and the ewe bell ringing. She hollered to Dad who grabbed his shot gun and went toward the barn. And this time, David said he also ran right at Dad’s heels. He heard one shot, then he heard a dog yelp. He heard another shot, and another yelp. The next day, David said he found a half-moon shaped space clipped out of the top board of the gate by the barn where Dad’s bullet had nicked the board.. The bullets had nicked the dogs as well. In this case the dogs didn’t die. But they also didn’t come back.
On yet another occasion, there was a dog attack in the middle of the day. David says he believes it was Mom again who heard the dogs first. This time the sheep had been grazing in the field near the old house where Alline and Clarice used to do their herding. This time Dad didn’t just nick the dogs. He killed them. After he saw what he had done, he recognized the dead animals as those belonging to two neighbors. Of course, he felt bad. David says that he remembers that Dad said, “I’m going to have to go tell Carlos and Coleman that I killed their dogs.” He worried about that, but he went to the neighbors and told them what happened. David overheard Dad telling Mom later that Coleman had said, “Marvice, I ain’t mad at all. You did the only thing you could have done.” And Carlos agreed. How could you ask for better neighbors than that!
If you prompt my brothers, Ronald, Donald, or David, or either of my sisters, they can tell you many more stories about sheep. They know a lot of details that I have forgotten or maybe never did know. Ask them. They can also tell you about Dad ordering black-faced sheep from Wyoming… or was it another western state? I forgot. But they’ll remember.
Now to be fair , I have to tell you that once in a while dogs can be the victim of sheep. Bet you don’t believe it, but it’s true. The following incident happened when Danny’s dog, Tip, was staying with us on the farm. (A couple of months ago Danny sent us a story about Tip, remember? )
Well, read on….
One cold morning probably in late January or early February, Mom told David to go out to the (black) tobacco barn and let the sheep out to pasture before he went to school. At that time the sheep were being kept in the gangway ( middle of the barn) at night or one of the larger stables. There were several new lambs that year. One ewe had twins. On this morning Tip had tagged along with David. Remember it was a frosty morning., so poor Tip was cold. He had found a somewhat warm place in the sun on the bank of the road in front of the old house. He had just curled himself up for a nap when David opened the big barn doors to let the sheep start coming outside. The ewe with twins came out first. She looked directly down the road to where Tip was. She did not like what she saw! Poor old Tip… innocent as could be. But that ewe saw danger! She stamped her front feet, then made a run toward Tip with her head down. She hit him hard, knocking him through the air and upside down, out into the road several feet away. Tip came awake mad as fire! He was ready to tear that sheep apart. He was lunging and growling, trying his hardest to pull away from David’s grip. He wanted to kill that ewe!. But David kept hanging on. And Tip kept right on growling and lurching and trying to get loose. David said he had never seen a dog so mad. It went on and on. He thought he would never calm that dog down. And who could blame Tip. Poor dog……
But on the other hand, the ewe seemed happy. She went back to where her two lambs were waiting and trotted on out to pasture.
*I think perhaps the sheep were being kept just outside the (black) barn at that time because the barn could have been full of tobacco.