It’s all electricty

[These four posts are from 2020, and should be read in order. Begin with Silence of the Lambs and work backwards]

I think the coyotes were my fault. I knew I shouldn't hide dead animals in my garbage, and after my first year, I quit, instead become adept at hurling lighter weight fauna and dragging the heavier ones. (I am stronger than I've ever been, living on a mountain, where walking uphill no longer feels unusual, or often even noticeable). So the coyotes were my fault, because I must have been feeding them.

In my defense, I'd thought I was only feeding the foxes who lived in the hollow between our house and our neighbors. The foxes I had made peace with-- as long as I free ranged my hens in the afternoon, I didn't lose too many to the mother, and I knew she had kits to feed. I sympathized-- finding meals everyone likes isn't easy.

Before we left for California, one of the new lambs became very sick, but unlike the others who died before him, he lingered. The previous lambs died within a day of becoming ill, maybe two at the most. But this poor fellow stayed ill, prone on his side in the small barn, waiting for me to lift him up so he could take some water. He ate some grain for the first few days. But after a few more days, he quit eating. He stayed still, breathing softly, drinking what I offered him, and clearly suffering.

We don't have a gun. The only reason we knew we might need a gun was to put an animal out of its misery, but we were prepared to outsource that. I wasn't prepared for how beautiful that outsourcing would be.

I met Jason first as our electrician, and he's become a friend. He's a gentle, smart, wry, and generous father and our entire family likes having electrical problems because it means we'll get to have Jason around the house. During this sheep's last days he was at the cottage off and on, helping me with a project. I knew that if I told him about the sheep, he'd offer to help me. And of course he did. He told me he's helped friends put their dogs down, and that he didn't like it, but he also knew it was the right thing to do.

When Jason came back the next day he brought a small black handgun. After we finished working, he walked up the hill with me, and helped me load the poor sheep into the blue wheelbarrow so we could carry him closer to his final resting place. The sheep barely sighed as we moved him, and he didn't flinch when the barrow dipped into a divot or popped over a branch. We pushed him along the disused eighteenth-century roadbed into the woods, and Jason lifted his emaciated frame out and onto the ground.

I wasn't prepared for what happened next. Jason laid his hands on the sheep-- both hands, and crouched by him for at least two minutes, sometimes saying a word of comfort, but mostly being quiet. It was such an act of kindness and charity, for the sheep, and for me, and for him. Jason made sure he had connected with the animal, and that the animal felt his kindness and his compassion. Only after those minutes spent acknowledging the animal's dignity did Jason dispatch the sheep, with a single shot to the back of the neck. He then laid his hands on it again and held on until the life ran all the way out.

And then, he carried it down deep into the ravine and covered it with leaves.

The forest families would feast over the next few days.