Vaccinating the Ewes

While the rice is cooking, I fill the syringes, 13 in all. Forty-eight seconds remain on the timer when I'm finished. I set the syringes aside while I finish cooking dinner. "I didn't get the llama separated from the ewes," I tell my husband over dinner. When handling the sheep, we move the guard llama from the flock. We don't want him mistaking us for a predator. Because he's difficult to catch, it's easiest to shut a gate when he's straggling behind the ewes as they move from one paddock to the next. I do that after dinner. The ewes, heavy with winter hair and lambs, are in the pasture. My husband and I move them into the barn. We fall into a routine. He catches one. I pinch the skin behind the armpit and insert the needle. I note the layer of fat, the thickness of skin, the quiet of the animal. We are vaccinating for overeating and tetanus. Once vaccinated, I pull a green grease pencil across their back so we know which ones are done. It takes us less than an half hour to complete the chore. We note how easy it is when they are older, when it is warm, when they are pregnant. I think how much different it will be in a few months when we're trying to catch the lambs for their first shots. How they will jump and prong when we try to catch them, how they will cry for their mothers, how their skin will be thinner and there will be less to pinch. But then I dismiss that thought and enjoy the calm of an early spring evening with 13 ewes as they amble back to pasture.