about my little lamb

Sheep have always been a part of my mother’s family, and by default of mine.  This association began in the early 1900’s when Lottie Gaunce married Nelson Rogers.  Lottie was a teacher and her final pay was a twenty dollar gold piece; final due to the fact that as a married woman she could no longer teach.   Grammy Lottie used that gold piece to purchase a dozen sheep and a ram.

In my mind’s eye, I can see Lottie choosing her herd.  She would have gone for a few good milkers, some with an extra wooly coat and black faced simply because she liked them.  The sheep were good to Grammy and she was good to them.  Every spring the sheep produced lambs.  Grammy would choose several to add to her herd, one or two for meat and the rest would be sold as spring lambs.  While the ewe’s milk production was at its best Grammy use this and make cheese.  A little later the sheep would be sheared.  This fleece would be taken to the Briggs and Little woolen mills in Harvey, NB.  There Grammy Lottie traded for yarn and woolen items, (I still have one of those woolen blankets in my home).  The yarn was knit into innumerable pairs of socks and mitts and the occasional sweater or hat.  As well, Grammy’s stock of yarn was so bountiful she sold to all of her neighbors.  Yes Lottie had chosen well when she spent her gold piece. 

Grammy Lottie Rogers, Uncle Earle, Charlotte, Brenda, Arlene and sheep 1955

My association with the sheep was, for many years, at arm’s length.  Then in 1963 Grammy Lottie passed away and we moved into her house.  Part of the legacy was the flock of sheep.  In lambing season a farmer needed all the help he would get.   My father got me.  I never slept in the sheep pen as he did but I nursed many a sickly lamb.  That first spring was a comedy of errors including a late, cold stormy spring and sheep that had “caught” too early.  Lambs were born at an alarming rate.  Many were twins and I think I remember two sets of triplets.  A young ewe, with her first lamb, often will not nurse.  When that lamb is a twin or triplet the ewe really cannot cope.  So I had many boxes and bottles going in the back of the kitchen.  Sometimes as soon as the lamb could stand and butt back at the bottle they would be ready to go down to the barn.  Dad would work to see if an older sheep might foster one of these little ones. 

However there were many sad stories.  A returned lamb who had been bouncing out of the cardboard box was smothered by an adult.   I would check for the 2:00 am feeding and fine a lamb dead.  And the worst was when you found green diarrhea, which could wipe out your lambs in twenty four hours.  Dad and I survived that first season.  I enjoyed my animal husbandry.  The year progressed. Spring of 1964 arrived.  Dad was much better prepared; the lambs were being born later in the year.  March/April is much friendlier that the blasting snows of February, there were few lambs to be brought to the house. 

Then when the lambing season was almost finished, Dad arrived at the house with a poor waif.  He was no bigger than a kitten. I rolled him in a diaper and put him inside my shirt.  He was too tiny for our bottles so he sucked milk off my finger.  I named him Lambert.  We never named the farm animals that were to be sold or for food.  But this baby needed a name.  Mother would not allow me to take him to bed so I set my alarm so I would wake for night feedings.

Dad told me, when he brought Lambert to the house, that if I could pull him through I could have the money when he was sold. Nothing motivated me like money, unless it was Lambert’s big eyes and soft blats.  As the days lengthened and the grass grew, Mother put Lambert outside to frolic.  And how he loved to follow me around, nibbling on my clothing and butting me with his little head.  One day as the school bus was slowing down in front of our house some called, “what’s that waiting by the road?”  My brother Rodney called out “Oh that is .... Valerie’s little lamb!”   I was teased unmercifully after that. 

The lambs were sold one day while I was at school.  Dad gave me the proceeds from Lambert and I was pleasantly surprised by the amount.  I missed Lambert, but I was a farm kid and realized that that was his end.  And no one asked me about my little lamb.