On the day our dear, old sheep Speri’ment lay down and died, our lone apple tree burst into leaf.
That is life in the country in a sentence.
There is a saying among farmers that where there is livestock, there is dead stock. Which is both brutal and honest. I have seen many dead sheep in our eight years at Lush Places, and I have mourned each one.
But Speri’ment was my sheep. She was born as the result of an implanted embryo. Animal breeders are always looking for ways to produce better sheep, but she was born crippled. Miles, the now retired sheep farmer, spent two weeks teaching her to walk. She learnt to walk, but she never “looked right”. He had been breeding East Friesian milking sheep for 20 years. The best of those he bred had long elegant faces, long elegant necks, straight backs and they stood “square”, which means their feet were in perfect alignment.
Speri’ment had no neck, a crooked back, and when she ran, she looked like an out-of-alignment washing machine. She was the nicest of sheep. She had a sweet nature and would follow me around the paddocks, nudging me gently from behind to let me know she wanted more pats.
Miles called her “ET”, as in she should be “Eaten”. He wanted to send her on a “holiday”. I said, outraged, you could not spend two weeks teaching a sheep to walk and then send her to the works. Give her to me, I said, and to my astonishment, he did.
She was almost 9 when she died, which is old for a sheep. I am proud I saved her. In my active fantasy life I imagine myself to be a cross between St Francis of Assisi and Doctor Dolittle.
Speri’ment lived in the Apple Tree paddock with her daughter Becky, who she hated like poison, and her sisters, Xanthe and the late Elizabeth Jane. They rubbed along, but sometimes had head-butting fights. Sheep family relations, like all family relations, are tricky. She got a breakfast tray of sheep nuts and corn and barley every morning. She would come lumbering at pace, her funny, long tassel-like tail waggling in anticipation.
We knew she wasn’t well. Her breathing was laboured. The vet had come and diagnosed viral pneumonia which is the kind that can’t be treated with antibiotics. We gave her pain relief every second day. And then she just lay down. I phoned the veterinary clinic and asked, hysterically, that the sheep vet, Sara, come and put her down. It was 2pm. The vet couldn’t come until 4pm. I said, or shouted actually, that she’d be dead by then. Sara came straight away because the Vet Clinic in Masterton, where all the staff are women, are simply wonderful. In the country, vets understand about attachments to pet sheep. But my dear old sheep died in front of me five minutes before Sara arrived.
Dan the digger man came later that afternoon and said, “I’m sorry for your loss.” We now have two sad little mounds in the Apple Tree paddock. I picked two jars of blossom from the weeping pear trees, one for Elizabeth Jane and one for Sper’iment.
A few days later, Geoff, the new sheep farmer and good neighbour, came to give our two remaining old girls a pedicure. I fretted aloud to him about getting a companion sheep when the next of our elderly girls died so the last one wasn’t left alone. You cannot keep a single sheep. They are sociable animals. Geoff later phoned and said he had a wether sheep, who had been a pet, in the back of the ute. Did I want him?
His name is Baz, or Bazza. He answers to neither. He is a Romney cross, a stocky fellow, not a posh sheep like my last two Friesians. He has moved into the Apple Tree paddock.
It has taken three days, but he now gallops for his breakfast tray. I give him a pat and scratch his bum. He is as rough as guts. He’s a proper country sheep. I like him. My mate Cath said, “It’s about time you got a working-class sheep.”
The lone apple tree is now in blossom.
