SPRING

(My article in this spring's farm newsletter)

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Every spring on the farm is different and unpredictable, while at the same time so very much akin to those that preceded it. Some time this spring, all of the following stories will happen, only differently, unique to their moment.

It is mid-day in late March. Last night’s snow turned first to sleet and now to rain, covering the farmyard with several inches of slush. The animals are hunkered down in their stalls, trying to stay warm and dry on this bitter, miserable day. Sam walks to the farm to check on every- one, refill frozen water dishes, batten down the hatches. He finds Zoe, one of our pregnant nanny goats, out in the yard of the goat house. It’s too cold for her to be outside, but there she is--with two small kids at her feet! This is the moment when everything switches gears. Sam quickly calls Ben, and then me. Together we carry the babies down to the farm house inside our coats. They are so cold. It’s a boy and a girl, and the girl was obviously born first, she seems almost gone. We need to warm them... hair dryers hum, towels warmed in the dryer are wrapped around these new kids. Ben finds some odd advice on the internet and soon we’re placing the babies in trash bags. The trash bags keep them dry as we submerge them up to their necksin perfectly warmed water. It works! They are stronger! The boy is doing well and his sister has come a long way. Their mom is moved to the main barn, a clean stall with a heat lamp. Soon, her son joins her--even suckles a bit. Sam draws milk from mom for the little girl to drink. A few sips make it in and thirty minutes later, a few more. Snow and Ice are named. Babies one and two are born.

On the dining room table, the incubator has been humming for 21 days. Each day Jean and I play tic-tac-toe with these marked eggs. I turn them to X, Jean back to O. Until five days ago, when we both stopped touching them completely. This morning, coffee in hand, I stop to listen to a ‘Tap. Tap... Tap... Tap,’ coming from three eggs. Later in the morning, two more are shaking. One has broken a small hole. You can hear peeping. By 4:00pm there are two tiny, wet, tired chicks laying amidst their shelled siblings. Another one should be joining them within the hour. The peeping is almost constant. The musty smell is so familiar, not entirely pleasant, but also somehow right. The babies spend the night in the incubator, resting, drying and occasionally banging around. By morning there are four fuzzy bright chicks ready to move to the brooder (actually a cardboard box with a heat lamp). A few more make their way out that morning; some don’t make it at all. More than just cute, baby chicks are the fuzziest most wonderful little handfuls of squirmy delight!

Saturday morning, a week before Easter, the front entrance to the farm blooms. Easter flowers are a lot of work, but for Bob they are as much a tradition as they are a part of our business. It’s rainy and cold as he adds spring color to our busy street corner one flat of tulips at a time. He smiles and chats as neighbors and friends return for a pot of springtime blooms. Bob will spend nearly his whole week sitting at the flower stand in his patio chair, listen- ing to the radio with a crossword puzzle while waiting for a friendly face to chat with. He will be ready to find the perfect blooms for Aunt Iris, and have some tips for how to make them last!

Spring break campers have a special ownership of the farm. About 30 kids, they have the place to themselves, and all the excitement of spring babies circles around them! On their first day we check in on all of our animals. Caillou, our Netherland Dwarf rabbit, is due to deliver her litter soon. No luck on day two although she’s pulling fur for a nest. Day three does not disappoint and Caillou births her litter around 5pm. By Friday, I pull out the nest box while Caillou is eating and we peek. When I lift the fur there are three TINY spotted bunnies, maybe two inches long. They have a thin coat of fur, but the edge of their ears and tips of their feet are still new pink skin. Their eyes are shut tight, and they wiggle and twist as the cool spring air touches them.

It is a beautiful April Saturday, and the farm is buzzing. Our barnyard baby class is in full swing with about 20 kids, and families have arrived by the dozen to visit the farmyard and see all the new life. Jean has her eye on two ewes who she thinks might lamb today--and she is usually right! Even though we expect a baby, we leave the mam- mas outside. It’s so sunny and lovely. Sure enough, just as the tractor ride leaves with our class kids, the ewe in the front paddock starts to lamb. Kids and families stop and watch; excited and amazed. We stand by with towels and buckets of soapy water. Our ewe does pretty much all the work. Jean is right by her side. Two hours later, there is a repeat performance and a pair of twins joins our posse of spring babies. The gasps of our farm guests are like jewels in the air. Something they will never forget.

May arrives with it’s suddenly warm weather. Bob sees an opportunity, and he and Jean begin to prepare. A 5 foot square of cardboard is retrieved and laid out by the rabbit hutches. It is stained with years of oil, dirt, sheep poop, and who knows what else. Bob would say it has a perfect patina. He sets a wooden tool carryall on the cardboard, you might have seen a woodworker carry one of these at the turn of the century. It holds an old shiny oil can, some vintage steel nail clippers, a pair of ancient hand shears, and his circa 1979 sheep shears. Bob sits on a 4-legged milking stool so low that his knees rise well above his waist as he ties a bandana across his forehead. Meanwhile, Jean and Sam catch the first sheep for shearing. They start with the boys. Big and feisty, they’re the hardest to shear so it’s best to get them done before back aches set in. Jean holds the Ram’s nose (which causes sheep to evacuate so they don’t do it while they’re being shorn) and then they all work together to flip the Ram off his feet onto his back--where he is much more cooperative. Shearing on the ground is hard on the body. Bob grunts and grumbles a bit as his shears negotiate the heavy winter coat. Even on the hardest sheep, he and Jean work together in a synchrony that only comes from 30 years of practice. Today, Daniel gets a small cut. Sam squeezes some iodine on it as mom gives Daniel his de-wormer. Bob clips his toenails. In 45 minutes, Daniel is up and headed back to his pen. Laying on the cardboard is his fleece with the glistening golden underside facing up, ready to be washed and put to use.

It’s a Wednesday in mid-May when Jean gets a call from the county farm. They have two runts. Would we be interested in taking them in? We are in the midst of our spring classes and Jean jumps at this squealing surprise for our farm kiddos! Squeaky and pink in the bunny nesting box, the piglets weigh 6 pounds between the two of them. Bottle feeding begins anew. Our goat babies had finally outgrown the need for night feedings, and now we’re back to square one. But piglets grow fast!  Soon they will drink from a pail, and before you know it, they’ll be too heavy to lift. For now, they’re up in their new stall, well-fed, and sleeping under a heat lamp.

Kelan and Reilly come running into the barn with joy filled faces. They’ve found the first strawberries in the field! Summer is right around the corner.