Country Grit by Scottie Jones

Author:Scottie Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2017-09-18T04:00:00+00:00

A HAROLDING EXPERIENCE

The back of our farm opens to the wild. Beyond our farm gate is a logging road that ends in a forest. Miles upon hundreds of miles of wilderness. It was only a matter of time before the wild crossed the gate and found its way onto our farm.

It was a lovely spring morning. We were just finishing our walk when Sarah noticed something crumpled and white in the brush. It was a lamb, damp with blood, unable to hold its head up, but alive. I scooped it up and trotted back to the barn where I could tend to it.

Its ear was nearly torn off. Shaving the wool off with clippers, I found puncture wounds around its neck. I washed the wounds and dressed them with blue lotion, an antiseptic that turned the lamb’s head and neck a deep purple hue. Greg arrived and noted the broken front leg. The break was complete, allowing the leg to twist in any direction. The lamb made no protests as we inspected it. We splinted the leg with a stick, taking care to immobilize it well above the break, just as our sheep book said to do. Then we laid the lamb down in fresh straw with a heat lamp. The next twenty-four hours would tell.

Clearly, the lamb had been the target of a predator—most likely a solo coyote. We guessed that our morning chatter on the trail had diverted the predator from its goal. The lamb was too large and unwieldy for a rapid escape so it was deposited in the bushes. The question now, was it the only victim? I did a head count while Greg checked for tracks. It would be good to know what we were up against. Rarely do predators take only one helping. Once they know the buffet bar is open they return until there’s a reason not to. It’s the job of the farmer to supply that reason—other than an exhausted supply.

Counting sheep is difficult. They let me get up to the last four or five and then the whole herd does a stutter-step shuffle, half to the left and half to the right. I’m pretty sure it’s on purpose. If sheep are difficult, lambs are impossible. They meander under their mothers, seeming to disappear in the woolly understory. Often they’ve ducked down for a little refreshment, so it’s not counting heads so much as counting butts. And if you’ve seen one butt … well, you know they don’t offer much individuality. Even allowing for the disappearing lamb discrepancy, the count was low by at least five. Our little convalescent was not the first victim.

The news from Greg was equally dismal. He had found cougar tracks. Far more efficient predators than coyotes, cougars are the bane of sheep farmers in our region. And they enjoy a protected status so they can’t be freely hunted. A cougar in the act of taking livestock can be shot, but it’s extremely rare to catch them in the act.

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