Greetings Dear Ones!

Well, we’ve had our first unfortunate “haircut at home during the Corona Virus” episode. The results are pretty dreadful. I could not wait until the first week of June, as I usually do, to shear one of the yearling lambs because his wool had started to slough off in odd ways, making horrible mats and dreadlocks that were ruining his gorgeous fleece. Among many of the wonderful traits of Shetland sheep, an ancient breed that retains many feral and original characteristics of primitive sheep, is the occasional ability to “rue” or shed. Normally, we shear Shetlands in June because the “break” in the fleece, where the new growth is clearly visible, makes the job so much easier. But this guy was so itchy that he would scratch himself with his horns, get his horns tangled in his own wool and then walk in circles until I came to cut him free. (Who ISN’T having problems like this these days? Though to be clear, it’s not my horns that get tangled in my mop, it’s a hairbrush, but still I walk in circles until cut free!) His long, silky, beautiful lamb’s first wool was being destroyed little by little each day as he continually rubbed and felted himself. I called my favorite shepherding mentor and she said that the animal was probably really stressed out during this fall, when I had to put them at another farm for three months before I could bring them here to Hermit Hollow. He had been in with a bunch of rams who did not give him access to shelter and who were like bullies on the school playground. He did lose weight and seem traumatized when I went to visit him. Anyway, now he’s otherwise totally healthy and happy but his past trauma is playing out in his fleece. She said to save the fleece, I needed to shear him now and he’d be fine. So I did.

Because I am having shoulder issues with a rotator cuff injury, I locked him into the milking bench and sheared him standing up, rather than bending over and trying to wrestle him on the ground. Like my son, years ago when he was young, he loved getting his haircut until I was about eighty-five percent done. (If only I had thought to lock my son into a milking stanchion to finish the job!) The last twenty percent was a nightmare for us both. After one of us decided to throw a temper tantrum and poop all over the bench, I wound up setting him free looking like he’d gotten a really bad butt-mullet. We looked deep into each other’s eyes and knew that the other sheep were going to laugh at him. Neither of us cared. He looked almost as “sheepish” as one of our favorite former customers who came into the shop one day with only half of her head trimmed. She had her four-year-old granddaughter in tow and they were doing errands. The first errand had been to get granny’s haircut. Only the granddaughter had been so naughty, that granny was asked by the management to take her away before the haircut could be completed! Prudence had quite a thing or two to say about that!

Prudence has been getting her horns tangled in a lot of woolly issues these days. She has much to say about people who spread certain kinds of news and other people who actually believe certain kinds of news, though Vexing her Most are the people who don’t follow the green arrows pointing out the proper flow of traffic at the grocery store. She is generally bugging the pellets out of me too. (She will be the reason my fleece falls out six months from now.)

“What are you doing?” she wants to know.

“I’m writing. You know, the blog?”

“How can you write a blog about being a Seamstress when you are NOT being a seamstress?” she wants to know. “Who wants to hear about sheep looking like your unfortunate customers?”

“Well, I’m attempting to project a dramatic, literary framework upon every day existence, rendering home haircuts that make one want to take a dip of snuff enjoyable, enlightening, and potentially meaningful. As an Artist, I have a responsibility to connect people and bring forth Beauty from collective pain…”

“What a load of crap,” says P. “You are just staring into space, attempting to get out of doing the dishes.” I find this statement laughable because the exact opposite is true. Lately, I have been using any number of ‘chores,’ including scalping an innocent lamb, as an excuse NOT to lift a pen to project a dramatic literary framework on anything. Writing, like pretty much everything else, including combing my hair, seems like an inordinate amount of effort. Why bother?

“Perhaps you should vacuum the couch, give yourself a haircut, do your taxes, or capture the chickens who have escaped from their box in the cellar,” she says. “When History comes to write its account of this time, are you going to be content to say you passed The War in untrimmed squalor, ankle deep in mask scraps and dog fur? As the Queen Mother might say, how will you look the East Enders in the face?”

I giggle and think of myself as an old lady (ok, an OLDER little old “late-ee”) sitting in a dappled, sunlit garden, six feet away from several other “little old Late-ees,” sipping tea directly through our calico masks that we never gave up wearing, ever, and can no longer remove except surgically, and dining on fruit and nuts we have scrubbed with a wire brush and straight bleach for a minimum of two “Happy Birthdays.” We have sung Happy Birthday to our fresh market produce for so long now, we mistakenly think we have been alive for thousands of years.

