The Best We Can Do

There’s a lot of death in livestock farming, there’s no getting around it.  I tell myself it’s the price I pay for playing God. The more I bring to life, the more I have to watch die. Predation by bears and coyotes gets worse with every new housing development, as those animals get pushed ever closer to my animals. Fencing gets harder and harder to maintain because our storms are getting more destructive, our forests are in decline, and trees are dropping on power lines, and our fencing, like never before.

Climate change has brought milder winters and with that, all the parasites and diseases that prolonged freezing temperatures used to discourage. Southern parasites, which were unheard of in Connecticut a few years ago, are now familiar and here to stay. Vets around here, that are willing to care for sheep are hard to come by and vets willing to care for pigs- there are absolutely none at all. But perhaps the most discouraging trajectory of all is that people are getting decidedly weirder. Someone called the police recently because our sheep were outside in the rain. When the police officer explained that the barn door is always open and the sheep could go in if they wanted, the caller said, “but no one is there to dry them off.”  

There isn’t a week that goes by that I don’t wonder “why am I doing this?”  I’m swimming upstream and it’s only getting harder - and harder. Why keep trying? And then I look around me and I’m reminded of exactly why I do what I do. Why I farm. Why I choose to spend my days immersed in the best and the very worst that nature has to offer. Why I spend my days caring for my animals as best I can - and at times failing spectacularly. Because I can. Because I’m lucky enough - that I can. There is so much beauty and wonder “out there” and often, if I take a moment to focus, I am truly in awe.

It was either Marcus Aurelias - or my mom - that liked to point out that we can’t always control what happens around us, but we can certainly control what we focus on. Last night a coyote killed 8 of our sheep, and I spent the day walking the fence line looking for how it got in and fixing the problem. My phone tracked my steps, and it took me 7 miles of walking to fix the fence and relocate the rest of the flock. That’s a lot of walking and subsequently a lot of time to think, to rage, to castigate, and ultimately to try to channel my mom.  

I did my best to focus not on the carnage and despair, but instead to appreciate all the little successes our pastures have to offer. Like the monarch butterfly resting on the milkweed that grows in our pasture simply because we graze it instead of mowing.

I tried to appreciate the abundance of birds in our fields because the grass, though grazed, is long and insects flourish.  I took time to appreciate the little flycatcher trying hard to blend into its mossy nest -

and a Cedar Waxwing fledgling perched on our fence.

It looked so tentative when it saw me coming that I felt compelled to greet it reassuringly as I walked by. “Hello good neighbor!” I said in my most soothing tone “Such a fine day to learn how to fly!”

I made countless trips past it as I went back and forth to get tools and at one point it had lost its grip and was hanging upside down looking thoroughly undignified (I took its picture anyway).

The next time I walked by it was in the grass underfoot, so I carefully lifted it up into the willow tree above us and didn’t let go until it had firmly grasped the branch.

It stayed there (upright) watching as I’d walk by and occasionally open its gaping beak in case I wanted to regurgitate a worm or something into it. (I declined)

When I had moved the rest of the sheep to the barnyard and completed the repairs and fortifications the very best I could, I looked back and fervently hoped that the best I could do was indeed good enough.

Closing the gate for the night, a flash of orange caught my eye. I watched as the little Waxwing confidently moved through the willow branches way up high. It fluttered and flew just a few inches at a time. I’m sure somewhere hidden, its mother was also watching, and I thought how pleased she must have been to finally see it fly.