by Joan Jarvis Ellison

Lamb number 62 met me at the gate, bleating piteously. I climbed the gate and sat in the three foot snow drift just inside the barnyard. The sheep had broken a path through the drift again and number 62 had braved snowpiles almost as deep as he was tall to find me.

I picked up his chunky little twenty pound brown body and settled him in my lap. He nibbled at my hand, trying to find a bottle nipple among my fingers. I laughed and unzipped my coveralls.

"Ouch! That hurts! Stop, be patient. You can't get milk out of fingers. Ouch!"
Once he saw the bottle, number 62 immediately switched his allegiance and was soon sucking strongly on the nipple. 63, his little white sister was nowhere around. How could two siblings be so different? 62 was brown and chubby and a real fighter. I didn't worry about him getting enough milk. I'd even seen him stealing milk from Anonymous, his mother who had refused to accept two out of three of her lambs. Anonymous nursed and mothered 61, her first born lamb just like a good sheep should. But she wouldn't allow 62 and 63 to nurse, except when she was distracted. When 62 found his mother with her head in a hay feeder, he'd approach her udder from behind, grab a nipple between her hind legs and nurse for quite a while. Until number 61 showed up, and Annymous realized what was going on. Then she'd move sideways and kick 62, or butt him away with her head.

"No!" I groaned, cursing myself as I picked up the lifeless body. But it wasn't lifeless! I could feel 63's heart beating in her chest, could feel her ribs move against my hands.

I unzipped my coveralls, slid the lamb inside, and dashed for the house. Mindy and Zach were at school, Michael was still at work. The kitchen was piled high with dirty dishes, my usual lambing mess.

When the temperature was right, I set the plug so the sink would fill. I laid the lamb on the floor and pulled a narrow 18 inch plastic tube from the drawer next to the sink. Holding the lambs head in my hand, I forced her jaw open. With my right hand, I slid the tube down the lamb's throat to the first of her five stomachs. This lamb was so close to death that she didn't even struggle.

I drew an ounce of glucose into a sixty cc syringe and slowly forced the life giving sugar water into the tube. If number 63's digestive system was still working, the glucose would be absorbed immediately and her body would have the energy it needed to begin repairing the damages of starvation.

While my hands worked, my mind cursed. This was my fault, all my fault. I was too tired, too preoccupied, too depressed.

Too tired to pick up every lamb to make sure they stretched happily, full of mother's milk. Too tired to force a recalcitrant ewe to nurse each of her lambs while I held her immobile. Too tired to hold her immobile. Too tired to pick up every lamb and make sure their bellies felt full.

When the water cooled, I emptied and refilled the sink. The lamb didn't move. I didn't move. I slumped against the sink up to my elbows in hot, dirty water, and brooded. During lambing it didn't seem like I did anything well, not shepherdessing, not mothering, not even being a wife.

Sick lambs, messy house, tired Jenny. Tired Jenny. I was so tired.
Sometime after I'd refilled the sink for the third time, number 63 raised her head from my hand and struggled to her feet. I lifted her out of the sink and set her on the red rag rug at my feet. Water streamed out of her tight white curls and soaked into the rug. Wizard padded over, sniffed the lamb and began licking her dry, his fuzzy, black tail wagging as he concentrated on his job. The lamb bleated. I filled a bottle with milk and stuffed the nipple into 63's mouth. She sucked hungrily, her tail wriggling happily. After Wizards tongue had done it's job, I set the lamb in a box in front of the wood stove. Wizard curled up beside her and went to sleep. When the lamb was completely dry, I stuffed her back into my coveralls and took her out to the barn.