Greetings Dear Ones!

Well, it’s been quite a morning! I’ve made an eye patch out of an old bra cup and sewn it onto a steer’s head, rounded up the neighbor’s escaped dog, built a section of split-rail fence, vaccinated the herd, and learned that a sheep I have owned for seven years has no butt hole. (Yes, you read that correctly. No Butt Hole. More on this later.) If I hadn’t already missed you last week, I might be content to flop down under the faded blossoms on the apple tree and stare into the deep blue above until the stench of my own underarms prompts me to move upwind of myself… There’s no point in showering: It’s projected to be near ninety degrees Fahrenheit and today is the day I have picked to shear the sheep. A friend is coming to help, I’ve taken the day off from the shop and we cannot turn back now.

Last week, I started writing an “All-is-well-Ain’t-life-Grand” sort of blog celebrating the joys of Spring only to get interrupted by the discovery that I had a sick sheep on my hands. Beloved Old Mr. Willoughby, who had just turned ten and who had the best fleece in my entire flock had separated himself from the herd and was acting “weird,” which in sheep parlance is “I’m planning to die.”

“Please don’t die,” I begged him, when he staggered into the barn with a faintly “neurologic” tremor in his limbs.

“I must,” he said. “It’s been the plan all along.”

“I hate that plan,” I said. “I don’t want to lose you! I will miss you.”

“I will just stop being here and be Everywhere instead,” he said. “It’s a decent plan.”

“No!” I insist. “We will mend you! What’s wrong with you? You are not skinny, you have no fever, no diarrhea, no bloat, no cough, no injury…your eyelids are pink, you have all your teeth… What’s up? Did you have a stroke? Are you just old?”

“I’m not going to tell you,” he mumbled wearily. “I’m just Very Tired. It’s time for me to go home.”

I called the clinic and a vet agreed to come by the end of day.

I gave him apples and probiotics (Willoughby, that is, not the vet) which he ate politely but he never got up again. He went Home before the vet could come.

The next day, our beloved Hermit of Hermit Hollow used the backhoe on his tractor to dig a fresh grave beneath the maple tree where his mother is buried. (Willoughby’s mother, not the Hermit’s)

My heart aches at these transitions. I would make a terrible Buddhist! I suffer easily and often. I am Attached to everything. Any form of division feels hurt-filled. I am doing mental wrestling with the idea that some divisions are necessary.

I am, however, delighted to be putting some distance between myself and Glitter. Prom Season is over! The shop now faces impending glitter withdrawal. I am considering opening a local recovery program for people whose lives have become unmanageable due to glitter. “Is glitter ruining your life? Are you obsessed with thoughts of glitter? Do you struggle to hide the amount of glitter you have? When you are in the presence of friends, do you wonder why they have no “sparkles”? Do you need help learning to nourish yourself with food that does not contain trace amounts of glitter? Are you worried about the amount of glitter secretly making its way into your septic system? Are you powerless to change the amount of vacuuming you must do just to keep functioning?”

In the woods, I am dividing the land—fencing off an area of underbrush for the cattle to clear. Their sandpaper tongues seem to have no problem with invasive roses and buckthorn bushes tangled together with ropes of poison ivy, wild grape, and Virginia Creeper. There are several acres of tree-choking despair rivaling the Fire Swamp in The Princess Bride. The plan is to have the boys, who use their horns like salad forks, clear a bit at a time and restore some space and health to the area so that it can be a forest again instead of something that kept charming princes away from Sleeping Beauty for a hundred years. The trick is to move the fence before they begin to snack on the trees. (The cattle, that is, not the charming princes.)

Beneath a struggling Beech tree, I find some little beauties: a clump of Lily of the Valley—“white choral bells, upon a slender stalk…” I had wanted to put some in the raised garden beds by the front door but had decided against ordering them from a seed catalogue last fall during one of my “credit card austerity” campaigns. And here they are! Knowing the boys will just devour them (and they are toxic), I immediately stop what I am doing to dig them up carefully and install them in a raised bed by the front door of the house. They transplant beautifully and look happy in their new spot. I divide them along their rhizomes, the underground stems which put out the lateral shoots at intervals connecting sister plants. The little families are snuggled into fresh earth in rows of cousins, with room to spread out. Every morning, I sing an old nursery round to them:

White choral bells, upon a slender stalk

Lily-of-the-Valley lines my garden walk.

Oh how I wish that you could hear them ring

but that will only happen when the faeries sing!”

