The Soay Sheep Chronicles

I have such mixed feelings about Patterdale, our first and only bottle baby.  She seemed so vulnerable when she first arrived and then as she started to grow in our breakfast nook, yattering away to be sure we knew she was there and needed milk — all the time.   Both Steve and I had to resist the urge to smother her with attention, lest she get too attached to us.

We need not have worried.

These days, Patterdale hangs out with the friends she made in the Nursery when she first moved outdoors:  Sedgwick and his mom Yalo, and Milburn and his mom Catalaya.  We are relieved that she does not cling to us, or pay any attention to us at all, truth to tell, except when she wants milk.  Yalo and Catalaya will not let her nurse, of course, but Patterdale beds down with one or both of them nearby.  It is a surprisingly endearing family group scene for “just” sheep.

During the day, Patterdale is one of the crowd, exploring the hay feeders, running in and out of the creep feeder,

and generally learning the only skill — eating adult food — she will need until the Ancient Rituals — breeding and lambing — kick in.

But back to milk.  Notwithstanding her increasing independence, all it takes is a ring of the dinner bell hanging on a nail, or simply calling Patterdale’s name, and she comes racing over from whatever games or other mischief she’s gotten into with her lamb colleagues.

It is not very often I allow Steve to act as the official Saltmarsh Ranch photographer, mostly because he is somewhat of a perfectionist and I get impatient waiting for him to take the ideal picture.  But a few days ago he grabbed the camera as I was strolling down the gravel lane in the Maternity Ward to feed Patterdale.

Does the old Al Jolson tune, “Me and My Shadow” come to mind?

When Patterdale first moved inside with us, we used a purchased lamb nursing bottle, but once she moved out to the Maternity Ward with her buddies, we needed something a bit bigger so as not to be running back and forth to the house all the time.  Enter a no-longer-needed-for-human-consumption Schweppes Diet Tonic bottle — just the ticket.

As you can see, there is no shortage of enthusiasm for eating in this little ewe lamb. 

I have to laugh at our naivete in this whole episode, especially our unwarranted fear that we would not be able to find Patterdale amidst the throng of lambs in the Maternity Ward.  We actually put a big swath of green marking crayon, the stuff we use to tell us which of our Soay have been vaccinated when we work the ewes or rams, on Patterdale’s head. 

Oh yes, the red nipple.  For such a mundane tool, it has an awfully fancy name, “Pritchard teat,” and it is widely available in farm stores.  Unfortunately, as you can see it is way too big, as is a lot of sheep-related equipment not made especially for the little Soay, lambs or adults.  So far we have not had any luck finding a reliable smaller nipple and we welcome any advice on where to find one.  The nursing/watering equipment for rabbits and such in the pet stores never seems to include a nipple and we cannot imagine the Soay taking a liking to one of those stainless steel “straws” that little rabbits are supposed to lick on for liquid intake.

I haven’t decided whether to submit this next picture to the American Dairy Board or whoever it is that puts out the ads featuring celebrities with milk mustaches, but if life gets boring around here, I may just give it a whirl.

Meanwhile, as endearing as Patterdale is, on balance I will be relieved when her rumen is fully operational so she can live exclusively on hay and grass and we can commit the Schweppes bottle to the recycling bin.

For now …

One of the most enjoyable, ordinarily light-hearted rituals on our farm is the annual selection and implementation of lamb naming themes.  This year, picking the right theme took on a certain solemnity as we welcomed lambs with the first-ever new genetics in the British Soay flock here in the U.S., thanks to the wonders of AI. 

As you can imagine, selecting a naming theme for these historic sheep has occupied many hours around our dinner table, the hay feeders, and points in between for the last several months.  One day as Steve walked the pastures, he had a small “Eureka” moment:  why not name our Soay pioneers for members of the Saltmarsh family who settled here along the Little Applegate River in southern Oregon?  It was the Saltmarshes, after all, who as earlier pioneers homesteaded and lived on our farm for nearly one hundred years.   

Down off the bookshelf came the local histories.  Some of the names were easy to identify.  We presented our first draft list of names for review by our consultative body, which convenes each Wednesday for breakfast at the local cafe to discuss the weather and other urgent matters.  To our delight, we learned that Melvin and Curtis Saltmarsh, sons of Arthur B. (”Bird”) and Dora, had been named after the father and uncle of one of our favorite breakfast companions, Jerry McGrew.

Connie Fowler, a close-by neighbor and co-author of a wonderful book about Buncom, a ghost town three miles down the road, provided a wealth of additional detail about the Saltmarsh “begats.” She also pointed out a couple of unsavory characters undeserving of a place on our list. 

How we wish we had known the namesake, Genevieve Eliza (”Vieva”) Hamilton Saltmarsh, of our first AI ewe lamb, Saltmarsh Vieva.  Here is the “real” Vieva as a happy, rosy-cheeked young bride, dressed in her overalls:  

Vieva obviously engendered genuine affection and admiration from everyone she knew; we began hearing about her as soon as we purchased the Saltmarsh Ranch and we are still learning about her exploits during the decades she lived here.  Vieva farmed right alongside her husband, Robert Glen Saltmarsh, shown here at the gate leading down to the barn.

Vieva also kept the local weather records for the U.S. weather bureau for many, many years.  She was widely known for keeping a pet deer and protecting it from hunters by painting its antlers day-glow orange.

Here are Vieva and Glen in front of the farmhouse some years later.

The story goes that Vieva went to town the day after Glen died to buy the piano she had always wanted, becoming the first in the valley to have a piano at all.  To this day, Vieva’s Sunday musicales are remembered here with fondness. 

We are grateful to Vieva’s best girlfriend, Emily Savage of Montague, California, who found us a couple of years ago when she read an article about our Soay sheep in The Capital Press, for providing us with these photographs and for sharing wonderful memories of Vieva and Glen with us.  Emily and her husband John also pioneered in our valley.

But back to the sheep.  Here are our AI twins Glen (on the left) and Vieva, basking in the sunshine at Saltmarsh Ranch at the ripe old age of two weeks:

You may admire all eleven of our AI lambs by going to the 2008 Lambs album in the Open Flockbook Project Gallery.

Earlier generations of Saltmarshes built the barn that still stands as a landmark in the valley over a hundred years later.  Pictured on the home page of our website, the barn served as the nighttime home of our AI ewes throughout their pregnancy, keeping them safe from predators and dry during our wet winter.

We would like to think that Vieva, Glen, Cap, Bird, Arzie, Emmett, and all the other Saltmarshes would approve of the new turn of events on their homestead and in their valley.  Who knows, perhaps one day we will paint our AI progeny’s horns with day-glow paint to keep them safe!

For now …