A Red Sun Rises...

It was the earthquake that woke me up. Around 4:38, my bed starts to mildly vibrate, and something (my window?) was rattling. As if a big construction truck went rumbling right outside the house, but with no noise. I figured it was an earthquake--did the big one hit at New Madrid? Is the Mississippi flowing backward this morning?

Even though it was probably too early to tell, I headed to the living room to see if Kevin felt it (he was asleep, but I woke him up to tell him! Wasn't that nice?) and turn on the TV--at 4:40 a.m.--to see if a news crew had teleported to the scene 1 minute after shakedown. They hadn't!

I went back to bed and couldn't sleep. I gave up at 5:30 and headed out to the pasture to check on everybody. After letting the chickens out, I went out to the white blobs lolling around by the horse trailer. And there was one less white blob than there should be. One less tiny blob.

Roused now, Olive started baaah-ing for her little lamb. And no answer came. So I trekked over to the sheep shed, thinking maybe baby got separated and that place was familiar. Olive followed me all the way. No lamb. So I start squinting in the pre-dawn darkness, looking for a little pile of white. Despite my attempts to construct a fence that would hold Olive and Pimento (oh, Pimento!) and keep Pimento safe from Tina's murderous hooves, Olive got out. 'Oh well', I thought, 'What will be will be.'

No little stomped blob, either. Gotta be predators.

In my robe and muck boots, weathering a killing mist, I set off into the pasture, down around the pond, peering over the earth's little heaves looking for Pimento. An owl seems too small to get a lamb, but maybe not. I hadn't heard the coyotes for weeks, but Kevin later told me that he heard them a few days ago. Well, there ya go.

Feed the horses, check water, give May a little scratch behind the ears, head inside. Now it's 6:08. Sure enough, it was an earthquake--5.2, 150 miles east of St. Louis. Three-hundred miles away! And it shakes my bed. Wow.

After lounging around for a bit, I head back outside about 6:50. Sun's up, now, and I'll take another gander. Perhaps Pimento is just lost, curled up somewhere out-of-range of her mother's constant, heartbreaking bleating. Count the sheep--1-2-3-4...where the hell is May?

Check the horse shed. 5 sheep now. (There should be 7, but I've resigned myself to 6.) Head back to the sheep shed, see a little white through the crack in the corner. Is May in there having her lambs?! The vet was just out in my pasture yesterday, and he said it looked like all my old ewes were going to have triplets! He also used May, my sweet old ewe, as the model for how to get a sheep on its back so hooves can be trimmed. Poor May! I know how it feels to be very pregnant and have to bend over for something.

May has had a harder time than usual getting to her feet. She's been the last one to the trough for awhile, but this last week she's given up on making the trek. Or, if she does, the alfalfa is already gone.

I peek in the sheep shed and there she is. Dead. She went into the sheep shed, laid down in the clean straw, put her head on the 4X4 at the bottom of the wall, and died. Sweet little May.

Unfortunately, she died at some point within the last 45 minutes. But I don't know how long ago. In her belly, she had 1, 2, 3? lambs? Could I have performed a harsh C-section and gotten them out?

First a chicken. Then Pimento. Now May and her lost lambs.

It's a sad farm today.