So far, no ringing or singing. Other gardeners warn me about how invasive they can be but they are in a solid bed with nowhere else to go so they will fill in over time and crowd each other (the lilies, that is, not the old-time gardeners) until further divisions can be made. They are a lovely (free!!!) gift from the forest. We have each spared each other. There is joy in this “division.”

By now, Dear One, you probably want to get back to that butt hole situation, though you were certainly too polite to say so.

“Rubbish!” insists Prudence, appalled. “Skip it. No one wants to hear about such a vile topic.”

“But this is a blog about every kind of Mending—fences, garments, hearts, and maybe bodies too…”

“This is ridiculous!” mutters Prudence, “Utter tosh!”

“Or…tush… in this case,” says my inner fifth-grader, smirking.

It all started when Otie came into the barn with tears pouring out of one eye. He and Gus had been happily munching their way through their new jungle of thorns but a stick must have poked Otie in the eye. The poor fellow was very weepy and unhappy so I again called the vet. She agreed to meet me at 8:30 this morning to check him. “Why don’t we vaccinate all the sheep since I’ll be there anyway? We can do wellness checks and see how the flock is doing.”

Now, I don’t know what kind of rough ceremonies happen at your doctor visits, but a sheep “wellness” check involves being grabbed head and tail and wrestled into a corner unless one manages to drag the doctor and shepherdess around the pen three times first. Then you get two injections—CDT and rabies—one in the neck, one in the back leg, then we pull down an eyelid to see how pink it is. Pale eyelids mean anemia, probably due to a high parasite load. Then we “score” the body flesh by feeling the spine and pelvis to determine the animal’s conditioning. (It’s hard to do this by sight, given all their wool.) Everybody had good eye color but one ewe was a little pale and not as well conditioned as the others. “Let’s get a fecal sample from that one,” said the Vet.

In animal medicine, we don’t ask the patient to go into a private bathroom and poop into a little cup. Nor can we collect a sample from the barn floor, as it could be anybody’s. The only way to assure you have a sample from the correct individual is, yes, you guessed it—put on the gloves and go in after it. This is when we discovered that Miss Molly has no butt hole.

Yep! Weird. I had no idea! It’s called atresia ani vaginalis and it happens in about 1% of lambs. Male lambs born with no anus usually die without surgery because there is nowhere for the poop to go. In female lambs, their bodies sometimes force a compromise so that the poop can find an exit through the vagina. Her body figured it out without medical intervention and she’s been alive for seven years with no problems, pooping through her vulva the entire time.

“What does one do if a sheep needs a complete asshole?” I wonder aloud. “Do we just go to Congress and grab one of the many belligerent delegates? It seems like there are some Perfect specimens there!”

Otie had his eye checked and did indeed have a scratched cornea, as suspected. We all decided he would be happier wearing a bra on his head for the next two days. (Who wouldn’t be?) We filled his eyelid with soothing antibiotic ointment and I sewed a bust pad in place using strips of linen anchored to his horns. He submitted gratefully. The bra cup fits perfectly (his eye is a 34A) and helps keep the lids closed, which feels much better for him, and stops the flies from bothering it. Twice a day, he will get warm compresses, fresh ointment, and vintage Victoria’s Secret strapped to his head. He is On The Mend!

As I think about Divisions, Separations, Distinctions… I see that some are absolutely vital. Having an anus separate from a vagina is a major convenience. Having an eye on each side of the face helps us have depth perspective. Having one view only is extremely unbalancing and dangerous, for a working steer or a voter. Having a working democracy where the two sides to every story can get debated and discussed Respectfully so that compromises can be reached…well, that’s still the Dream, isn’t it? We hear a lot about “United we stand; divided we fall” and I believe that in a larger sense, especially if we unite around the ideals of Democracy and Decency. But in small ways, Divisions—used appropriately—give us room, invite us to grow, expand, learn, and ultimately make us stronger. To mend our social fabric is to accept (and choose not to discard) What Is, while still choosing to evolve.

Sometimes Nature makes some interesting “mistakes” yet always, she finds a way to Mend—including in Death, the ultimate transformation. Mending means embracing Workable Possibilities so that Shit Gets Done!

Amen.

Keep mending my Darlings!

I love you Sew Much!

Yours aye,

Nancy

P.S. The shearing went great! The sheep are naked and happy now!

P.P.S. A big thanks to dear Katie K. from “The Artichoke Temple,” who shares this to FB, since I am no longer there, and to anyone else who takes the time to share or comment! Thank you!