Farm Friday, August 18th, 2023

Rest in Peace Lucy Sheep

This is the week when I have to answer the question “How has your summer been?” The staff from the school I work for have been off doing non-school things (many have a second job in the summer) and they are all curious about how the school’s farm and farmers have been over the summer.

I’ve already had the question a few times during a family event last Sunday. I am expected to talk about the lack of rainfall and offer a few details about which crops are doing well.

The first thing out of my mouth has been “Our cat died.” Our house feels empty without him. It was such a shock. One minute he was eating breakfast and within 30 minutes he was dead from a stroke.

This week, the second thing out of my mouth has been “And our sheep Lucy died this week, too.”

At this point, any listener (who had, admittedly, been expecting small talk about rainfall and tomatoes) will say something like “Rough summer, huh?” And I’ll say “Yea. It is a lot.”

We have a few household grieving processes for beloved animals. We try to be with the dying animal. Talking to them and touching them. We light a candle. Once the animal has passed, we keep the candle going and bring flowers and trinkets to be with the body. We don’t bury immediately. A full day’s wake allows us and our other animals time to be with the body and cry if we need to. We tell stories about the beloved animal at the graveside and throw the flowers and other bits into the grave.

Lucy was underweight in May when we sheared the sheep. Since then we have been trying every intervention we could. The vet came multiple times. We wormed her; dosed her with antibiotics; gave her vitamins; did a rumen transplant; gave her antacids; fed her aloe pellets; increased her rations; and more. Nothing worked. Our vet is concerned that it is a “wasting disease” which may be transferable to our other sheep. We took a final poop sample and are having it analyzed. Our hope is that Lucy had something like cancer or another health issue that is not contagious.

These barn swallows are almost too big for their nest

This delicata squash is not ripe yet. But I made “fries” with it in the air fryer and Jen liked the starchy savory flavor.

Our deck cucumbers are giving three cukes a day!

Dry beans and popcorn, coming along nicely.

It isn’t fall yet, but we are starting to see some color.

Lobster mushrooms — a lactarius mushroom infected with another fungus — making it go from inedible to edible and choice. Turn the photo in your head.

Sweet Pea is on isolation because she sometimes falls over and can’t get up.

The sheep and llama came out to watch us bury Lucy.

The other sheep were with us while we sat with Lucy.

Lucy — She was a trooper — not fighting all the care we tried to give her-and she grew to love all the scratches we would give her to distract her from the shots and drenches we had to administer.

We made pizza in the brick oven last weekend. Before the pizza, I roasted eggplant, garlic, onions, and olive oil in the cast iron pan.

After the eggplant was done, I added zucchini and peppers, and let them roast in the oven, followed by the addition of tomatoes with cheese on top of everything. Fire-roasted ratatouille!

Rheaa

Getting ready to load straw into the barn.

In writing news, I submitted two stories to the publication New Choices run by Carol Lennox. I’m a huge fan of Carol and she encouraged me to turn my love of Bayfield Wisconsin into an essay about small towns. I also thought New Choices would be a good spot to write about non-monogamy, so I submitted my recent genealogy column to them. Thank you, Carol!

Message me for friend links to the above stories if you are not a member yet.