I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT’S LIKE to wake up the morning of an actual barn raising, but the morning a carload of friends were coming to the cabin to build my sheep shed felt special. It must have had the same air of purpose and community as a real barn raising. Early on a Saturday morning in late summer, a car pulled up to the farm with volunteers, tools, and extension cords. We had no plans, only a rough idea and some spare wood and roofing.
I was glad to see them — relieved, actually. See, I’m not handy. All the tools I now possess I’ve picked up from the hardware store because friends who came to help at the farm asked for them so many times. Hand me a leash or a livestock halter, and you’ll see some competence. I can tell good hay from poor hay. I can set up a flock of chickens in a new coop; just don’t ask me to build the coop. My skills are sloppy. I live by Joel Salatin’s motto, “The pigs don’t care if the feeder isn’t straight.” Functionality always wins over form. So my “construction jobs” are cob jobs and rarely pretty. Usually they don’t last as long as they would if they were built by someone who understood water runoff and knew how to use a level. That said, I’m also not a complete idiot or a debutante when it comes to carpentry. I’m not scared of the hammer. I do try. But my nonmathematical brain makes everything crooked and wonky. So when something as important as a four-season shelter for my first trio of sheep was in the works, I wanted something solid. I asked for help.
At the office I approached my friends Phil and James, who had become my closest confidants in the state. Knowing my level of skill with power tools (and lack of them), they offered to come help build the shed if I got all the pieces in one place. I could handle the staining, fences, and gate installation once the actual shelter was constructed.
I was excited! All summer I had spent my weekends driving around New England, going to sheepdog clinics, workshops, and trials. I had been spending most of my nonwork time either in my garden or among shepherds, who had become agrarian superheroes to me. I was still shocked that being a shepherd was a viable career choice in the twenty-first century. These people found a way to make herding a part of their modern lives, worked with and among animals every day, and were bringing real products — food and clothing — into the world in a wholesome way.
It was a side effect of all this time around meat farmers that I started doubting my vegetarianism, too. Sheepdog trials and herding clinics are places to share recipes and roast lambs on spits. It was a part of their culture and soon to be a part of mine. I made a mental note that if I ever went back to the world of meat eating, it would be lamb that would take me there. Sheep were responsible for the wild ride I was currently on and would be responsible for many more: border collies, buying land, knitting from my own wool. It seemed only proper that they’d take me to a place at the dinner table as well.
And so, on that sunny morning, the three of us and my neighbor Casey (who supplied most of the tools and all the lumber, which were floorboards he’d rescued from an old Arlington sawmill), set up our sawhorses, plugged in our extension cords, and started measuring out boards and planks. Hearing the ruckus, my neighbor Roy sauntered over in his signature sweatpants and T-shirt. He saw all the tools and lumber and asked me what I was planning on building, because he didn’t want something unseemly ruining his view. I actually laughed out loud at this, thinking he was joking. He looked serious as a health inspector who’s just found rat droppings, so I changed my tone. I mumbled something about it being tasteful, and that I would be getting three sheep, and he walked away looking fairly upset.
It never occurred to me that people in an agricultural/woodland community like Sandgate would get hung up on the aesthetics of an outbuilding in a neighbor’s backyard. Actually, I was shocked at the idea that someone would be more concerned about the physical appearance of the building than its purpose. I would be much more concerned about “why” the kid next door was putting up fencing and a small barn than about how it looks. This assumption was, of course, utterly naive. When he was out of sight, Casey (who was holding a circular saw and talking loudly over it) told me that Roy was from New York City, that what he saw from his back deck was of grand importance, and that I should expect this from any flatlanders coming into the country. I scoffed. I guess country living was okay with them as long as it had curb appeal.
With all the distractions and spectators behind us, we got to work. I was given the task of nailing the plywood wall to its bracing posts, and did my level best to nail it straight. It was still a tad crooked. (My day job is safe.) James shook his head while he marked the planks with a pencil for cutting. Phil was busy digging holes to bury the cinder blocks at varied depths, so that the building could be level on the uneven ground. Casey set up the sawhorse and ran power from the chicken coop’s humble night-light. Soon conversation dwindled to work talk and simple requests. Hand me that. Cut here. Are there any more screws? How long is that piece of plywood? We fell into the rhythm of the work, and I did my best not to get in the way. I tried to stay mindful that these people were giving up their time and resources to help make this happen, and I was truly grateful, but I lost my serenity the third time I hammered my thumb into the plywood.
