-30, and Dropping

I wrote this story well over 20 years ago, came across it while cleaning up (downsizing). It is a work of fiction but, having spent many years as a sheep rancher in our erratic northern Alberta climate, it is grounded in reality. Today we are experiencing our fourth less than -30C cold snap. It’s expected to jump to +4 tomorrow, only to drop back down the day after. 

-30, and Dropping

By ML Tipton

Shelly stood, splitting maul held high over her head, about to drop it on a stubborn piece of pine, when she heard a worried “maaa, maaa” coming from the sheep feeding area north of the barn. “My God,” she thought, “it can’t be, not now, it’s far too early! The lambs aren’t supposed to come for another month!” But again she heard the high pitched “maaa”, so distinctive from the deeper toned “baaa” of the older sheep. After years of lambing she was in tune with that tiny plaintive sound. Like the cry of a baby, it pierced her consciousness even while she slept. It was a lamb alright, a month early, -30, and dropping.

Shelly abandoned the wood pile and headed at a fast clip around the end of the barn. There he stood, mom nowhere in sight, crying for food, for comfort, for warmth. The moment she picked him up, however, mom showed herself, coming to claim and protect her baby. A speedy look around and she found the lamb’s twin, dead and frozen, in the hay nearby. Shelly quickly carried the live lamb to the barn with the ewe following, holding him near her hip, his hind end near the ewe’s nose so she could easily identify his smell. Leaving the ewe captive inside, she rushed the lamb to the house to inspect him more carefully and warm him up. But it was too late. His ears and both hind legs were frozen solid. A familiar sadness came over her. It was no use. She would have to let him die or shoot him. After choosing the second alternative, she went back to her wood splitting task. “At least someone can be warm in this Godawful weather,” she mused.

January had ushered in the heaviest snowfall on record, over 80cm, and now February was breaking records for extreme cold. The farm calendar said lambs were coming in mid March. “What happened,” she thought, “I don’t remember the ram ever getting out!” But tossing theories around did not alter the fact that the ewe had lambed, whether she was supposed to or not. Since the lambs appeared to be full term, an immediate adjustment to management needed to be made if the next lambs were to live. Shelly set to work trying to find panels to make 4’ X 4’ claiming pens for the ewes and their lambs. Finding only two Shelly thought, “Well, Roland will be home tomorrow. Maybe he can slap a few together.”

Shelly’s husband, Roland, worked off farm, canting at a sawmill in the bush. A camp job, he only came home on weekends. They’d hoped to avoid working out this year but unexpected breakdowns and repairs took a toll on their small earnings. The dollars just wouldn’t stretch the distance. When Roland returned to the farm from the bush he was tired and grumpy. He only wanted to rest, enjoy the warmth of the fire, watch TV. Coming home to catastrophes, unexpected work or unforeseen expenses quickly pushed him into a dark mood. The simplest statement could spark a futile argument.

The weekend passed with no new lambs coming. Roland found the time to make four more claiming pens. Shelly went to town for veterinary supplies. Tempers were short fused, the cold weather continued to sit heavily on the land, and Shelly and Roland hardly said good-bye when he headed back to the bush. Shelly checked the flock frequently. At night the ewes burrowed deep into the straw in the barn, their breath rising like smoke from a chimney in the frigid air. She moved the beam of her flashlight slowly through the flock but saw no sign of new life. The ewes’ eyes glowed green as they turned their heads towards the bobbing light, but they were no longer startled into motion by its nightly intrusion.

At dawn on the 12th day after the arrival of the first lambs, Shelly spied a shivering wet lamb standing in the midst of the ewes, its mother not apparent. Moving closer to the lamb her worst fears were realized - against the west barn wall were two dead lambs. “Triplets, what a terrible loss!” she thought. “But at least this one seems okay.” She wove her way through the sheep to the live lamb and its mother came instantly to his side. Armed with livestock marking spray, she quickly applied a big green stripe on the ewe’s back. Now to get the lamb warm, quick.

She submerged the lamb in warm water in the kitchen sink, towel dried him and lay him by the kitchen fire. His ears were frozen but his legs were good. She went back outside to put the green striped ewe in a pen, and when her baby was dry they were happily reunited. The remainder of the day was uneventful, but on her 10:00 pm rounds worry set in. Doing her usual check for hypothermia, she discovered that the new lamb’s mouth was cooler than it should be. Should she take it in? Echoes of the past rang in her ears, taking lambs in and out of the cold can cause problems, the temperature difference is stressful for them. Their moms sometimes rejected them. Still… “I’ll take it in,” she decided, popping the lamb outside the pen. But the lamb appeared strong, his mother called and he called back. “No,” she thought, “he’ll probably be okay,” and back in with mom he went. The next morning at 6:00 am Shelly moved cautiously through the dozing sheep to the lamb pens. The new lamb was a hidden deeply within the straw. “Good,” she thought, “what a smart mom to cover him like that.” But he was awfully still and when she climbed into the pen to check him out she found he was dead. A string of expletives exploded in her brain. “Damn, damn, damn!” Shelly muttered to herself. “Another one! When will this weather break? This is impossible! What am I to do?….Sleep out here?”

Two live, healthy lambs and one disaster later, Roland returned home for the weekend. On Sunday the sun finally began to eat away at the cold, the icy north winds at last subsided, and the thermometer registered a balmy -5. Both Roland’s and Shelly’s mood mellowed with the weather. Leaning against the fence, soaking up rays of delicious warmth, they shared the joy of the birth of healthy twins, casting aside the gloom of past weeks.  “Sure hope this was the last cold snap,” said Roland as they stood watching the lambs seek their mother’s milk supply. “I don’t think I could stand another one this winter, do you?”

To Shelly’s pleasure, the thermometer continued to hover 5 degrees above or below freezing. It was as if the full moon joined hands with the cold, taking it away as it waned. The lambs came more frequently now and losses were few. The earth and its inhabitants breathed a sigh of relief. Break-up was in the air, water dropped from the eaves, and, as always, winter at last gave way to spring.