Bye Bye Black Sheep

Tonight a lamb was born.  A female, with a black face and spots, and a tiny, bleating voice.  Her mother is a ewe from Sicilia (and therefore is named Cicilia), and this was her first pregnancy.  As soon as I saw the newborn lamb—just minutes after she came into the world—I felt uplifted because I believed that she, unlike the many male lambs that have been born this week, would live a long, happy life in the poppy and clover-filled pastures here at the azienda.  However, I have just discovered that I am mistaken. She too will have her throat cut by Domenico and end up on somebody’s table on Easter Day.

This knowledge has spurred an internal moral discussion that I will attempt to explain.  When one raises sheep, or any other animal that is used for products, one must be prepared to play God.  As far as I can see it, sheep prior to domestication roamed Italy freely with only predation, illness, infant mortality, and natural disaster as their threats to life. When a person raises sheep for milking, their job is to eliminate all of these threats to ensure that they keep their products alive and healthy. (That is not to say that the people here do not emotionally connect with their sheep.  By products I mean their livelihood.) With these threats removed, the sheep population would be out of control in a few short years. The solution is that some sheep must die. It is, of course, as sad thing to imagine when you see a tiny, speckled lamb tottering around on its four spindly legs mewing for its mother moments after its birth, but Antonio has consoled me by reminding me that sheep do not experience time, especially as sense of the future, like we do. This newborn lamb is not living a doomed life, for she will continue to live out her time (one month, perhaps two) in the pasture, surrounded by other sheep in the Mediterranean sun until the moment Domenico bleeds her out. My shock at her being a female and condemned to Easter dinner is born from the question: why not use her for milk? Like I said before, however, if all female sheep were kept for milk, our 130 sheep would become 200, then 400 within a matter of years. Instead of wolves or famine or draught, WE become the wolves and prune the population from overgrowth.

And somehow, life goes on. Today, the goat, Amelia, gave birth to twin male kids, whom I have named Vinnie and Toby. (Vinnie after Vincent Van Gogh, because he has a wonky ear, and Toby because it sounded right.) Last week, we found a litter of kittens in the straw bales and every day this week a lamb or two has been born.  It is springtime and LIFE is all around us here in Salento. 

Animal Farm

There is a dog here that was born on Christmas day to a mother who had supposedly been fixed. Ironically, he was named Lucifero, and he is the sweetest, snuggliest dog I have ever met. His sister, Luna, spends the majority of her time perched on the roof of her doghouse, grimly keeping watch over the chicken coop.  “The Sopwith Camel”, as I have come to call it, was made by the volunteer farmhand before me, and though it was made with love, it was shoddily built, and I often find poor Luna tangled hopelessly around wayward 2x4’s and bits of fallen-in roof. In the chicken coop live a gaggle of hens, a pidgin with a broken wing, and a lone duck. The duck, who spent most of the first day eyeing me suspiciously as I hoed the garden, starts quacking enthusiastically every time the dogs bark, and seems to have been begrudgingly accepted into the chicken community due only to his lack of same-species companionship. Finally, there are five or six cats that lounge around the farmyard. They are fairly independent, apart from the smallest one—-a perpetually hungry black kitten with green eyes—-who has fallen in love with me and has taken to lunging at me with his claws out, trying to climb me whenever I walk past.

Then, of course, there are the sheep. One hundred and thirty five, plus a few lambs, all very timid and loud-mouthed. They follow anything white. The four herding dogs are all white, but the sheep don’t stop there. Yesterday one of the chickens flew the coop into the small pasture, and we found the sheep bobbing along in a loose line behind the oblivious chicken, who was making his way across the field in search of grubs. I thought that I would bond with them somehow, what with me yanking on their breasts twice a day, but so far I have felt very little in terms of sheepish appreciation.

Life here is tranquil and fun. I catch myself smiling for no apparent reason as I work around the farm, or as I take the rickety bike out to the countryside or to the town of Cutrofiano. People are very kind—-Domenico, the loud, eccentric sheep herder; Mari, sarcastic and jolly; Andrea, the boy my age who already cares for three separate orchards and gardens by himself and taught me how to properly harvest broccolini and lettuce; Ziggy, the dreadlocked falcon-trainer who always has cookies in his pocket. And many more warm-hearted and friendly people. I haven’t washed my clothes in almost three weeks, my nose is freckled, and my hair smells like sheep, and I am immeasurably happy to be right where I am.

Of Sheep and Men

This morning, I woke up easily at 5:30, just as the first light was illuminating the frost on the grass. I slipped out of bed so as not to wake my fellow volunteer who was taking his day off, pulled a sweater and some work-pants over my pajamas and joined Antonio and Domenico in the stables to milk the sixty patiently-waiting sheep. By that I mean, Antonio and Domenico milked fifty-eight patient sheep between them and I managed to piss off two slightly miffed sheep who were less than ecstatic to have some newbie farm hand yanking on their utters. 

The days begin in this way every day: milking at dawn, then to the dairy to make ricotta with Domenico (who sings opera all the while, pausing only to speak rapidly in Sardo dialect and laugh at all my prodding and incorrectly phrased cheese-related questions). As the girl volunteer, it is my job to make coffee and bring it to the men as the milk and whey heat, but I don’t mind. Today, after I brought the caffé, Domenico filled my cup with hot whey (sielo), the very healthy and slightly sweet byproduct of cheese-making. It tasted a little too salty to me, but it was creamy and warming—-it would be delicious with a bit of honey and cinnamon. 

Mariangela cooks well and taught me to make wheat bread this morning after we finished in the dairy. While it rose, and while the sheep were at pasture, I cleaned the chicken coop and weeded the herbs. But by noon, things slow down at the farm, and this afternoon I read Of Mice and Men while the surprisingly strong winter sun lulled all the farm animals (and myself) into a nap. Then, at 3:30, it’s back to the stable with Antonio and Domenico to milk (this time I took on four sheep), then to the dairy to make hard pecorino.  

Around 8:00 we eat dinner, soaking our pasta sauce from our plates with fresh, hot bread. There is always reggae music playing in the background, and shortly after dinner everybody is tired and content and ready for bed. I am writing now at the end of the day, warm and well-fed, wrists slightly sore from all the milking, barely 9:30 and already thinking about tomorrow. Up with the sun…