No more barn

On Saturday I sold the ewes. I'm going to school full-time this winter, and I won't be able to supervise lambing the way I usually do. Originally, I hoped to time lambing for spring, but the fences weren't up in time to separate the ram, and he had his way, as usual. So they had to go.

Two of the ewe lambs have been gone about a month. Nora and Zora went to a happy home near Lincoln with an enthusiastic lady interested in handspinning and knitting their wool. She sent me some photos; they're much tamer now, and she's been brushing the burrs out of their wool. I'm entirely satisfied about them.

I had more trouble selling the others, though. Three different buyers vanished on me, responding to a couple of emails--even coming to see the sheep, in one case--before vanishing into thin air. I adjusted my prices. Then I readjusted them. No good.

Finally, last Thursday, someone emailed me asking if I was selling "sheeps," and for how much. I phoned the number in the email on Friday. The guy was Muslim, and any animals I sold him would clearly be slaughtered, but I expected that for Felix, and Letta had hurt herself trying to jump a fence. Slaughter might be the best I could hope for, if she sold at all. We set up a time on Saturday for Dana and his dad to come see my sheep.

The crowd that arrived on Saturday was not "Dana and his dad." Dana was there, yes, and so was another college-age guy, two middle-aged men, and a teenager named Muhammed. Felix and Letta were not going to satisfy this crowd. We all went out to the barn, with Doug following along to satisfy Dad's paranoia.

The bargaining process was long and complicated. One of the old men wanted Felix, while Dana and his dad were interested in Hina and Lizzie. Prices bounced back and forth, giving me my first taste of serious bargaining. To complicate matters, Bashir explained to me that the sheep were for a "donation," a charitable feast for which the animals were required to be staggered a year apart in age. Felix was six months old; Hina and Letta were two-year-olds; and Lizzie was somewhere near seven. Dana translated questions and offers, arguing in long volleys of foreign syllables, Arabic or Farsee or who knows what. I am not a scholar of Arabic.

Arrangements morphed swiftly. First they were taking two sheep; then they were taking three, but leaving one until Monday. Then they were going to put Hina and Felix in the SUV, and Lizzie in the trunk of the sedan. However, even hog-tied they wouldn't all fit, so they had to cut Felix's throat before they loaded him. Then they offered fifty for Letta, while they were at it. I fought them up to seventy, but her throat had to be cut, too.

Then one of the old men noticed the chickens. Would we sell chickens? Mom was willing to sell chickens. I started catching chickens. Another? I made Dana and Muhammed help me catch chickens. "We're buying all Anna's animals!" Dana joked.

They did, too. Almost. Oak is still here, wandering forlornly through the pasture. I watched him closely while we tied his ewes, wondering if he would fight, and he wondered, too, but he never did. His harim was kidnapped and slaughtered, and now he's alone, waiting to be sold.