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6-07-2007 Jim Atwell Our Four Corners is no longer just a crossroads and a blinker light. Now it's a destination; and, in many ways, we owe that change to Tom. So, stop in the store and thank him for it. Probably Tom will parry your thanks with a joke, but he'll still be grateful. As we all are, to him. Anne and I are deep into catch-up work in the fields and vegetable garden. Last Friday we had a workday so hot and humid that I went out in shorts, despite the fish-belly whiteness of my legs. (I'm reminded of a British quip to dismiss a newcomer: "What, him? His knees aren't brown yet!" That dates back to the British Raj, when a soldier newly posted to India was first wearing his khaki uniform shorts.) Early that hot morning, when I was still deciding on my own uniform of the day, I was drafted for animal duty on another farm. Judy Steiner of Wileytown was house-sitting for Dr. Tom Huntsman, who's in Russia doing wonders for burn victims. (God bless him for it.) Tom has a small flock of sheep on his farm, 'way up Fly Creek Valley. When Judy had gone out to let them out of the barn, she'd found a ewe with her head stuck in the hayrack. Judy's a skilled crisis manager (she's a teacher, after all), but she couldn't get the head free and had to leave for school. So she tapped an amateur shepherd, asking for the kind of help that so enriches country life. And it's not just sheep people who do this. We all share an unspoken contract and acknowledge it, I think, each time we give a slight wave to a passing driver: The wave says, we're in this together. If either of us needs help, the other will jump to it. And so I did that hot morning, pulling on old denims in anticipation of a messy job. My first challenge at the Huntsmans' wasn't the sheep, but Belle and Annie. The two lovable old labs had resigned themselves to a day alone and were ecstatic at a drop-in visitor. We had to spend time, I patting and ear-scratching, they squirming and wildly tail-wagging, before I could ease over the sliding barn door. The dogs were hell-bent to come inside and help, but I opened the door just wide enough for myself, then slid it shut behind me. I pushed too firmly. The door slid open at the other end, and Belle and Annie burst happily inside. More patting and tail-wagging before I could turn to the sheep. I could have found her with my eyes closed; her mournful baa's filled the barn. And she was well and truly stuck. The vertical steel rods of the hayrack were just wide enough apart to admit a sheep's muzzle, but the space widened toward the top. Up there, the ewe had found just enough room to squeeze through her whole head. Then, her breakfast done, she couldn't figure how to get the head back out. The initial panic that Judy may have witnessed was over, and she had settled into a morose resignation. But she still wanted out, especially since the other sheep were standing just outside the door to the pasture, calling for her. They're a flock, you see, and felt uneasy without her. "OK, Arrie," I said aloud to my late farming mentor. "How to I do this one?" An answer came back at once, from his past lessons. If an animal's head has gone in through a hole, he'd say, it can come out again. You just have to get the head positioned, and get the animal to help. As Belle and Annie sat panting happily, I studied the problem. The ewe had got her head through up near the top of the rack; the slightly wider spacing up there was the only place to get it back out. That meant getting her on tiptoe so that head and neck would be up there. (Never mind that sheep don't have toes; you get the idea.) Through her baa's, I told her my plan. Of course she didn't understand, but maybe my tone was reassuring. "All right, dear, here's the drill, and it's going to be pretty fast. I'll get my left forearm under your neck and hoist you up. At the same time I'm going to clap my right hand over the bridge of your nose and turn your head so that one ear is back outside the hayrack again. Then and you're not going to like this part I'm going to clap that same hand over your nose and make you begin to smother. I'm betting you'll struggle hard to get away from that hand. You'll pull away and I'll push and steer, and I'll bet we get you out." And we did! She twisted and got the other ear outside, then gave a big wrench and was free. As dogs danced and cavorted in delight, she threw herself, baa'ing mightily, against the door to the pasture and managed to squeeze through it. I heard her outside, telling the other girls eloquently what she'd just been though. They baa'd their sympathy. It was touching. The labs and I went back into the sunshine. We sat on a step for some more ear-scratching before I could drive away. They galumphed beside my rusty truck halfway down the front road and then stood wagging their goodbyes. "I'll push, you pull," I thought, driving home to water my own sheep. "That's how we work together, out here in the country." But something even better had happened that morning. I'd helped the ewe, which helped Judy, who was helping Dr. Tom be in Russia to help hundreds of hurt people. It was good to be part of that sequence. At home, I phoned the school and left a message for Judy: "SHEEP'S HEAD FREED. ALL IS WELL." I wonder what the secretary made of that. Jim Atwell lives in and views life from Fly Creek. Learn about his book at JimAtwell.com. |
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