St Brighid’s Day

Today is Groundhog’s Day (though I’m pretty sure the groundhogs have all broken hibernation and are running about, doing their regular thing here in Michigan’s balmy heatwave), but the first days of February also mark the beginning of Spring to many cultures.

Whether you call it St Brighid’s day, Imbolc,  Candlemas or Groundhog’s Day, today marks a celebration of new beginnings, purity and the promise of fertility to come, both of the land and the livestock.

It was a bit over a year ago that I was watching, terrified, as my pregnant ewe Ingrid blimped up and began to produce milk. She didn’t lamb until April, but it was February that I noticed changes that inevitably meant she was pregnant. Suddenly I felt very in over my head.

I’ve been a shepherdess for more than a year now. What a strange thought! Our first and, thus far, only lamb born here at Tanglewood is Ingrid’s little Brighid, named for the promise of new beginnings and fertility to come. She was born strong and healthy, and when I walked into the stall to find her, I immediately knew she was a ewe and I knew her name; this was peculiar, as I hadn’t even begun to consider names before crossing the threshold of the barn.

Today is a spectacular reminder of the cyclical nature of farming. I sit here writing, thinking about my ewes out in the pasture and how it might just be my imagination, but they are all starting to look a bit more plump. This year my little Brighid will lamb and I am positive she will make a fabulous mother. She is strong and independent, and not at all skittish. She is tall, broad and muscular – just like her mother – with some added shoulder from her father. When I look at her, I see the future of my life as a shepherdess. She’s a symbol of hope beyond all of the hardships I have endured through my first year of shepherding.

She has wise eyes and a calm demeanor. She’s the one sheep I have ever met that seems to size things up before bolting. I’m so lucky to have such an inspiring little lady-sheep in my life.

She will lamb this spring, and her lambs will either grow to produce lambs of their own, or they will grow to feed us next winter.

Either way, there is a cycle that occurs when you live on a farm, and it has an incredibly strong flow. Once you’re caught up in it, it’s no longer about finding the time or organizing tasks, it’s about living and enabling life.