Realizing that nailing-only jobs were few and far between — most of the work now lay in setting planks on the frames, using a circular saw, and measuring things properly — I went inside to make everyone lunch. I had a warm loaf of bread from earlier that morning, sun-ripened tomatoes from the garden, and some local cheese. Making do with what I had in the kitchen, I offered everyone a cast-iron-skillet panini and some lemonade.
While we all leaned against Casey’s yard tractor and surveyed what we were about to complete, I took in the scene. With four sweaty people, an old sawmill, and some cordless drills, we had built a shed large enough to hold three sheep comfortably. It had three solid walls with a ventilated, slanted roof and was raised up on cinder blocks (off the wet ground). Its front side was only half open, meaning the beasts would have near-total protection when the winds howled or heavy snow fell. It still needed a fence, a gate, and some staining, but those would come soon enough. I sipped my lemonade and thanked everyone. It had taken only three hours to come this far. I beamed.
Thirty-six hours after the first power tools were plugged in, the pen was complete. We built the majority of the simple structure that morning. The next day I stained it, pounded fence posts, put up fencing, installed the gate, and built a hay feeder. The final touch was a real metal roof, a gift from James’s father, who had bought too much for a home project and had a piece exactly the right size for the shed. James came over with Phil to put the final screws in the roofing, and it was done. Right there in my backyard were a tiny barn, fence, gate, and water and grain bins. No sheep graced it just yet, but they would soon. Everything seemed too pristine to be real. The gentle green moss. The slightly turning leaves of the sugar maple that hovered over the new roof. The straight and perfect fences. The crystal-clean water in the black-plastic trough. It was poetry.
By the time the job was completed, my eyes were welling up. I’m not normally one to cry at wooden structures, but this was an ark. There was no way I could’ve done this without these people. Like so many things in the self-sufficient life, the more deeply you get involved, the less self-sufficient you become. I needed people more than ever before. Learning to build a sheep house took help. And not just help with the construction, either; it took a willing landlord, gifts from neighbors, a delivery from the fencing company, trips to buy T-posts and screws — all of it took a small army to give three woollies a nightcap and a hotel. Four brave souls spent the weekend at my homestead making it happen. With their generosity, sweat, and gifts of wood and metal, my sheep would have a home. My training-wheel farm was causing community to happen.
The night before I was to pick up my sheep, I took the two red halters I’d bought and hung them over the fence. I stepped up onto the swinging metal gate — a real farm gate, like the one my friend Diana had on her ranch in Idaho — and leaned my body over the top rail. The shed still smelled like the near-black stain I had coated it with. The grass inside the pen was soft, inviting. The water trough was filled, and a mineral lick was waiting. All this shepherd needed to do now was get those three fine animals into this pen. This was something of a logistical complication, as I didn’t have a truck or even a trailer. But I had a plastic tarp and a Subaru. Farmers had started with far less.
I folded down the backseats of my Forester and spread the tarp over them. The cargo area was roughly the same size as a truck bed but painfully shorter. I’d read about people transporting sheep in cars before, but usually they were lambs in dog crates. I, on the other hand, was on my way to put four hundred and fifty pounds of ovine goodness in the back hatch of my station wagon.
I had traded three adult sheep for fiddle lessons: ten lessons each. They had been part of a hobby flock, and with winter coming the owners, Shellie and Allen, wanted to save on hay costs. They were thrilled to make the barter and I was even more thrilled to accept it. I’d first met my new flock the weekend before at a picnic. We were already on a first-name basis. The three sheep were Maude, Sal, and Marvin. Maude was the sole purebred, a Border Leicester ewe with an ear tag and papers. The others were wethers (castrated males) and were a hardy mixed breed — Border Leicester crossed with Romney. Both breeds are renowned for their wool, coveted by hand spinners. As someone eager to get her hands on a spinning wheel, I thought this trade was looking better and better.
