Day: August 4, 2016

I never imagined when we kept Ma alive to give birth to her twins – it nearly killed her several times over – that she and Jake and Deb would be gone in several years, and that I would end up killing each one of them.

Ma was a special ewe, strong and sweet and frail, it nearly cost her  her life to give birth to those twins,  I literally had to reach in and pull both of them out. Deb and Jake and Ma were together for months, and then Ma got sick, and then a few months later, Jake, who was always a frail lamb, got sick as well.

There was a spiritual quality to these twins, they were joyous, playful and beautiful, I thought they were especially blessed. Life has its own ideas about that, of course, and it turns out they  were all sick in different ways, it just took awhile to see it.

The farm teaches us about life and death, they are not different things but the same things. Some friends read about Deb on my blog and sent me messages of sorrow and condolence.

“Are you are right?,” several asked. Of course I am. I am not speaking as a tough guy, I am no tough guy, I am missing the macho gene. I have no business lamenting my life, the life I love, the life I choose. On a farm, with donkeys and sheep and dogs and chickens and cats, death has his own place in the stable.

If you have life, you have death, and what do people expect? I think of Simon, Frieda, Izzy, Lenore, Rose, Ma, Deb and Jake. Am I to mourn each one, write woe-is-me stories about my life, ask the Gods why this is happening to us?

That is not my path. I give thanks for knowing these wonderful creatures, for the opportunity to care for them and love them, for the many lessons they teach me about acceptance, endurance and life. Before I shot Deb, all of the sheep were clustered around the stall gate, they seemed worried about her.

I did my mourning in the  barn. I will not turn my time with them into a lament. I will not remember the anniversary of their deaths. I will not even think about it in a day or so. I want to keep my cup full, not drink it empty.

When I put the rifle down a few seconds later, the animals were all out grazing just a few feet away. There you go.  Life goes on. We go on. We move on. Thanks Ma, and Deb and Jake. You enriched this place in every way. Thanks for the photos and the yarn. Thanks for  making Red shine and look so good. Thanks for the love you showed Maria and for the love you let her give.

For me, it is often more merciful and compassionate to kill my stricken animals rather than to have a stranger come in and stick an IV drip into them.

I can’t do that with donkeys and horses or dogs, but I can do it with chickens and sheep or sick animals wandering in the pasture.

It is no fun to shoot one of your own animals, especially one you have helped birth and photographed, but it is my responsibility to see that if they have to leave the world, that they do so quickly and as painlessly as possible.

I have learned a skill I never imagined I would have, to shoot animals knowingly and kill them instantly. I know just where to shoot them and my aim is very good.

They never see, hear, or feel a thing. I used my .22 rifle and fired two shots into Deb’s forehead and three into her heart in rapid succession. She trembled and shook for five or ten seconds, then was still.

For me, a sad act of mercy and compassion.

Ma’s legacy is over, she and her twins, Debbie and Jake are now all gone, and that is the story of the real life of real animals. Life. death. life. We still have a fistful of syringes filled with medicines, we will throw them out.

I will be candid and say that this one was hard.

All night and through the morning, Deb’s condition worsened, she couldn’t stand, eat, drink or react to movement in front of her. I brought Red into the stall several times to see if he could provoke her into standing, but she didn’t even seem to see him, an unmistakable sign that she is gravely ill and suffering. She couldn’t stop panting, a sign of pain or fear.

Fate stared at her in shock, for once, she was her own equivalent of speechless – she didn’t move.

Sick sheep either get well quickly, or not at all. I am glad she is out of her suffering,  she was a sweet animal with much personality and beautiful wool.

Hopefully in one way or another, she has gone to join her mother, who fought to hard to give birth to her, and her brother Jake, who never left her side.

I suppose this is the hard place of living with animals, but it is not a tragedy for me, it is life, and if I can’t handle this, I have no business being here. Maria and I have been through this a number of times now, we are in accord, we know what has to be done, we know when it is time to try and save an animal, and time to let them go. If  I cannot let them go when they are suffering, then I am not loving them, I am loving me.

The reality of animals is tricky, sheep are worth about $60 at market, how could I look any farmer in the face if I spent $500 to pump medicines into them that are unlikely to work. Sheep are mysterious beings, they get sick suddenly and very often. Veterinary care is expensive and uncertain.

Here on the farm, I do not wallow in death. I said goodbye to Deb and thanked her for her great service to us – the dogs, Maria’s yarn, my photography, my writing.  I told her I am grateful for the joy of looking out any window and seeing the timeless beauty of grazing sheep. And for the boundless joy of working with sheep and my dogs. Deb never gave Red a hard time. I Hope there is a green pasture somewhere, I told her,  where she can rejoin her brother, who she loved, and graze peacefully with no dogs to bother her.

Now, time to look forward, not back. That is the lesson of the farm.

It does not get any easier, just more familiar. Deb is struggling, the medications the vet left us with are not working, she can’t stand up, is breathing heavily, and panting. Today, we have the familiar decisions to make.

Do we call the vet again? Are there other things to try? How much money can we spend and do we want to spend?  Do we give her more time? Is she suffering? She is a young sheep, three years old, and until yesterday morning, healthy and active. I believe she is dying. I gave her her two shots this morning, perhaps that will work a small miracle. I can’t lie, I don’t think it will.

And of course, there is the most elemental question, should she be put down, and if so, should the vet do it or should I do it? We are especially fond of Deb, she and Jake made the most beautiful kind of twins when they were lambs, there was always something spiritual about her, I guess there still is.

If she has to be put down, I am mindful that it is summer and warm, how will we dispose of the body? She is big and heavy, we will need help, and who to call for help with this particular task? I think I will call my friend Ed Gulley, he comes to mind. I will need a back-up in case he is not available.

In the life and death cycles of the farm, there are so many practical considerations, there is not much space for the emotional ones. I tighten up when this decision looms, I wonder what the most humane and merciful thing to do really is.

Should Deb’s body go to feed the animals in nature, or should we think of burying her here? We believe in returning our animals to nature if we can, to feed the others.

We will have to move her quickly, before the flies and the maggots get to her body. We hope she lives, but we have to be prepared if she dies, that will take some planning. We will give her more time, give the medications more time, perhaps give us more time.

We will need to tell Deb, our petsitter so she can say goodbye, if it comes to that. Maria and I are both tense, quiet, we have been there before, we know the drill. Sick sheep do not often get well, the vet has many things to try but very few of them work. And they are all very expensive. And Deb is suffering all the while.

So we will give this more time, gather more information, come back to it later. The curious thing is that the decision will be made for us in many ways, we have been here before, we will know what to do. And I will, of course, share it. This is the other end of a live with animals, life, death, life. If you love animals and live with them, you will know this often. I am sad, I am wide open.  I know Maria is suffering, she keeps going to the barn to visit with her. We will see what life offers us.

Life is filled with crisis and mystery.