Those sheep again....

May 30, 2007

Those sheep…they make me crazy. I just love them so much. I am not meant to be a farm girl, that’s for sure. I am too sentimental.

So… at one point during our stay I wrote about the peaceful lives of the sheep who live at Quinta da Mata. Well, that was ignorant bliss. I suffer everyday because I care too much about them. Not long after my dreamy observation of the sheep, I walked into the barn where they sleep at night only to find eight of their skins with feet attached dangling from the rafters of the barn. They had been slaughtered and served at the lunch for a tourist group the day before. The surviving sheep could smell death in their barn and therefore they were too frightened to enter with the skins thoughtlessly hung above their heads in their cozy den. Duarte and I discussed this issue with Duarte’s father and he took the skins down. What was the point in leaving them there anyway?

I’ve watched these sheep so much that I think I can tell them apart. Since we have arrived here I have seen 10 sheep being born. I have watched those babies grow to be bigger sheep and the one thing that I observe with great admiration is the love the babies have for their mamas and the love the mamas have for their babies. The babies cry for their mamas when they can’t find them. Then the mama gives a “meeeh” and the baby runs to her with its wiggly tail. I love that. When they take naps, they snuggle up together. Their heads close to one another. During the birthing process, an older lamb will console its mother by licking her or lying close to her.

So, when I saw puddles of blood all about the farm a few weeks ago, I grew anxious. “Duarte ,what happened here? Did someone kill a sheep? If so, why is there blood on the driveway?” Well, as it turns out the dogs…the Quinta da Mata dogs went on a rampage during the night, as the sheep weren’t put away as they should have been. 10 sheep died that night including a pregnant mother. Well, the great slaughter of Quinta da Mata put me over the edge. I hate their dogs! I felt so sad, I didn’t know how to deal with my emotions. Senseless death…it happens even to animals. All of this took place just after the shootings in Virginia which were also so miserably senseless. How does one come to terms with such violence? Do we call it nature? Fate? and let it go? I just don’t know. I miss those sheep. I am sorry for those who died in Virginia. So, so sad.

The very morning of the great sheep massacre one of the survivors gave birth to twins…I secretly call the twins “lucky” and “hope” even though Duarte says you should never name farm animals. I can’t help myself.

Today a strange thing happened. We arrived in the evening from a day away from Quinta da Mata – just about the time that the sheep were heading to the barn for the night. As they approached the barn, I noticed that they were skittish and running restlessly. I walked up the hill to see what was going on and I noticed a young brown lamb among all of the white sheep. I thought it must have come from another heard mistakenly. The white sheep were fearful of the brown lamb it smelled differently than them and it looked different than them. The brown lamb was “meeehing” in fear and the white herd was running with fear all around the farm. In the midst of all of the crazy running and sheep fear, a mama gave birth to a baby lamb. She was still for a while but decided after some time to go running with her herd. That little baby – only a few hours old- was running to keep up with her. I had to step on the long placenta that was dragging from behind the mama sheep to help it fall out. Having been through childbirth myself, I know how trying the process is, I wanted to go to that mama and tell her to rest and to let her baby rest – but there was nothing I could do. They were out of my sight within minutes. Sheep are strong that’s for sure.

When Filinto arrived we learned that the brown lamb was a gift from another farmer as a way of saying thanks for letting him use his land for grazing. A lamb is a generous gift but nature is nature and animals don’t like what is different from them. I suspect that they think the brown lamb is a dog. Fortunately, that fear is probably keeping the brown lamb alive as the sheep are too fearful to hurt it.

I just found out that the brown lamb will soon be a meal. Damn!

So, how do farmers do it? They raise animals, they watch them grow, then they kill them and eat them. Are they used to the process? Have they learned to not grow attached? Are they intentionally not paying attention to the behavior of their animals? I don’t understand how any of this is possible. Am I just too sentimental? Has Disney tainted me with the personification of animals? I haven’t figured out farm life at all. I am glad I am not a farmer. But is it really better to not know what happens?