When the car was loaded with its tarp, halters, and a small stepladder (which I’d rigged as a gate between the cockpit and the hatch), I pulled down my hat over my ears and hopped into the car. I was driving over into Hebron, New York, a small farm town a few back roads from Sandgate. I was so excited, I can barely remember anything about the trip there. This was a culmination of years of hope and research and a summer of rain-soaked sheepdog trials. I was miles and minutes from becoming a shepherd.
I do remember pulling into Shellie and Allen’s farm. It was a gorgeous sunny day, and their four-year-old daughter, Lucinda, all curly hair and tan skin, was standing barefoot on a rocky outcrop above their driveway. She laughed and waved to me as I pulled up to the house. Shellie came out in her muck boots and pointed to where I should park. As I backed my hatch toward the sheep-pen gate, I felt my hands shaking a little. This was it, Jenna. This was it.
We used an old dog leash and the halters I had brought to pull the sheep into the back of the car. I thought it would be more difficult than it was. We discovered that sheep like moving forward, and if the two front feet were set up in the back of the station wagon, they would accept being lifted in the rest of the way with little fuss. All of the sheep complained a little, but within moments we had the trio baaing in the backseat.
We all agreed that the short ride (only twenty minutes, if that) would calm them. Originally, the idea was for me to pick them up and take them home one at a time, but this seemed to work fine. Sheep are simple creatures and generally roll with it, as long as they’re surrounded by familiar creatures. They stood, stomped, and then pooped copious amounts before finally lying down on the plastic tarp.
We closed the hatch door and shook hands, and Lucinda peered in the window to say good-bye to Marvin, her favorite of the group. I thought this would be heartbreaking for her, but she was all smiles and waves. She knew she’d see them at her next fiddle lesson. I thanked the family for the billionth time and turned the station wagon out of their driveway toward home.
As I drove, three big, woolly sheep faces loomed in the rearview mirror, their red halters contrasting with their white fleece. I caught an eye and winked. The sheep stared back at me, uninterested in my flirtation. I had no idea who was who but I was beginning to learn some visual cues. I knew Maude had the bald head and no spots. (She was also the only one with an ear tag.) Marvin had a cut left ear and a spot on his front leg, almost like the brown knee pad a gardener would wear. Sal had a big mop of curly hair on his head and lacked tags and spots.
Every now and then, they rattled into a bleat fest as I turned a corner or rolled down a window. “Relax, kids,” I’d semi-whisper to them as Sam Beam played on the stereo. “You’re going to a great place. And although I’m going to steal your outfits in the spring, you’ll eat well. And I built you a hell of an apartment.” They still just stared. I guess we’d work on our communication skills later.
Actually, I wasn’t as worried about our repartee as I was about their dinner. My coworker Nadine — who had a flock of Texas Dalls in Hebron — had given me a few small bales of hay as a congratulations gift for getting my own stock. I had a list of potential suppliers of second-cut hay pinned to the fridge, and Nadine had offered to sell me more as well, so it wasn’t like these guys were going to starve anytime soon. Also, the farm was loaded with high late-summer grass. I had a few weeks of free salad bar already lined up for the new tenants. But winter was certainly coming, and a Vermont winter is no joke. I still had to find a local hay farmer, and soon.
Sometimes you get lucky.
As we crested the hill up Hebron Road, heading back to Sandgate, we passed a farmer and some of his employees loading bales of beautiful green hay onto the back of a pickup truck. The hay looked absolutely amazing; it was so green and lush, I was ready to pour some vinaigrette on it and dig in myself. Could I be so ridiculously lucky as to run into a hay dealer on the drive home with my first livestock?
I slowed down, and the station wagon hit a bump in the pavement. Everyone baaed. That caused the hay makers to look over at what they’d previously thought was a normal car. They didn’t do a double take (this is Washington County, after all), but they did shake their heads and laugh. To them I was just another flatlander who had moved to the country and bought some sheep as lawn ornaments for my second home. Or maybe they thought I was crazy.
