HOMEGROWN Life: Farmer Dyan Gets a Four-Legged Valentine
Oh, Romeo, Romeo.
Is there anything more endearing than a newborn lamb?
Meet my Romeo!
I made the decision last fall not to breed the ewes and to take a year off from lambing. Last winter was tough. We had a lot of snow and it was frigid for weeks on end, sort of like this winter. But when January came rolling around, even with blizzard after blizzard threatening, I started missing lambs.
I called Brian, my farming mentor and friend. I told him my plight. He just laughed. As one animal nut to another, he understood. So, I put in my order for a ram lamb. I even told him if he had one that needed bottle raising, I’d take it. Two days before Valentine’s, I got the call. His ewe Marianne had twins but no milk. I drove over to take a look. Romeo came home with me two days later.
It happened to be Valentine’s Day—thus the name. So, Romeo has joined the Bittersweet flock.
I’ve raised lambs on bottles, but only ones who just couldn’t get the knack of nursing. I bottle fed them, but they lived with their moms out on pasture and in the sheep barn. Raising a lamb inside, sharing your home with and being the one on whom a lamb relies for everything, is a different kind of commitment and a 24-hour-a-day job.
It took just 24 hours for Romeo to steal my heart. I love that he follows me around the house, his tiny hooves clipping along behind me. Lambs grow very quickly, so even though he’s small enough now to sit in my lap and nap or enjoy his bottle, I know that, in a few short weeks, he’ll be (almost) too big to do that.
I also already know I’ll miss it. So, when he calls from his playpen, simply because he wants to come sit with me, I’m happy to oblige. It seems a small thing to ask. After all, it wasn’t his choice to have a strange human be a substitute for his real mom. For now, I’ll let the dust bunnies have their way with the corners. The laundry can be done another day. I have a baby lamb to cuddle.
Looking outside my window, with snow swirling around and the day coming to an end, my world is blessed with a lamb sitting on my lap as I type these words. I can feel his tiny heart beating and hear his baby breath flowing in and out of his newborn chest. Let the snow fly, let banks of white stuff pile up outside my door. Thanks, winter. It’s time for lambs.
Dyan Redick calls herself “an accidental farmer with a purpose.” Bittersweet Heritage Farm, located on the St. George peninsula of Maine, is a certified Maine State Dairy offering cheeses made with milk from a registered Saanen goat herd, a seasonal farm stand full of wool from a Romney cross flock, goat milk soap, lavender woolens, and whatever else strikes Dyan’s fancy. Her farm is also an extension of her belief that we should all gain a better understanding of our food sources, our connection to where we live, and to the animals with whom we share the earth.
PHOTOS: DYAN REDICK
Tags: baby lambs, lambing
