Our Queen has Fallen
Our Queen has fallen
The New Year started off a bit rocky for us at Big Rock. Sickness and death.
Fevers, sniffles, stomach cramps, and sore throat saw us all into the New Year. Clancy had the sniffles and fever. I only had a sore throat. Nathaniel was the one who went down hardest of all. We did get tested for COVID, the results taking a very long weekend to come in.
Negative. We breathed a sigh of relief. It was a weary time to have to be isolated. We live a secluded life but suddenly when we had to be that way, I struggled with it a lot. Not having to quarantine for an extended period of time was a huge relief.
I had been concerned that we would all suddenly get much sicker or develop the respiratory symptoms and we’d suffocate or hack out a lung and die while out feeding the cows. Something dramatic like that because that is how my brain and nerves operate!
We all danced the line of misery, taking turns doing chores. The animals still all had to eat and drink. Whoever was most miserable stayed in to try and keep Clancy’s spirits high playing with his new Christmas tools.
Just as we got back on our feet and were back to doing chores all together we came out one morning to tragedy. I rounded the corner of our decrepit woodshed to the '“lover’s suite" pen formerly used as a pigpen.
Four cloven hooves were skyward. I kid you not. All I could do was proclaim “no!” over and over again to the universe as I balanced a flake of hay on my arm at the gate. That is my trademark reaction to death, extreme injury, or terrible accident.
Our sweet queen of the flock was dead. Tinkerbell was cold and stiff and lifeless.
I wept as I inspected her body, looking for answers. One bloodshot eye, a bit of blood at her nose. I suspected foul play. Her pen mate, Samwise, hugged the fence feeling the trauma of the situation and wanting an escape. I instantly concluded his testosterone clouded ram-brain was to blame. One unfortunately placed head butt dealing a fatal blow.
Clancy and Nathaniel joined me. Immediately Clancy became distraught to see his best sheep pal in such a vulnerable state as death. The three of us clung to one another with Rusty sitting at our knees and Skye the cat reared up against us.
We all grieved her loss together, a fusion of species humbled by the loss of another species of our farm family.
Hungry cows waited at the fenceline nearby and we picked ourselves up knowing we had them to feed and panels to arrange as we planned to say adios to our borrowed bull for the season that morning.
Later in the day, after Lefty the bull had left for his home herd, we set to burying Tinkerbell on the back wild acres we have. She was laid to rest in deep desert sand as the sky spit cold specks of snow on us. Nathaniel and my Dad, who was nice enough to come and help us, dug deep. It only took moments to cover her.
I did not perform a necropsy, salvage her hide or horns, or leave her to feed the birds and other predators. I’m just not that hardcore or dedicated to gain the insight I suppose. I also felt it pretty straightforward that blunt force trauma was to blame.
Something gave way in us after this loss.
Standing over her grave we looked to two other disturbed patches of topsoil: one sheep with unborn lambs and Granger’s firstborn calf. There were also the bones of a tiny Tinkerbell stillborn lamb out there somewhere.
These were the unexpected losses. With thank you’s and good bye’s falling on ears no longer hearing.
I am normally quick to share, embracing transparency and just wanting to keep family and friends up to date. With this unexpected loss… and the loss being Tinkerbell, our prize sheep pet… I’ve needed the whole month to come to terms with the loss.
I genuinely don’t know what this means for our future with sheep. She was the face of our herd for me and a true friend to Clancy and me. My dream of a Tinkerbell sweater as I often gushed about will go unfulfilled.
Yes, there are plenty more sheep out there, one is bound to be friendly and sweet like her but I precede with trepidation and wonder as to when or how that may come about.
Sudden loss reminds us of how precious, uncertain, and short life truly is. It causes us to sort out our priorities to enable us a life full of value and love and reward. Right now our hearts could use a rest from loss and the burden of caring for so many lives depending on us to live a full, healthy life.
As for now, we start our second year as shepherds with a small flock of two ewes and two rams, heavy-hearted and seeking truths only we can discover the answers to.
EDIT to say: I started composing this before we discovered Rusty’s cancer diagnosis. A rest we will not receive but we will be thankful for out time with Rusty until we face the eye of that heartache storm.