I rolled down the window and leaned my head out to yell over the sounds of the motors. Despite the ruckus, the sheep in the backseat remained calm. They had either accepted their fate or were plain bored. All three were lying down with their elbows tucked under them, like Zen monks. They watched as I called up to the older gentleman running the show on top of a hay truck. “Hi, there!” I yelled. “Do you guys have any hay for sale?” Without missing a beat, the older farmer (he must have been eighty-five) retorted with a belly laugh, “Do you have any sheep?” Then we were both laughing at the absurdity and within minutes were shaking hands and making introductions.
His name was Nelson Greene, and he’d been farming on this same spot in Washington County his whole life. He had inherited the farm business from his father and had kept it going ever since. Independent dairy farmers are a dying breed, and Nelson was one of the few American dairymen still among the living.
I let my eyes dart around behind him as he was talking. His farm was huge, and the view was breathtaking. His world of milk and hay sat on the edge of a rolling hill, perfectly sited to take in the setting sun. I was now only half-listening to his story. I snapped back into the conversation when Marvin (I think) belted out some slow jazz behind me.
Eventually, I told him something about myself, but my story wasn’t half as interesting. I told him I’d moved here from Idaho in the winter and so was new in town. I also explained that these were my first sheep (he grinned and shook his head) and that I lived over in Sandgate. I asked if he’d be around for a while working, because I’d like to come back and buy some hay tonight, if possible. He told me to drive back after I unloaded the animals and he’d fill up my car as best he could. I drove away from Nelson’s farm, convinced that the world had been folded on dotted lines for me this day. Life can surprise you with its tiny generosities, especially when you’re carpooling with ruminants.
When I got back to the cabin, I parked the station wagon as close to the sheep pen as I could manage. Then, one by one, I took each sheep by the halter and placed it inside to feast on grain and get acquainted with the new digs. Sal balked a little but with a firm pull and a kind word he trotted through the gate. Marvin was next and was even easier to unload.
I was foolish to assume Maude would be as easy. No one named Maude would be easy. I slowly opened the hatch and reached for her red nylon halter, cooing softly to her, as if I did with the boys. She looked back at me with wild eyes, like this was the drop-off from the last train into a slaughterhouse. When I had the lead in hand and the door open, I gave her a gentle tug. She leaped past me out of the car, almost ripping my arm from the socket as the halter jerked. Then, to our collective despair, the slip halter slid off her muzzle and over her neck, turning the gentle lead into a noose. She was confused, bleating, and pulling to get free. I held on, worried she’d bolt for the woods and be gone forever. I needed to get her into that pen.
In a panic, breathing heavily and gasping, she fell to the ground. I was at her side immediately, talking to her softly and removing the halter from her neck. She was helpless on the ground, as all sheep become once they’re on their backs. (This is the trick to shearing them; turn them on their rumps and they’re about as feisty as rag dolls.) When she was breathing normally, I grabbed her by the wool on her shoulders and above her rump and acted on gut instinct. I led her into the pen, and she ran to be with her friends. I swear she turned around and leered at me. I apologized, telling her she didn’t have to freak out like that. It would be months before she let me touch her again. As it turns out, sheep remember everything.
When the sheep were in their pen, and looked like they weren’t going to form a SWAT team and vault the fence, I headed back to Hebron for the hay. The day was nearly over, and the sun was getting tired. I knew that when I finally got home, it would be dark. As I headed back through the winding dirt roads to Nelson’s farm, I turned on some music and got lost in the reverence of the day. I was already nostalgic for the present. The music was soft and lovely, and I was overcome with the emotion a met goal inspires. I had sheep. I was, in some sense, a shepherd. Tears started to fill the corners of my eyes, and I began to sing along with the music. It was on that first ride to pick up hay that I fully understood my place in this short, saturated life. I had to become a farmer. Somehow, I just had to. I had lived twenty-five years so far and seen much of the country. I had jumped off waterfalls in Tennessee and ridden a white Mustang through the Rocky Mountains. I’d driven cross-country. I’d written a book. I’d fallen in love. But I had never felt the perfect sense of knowing my place in the world till right then. Some of us are born to stoop down, touch the soil, and know it. I was one of them. I only hope I’m half as happy on my wedding day.