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This is the time of year when the cycle begins again…shearing, then lambing, then irrigation, then haying. Interspersed between these farm events are the Black Sheep Gathering and the Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival. There are not many spare moments until the end of September. This past winter has been a difficult one in so many ways, so energy-draining that I feel that I am blundering forward into spring…no marching this year.

I dread shearing as much as I look forward to lambing. As is the case for all Shetland breeders, we have to shear early in the spring, to take the fleeces before the sheep begin to shed them. And it is never warm enough to suit me.

I took this photo on shearing morning….the sheep looked at me innocently and I wanted to tell them that it would be alright, but I knew that they would be distressed, and afterwards miserably cold (even though we bed them deeply, protect them from drafts as best we can, and feed them extra) until they have acclimatized and grown in a bit more wool. I am always worried for them….up until this year, there has only ever been one ill ewe after shearing, and that in our second year of shepherding. But that experience has remained in my memory and colored my reactions ever since.

Last week, my worst fears were realized: Guro, one of our favorite ewes, had a terrible shearing cut that required suturing. A cut of this magnitude had never happened to us, and we didn’t know how bad it was until the shearer had left. With the pain, and the cold wintery weather, and the trauma of sewing her up, Guro stopped eating, and became weaker and weaker. We waged a 5 day battle, with every desperate measure to keep her alive, but we ultimately lost her. Guro wasn’t a young ewe, but not old either (9 this year). She was high strung and shy when she came to us at 3, but in her later life, she became very trusting and sweet. But even so, I think that she so hated having things “done to her” that the various treatments (which were potentially life-saving) stressed her more than the support that they gave.

Understanding philosophically that we can’t always intercede in these instances (no matter how hard we try) doesn’t help my sense of loss, my feeling of failure. Guro is gone. Although she gave us a beautiful son last year (who was always a “keeper”), and who carries her spirit…I want Guro herself back. She was too young to die; we had more years to live together.

Then that evening at bed-time, in a moment of grace, we had a completely unexpected lamb born. Pavane had been bred to Sheltering Pines Constantine last fall, but so far she hadn’t seemed even close to lambing. But that night, she gave birth to her first lamb ever, and our first lamb of the season. She had a rowdy ewe-lamb who came out celebrating her life, up walking after 3 or 4 minutes, dancing around her mother by 15 minutes of age…so full of energy and so self-confident!

The presence of Pavane’s lamb has been a blessing, a reminder of the continuity of life….if not Guro’s spirit returning to us.

There are 17 more ewes to deliver this year sometime before the middle of April, several looking very near to lambing. At this time of year, I am filled with so many conflicting emotions….happy anticipation, worry (always there), vigilance, mixed in with joy in the new lives.

I am focusing on the joy…..