“How did you get through the Covid Era” croaks one who is sneaking gin into her cup, which has a decoy tea bag label taped to the inside (you know who you are!)

“Well,” says I with an air of dramatic nostalgia, “it was Brutal…simply BRUTAL…first we ate all the Tim-tams…then the Wifi went to down to point five, despite the supposed capacity of the fiberoptics… we could hardly watch the daily concerts…” My listeners roll their eyes sympathetically, acknowledging the collective Suffering our generation endured...

Tim-tams, for the uninitiated, are a very dangerous Australian approximation of a rectangular oreo cookie, only made with better chocolate and dipped in even better chocolate. This is, literally, the cookie to end all cookies. The best thing is that they are not even called “cookies”—they are called “biscuits” which automatically downshifts their perceived sugar content and makes them sound more healthy. They are one of the many perils of letting one’s daughter travel abroad without adequate parental supervision. Addicts and returning foreign exchange students have been known to trade all of their clothing to fill their suitcases with Tim-tams, only to find them in the Import section of their local Star Market, thus spreading the contagion to their mothers…

So many wonderful things are coming from Australia these days. Among them, is the current research on aerosol transmission of Corona Virus from, um… “down under.” Apparently, the virus has been found in poo, and even—though it nearly destroys Prudence to tell you so—Yes, gentle ladies and men, Gas. (Here, Prudence slumps into a dead faint.) According to an article in the New York Post, we are advised to avoid “bare bottomed farting” during this dangerous time, as more than particles of feces are aerosolized and set adrift when we let off. (Try telling this to the untold numbers of individuals currently quarantining at home, dressed as Winnie the Pooh.) The ah…repercussions…of this crisis get ever more interesting all the time: People locked at home, refusing to wear pants, eating through their vast stashes of beans and rice…it’s the makings of a Perfect Storm. Or at least a perfect storm Cloud. I can see it now—in days to come, as an act of heroic Patriotism, I will have to make Bum Masks with charcoal filters for public safety. The engineer part of my brain starts to work immediately—I picture something like a cross between a Speedo and Dr. Dentons with the button flap in the back. Women will have bikini ties for closure but those with male phenotypes will have the option of long, elastic loops…. (Prudence just woke up and is threatening to poke our eyes out with a seam ripper…)

“Maybe you should take a break from imagining ways to save the world with your Stitch Witchery,” says Prudence. “Maybe you should stop writing and Do Something Useful, preferably something that does not involve disfiguring farm animals.”

“Maybe I should take a nap,” I say…

On she rambles with her list of Shoulds…

Many of us in lockdown are unwisely “shoulding” all over ourselves like sheep on a shearing block. Our biggest fears, and there are many, include dying and the even more harrowing worry that somehow we are Failing Covid-19. Absolutely Everyone Else is going to emerge from lock-down looking as if they have just spent the last seven weeks at an exclusive health spa—with taut bodies, firm bank accounts, long, glossy hair, radiantly healthy skin, bright eyes and teeth that gleam as if nuclear powered. They will know an extra language, play a new instrument, and have learned how to make delicious, gourmet pasta from scratch using only shredded toilet rolls and mystery condiments from the back of the fridge. Their homes will sparkle and shine and their children will be ready to skip third grade and matriculate directly to Harvard. We, on the other hand, are going to emerge from our dens with hairy patches in all the wrong places, looking like a shoulder-lame shepherdess chopped at us for a while then gave up, muttered something that rhymes with “bucket,” and wandered off to guzzle something that rhymes with “cheer.” Like my unfortunate yearling wether, we will take off our Winter pajamas and discover that stress has long-term consequences for our organic bodies, be they human or ovine. As humans, our stress comes only partly from the Rams in charge. It comes mostly from our own toxic self-talk. That is something we Should do something about!

Please, my darlings, treat yourselves and each other with extraordinary gentleness—it’s true that you are building your future self today but a global pandemic is NOT a spa. We DON’T have to look like those fitness gurus who have spent the past forty days bench-pressing bottles of laundry detergent on Instagram. Our Stress is Real—in sheep and people—our bodies keep the score. We need extra comfort, extra gentleness, more kindness than ever. (Ok, maybe we can ease up on the beans…) With more love than ever,

Yours aye,

Nancy