Dec. 19, ’09-Snow is piling up and swirling around the early morning hours. I’m busting a path to get the lower gate open un-chained. Jasper is incessantly baaing @ me. He’s a moving snow sheep and has ice around his eyes. I feel tears sting my eyes and I promise him a dry bed. He’s 15 years old and deserves to be dry and out of the wind. The cab tractor is plowing a path up the road. The John Deere lights shining as the snow continues to fall. Jasper eagerly follows me up the steep incline and I’m sweating. Just soaked and matted hair from sweat and snow. It’s -20 windchill and I re-assure Jasper he will be dry soon. Tom plows a path over the white shed and I hold tightly to Jasper’s collar. He would follow me anywhere and he’s soon munching on hay. Tom opens a wired gate and I lead Jasper inside a freshly bedded straw pen. I exhale and quickly return to Cherry Hill.

Next I have to encourage Jake the goat to move out of the white calf hut.  Horns on his head cause me to pause and then it’s just Tom and I shoving a stubborn goat out into the snowdrifts.  I  am overcome with emotion. Songs of Christmas celebration are being sung by me. What’s a girl to do??!  Now Tom is just laughing and we’re singing, “Deck the goats with boughs of holly, Fa La La  La..’ti the season to be frozen Fa La llaaa..Silent Night Frozen Night..Oh Little Town of Arcadia”.. Just beauty in the moment as we drag and shove this angelic white goat to the warmer shed.

Then we make the last trip with Clancy goat. He’s a docile Nubian goat with floppy ears. Just a sweetheart and the one that resisted the most. We basically carried him the whole way to the shed.   Now they are all settled and we have a shed filled with sheep and goats as the pastures are blanketed in pristine fallen snow.

Do you have a warm spot for your sheep and goats and do you move them prior to a blast of cold weather???

Happy Day!

Sue Roskos