Daisy’s Last Day

Daisy’s “baa” has always sounded like a cow’s “moo” and that didn’t change as I drove her to the butcher.  Earlier in the morning Todd and I tried to talk through how we were going to get Moby Dick, our giant white bad ass truck, into the right position so that a door we had in the basement could be set off the rear of the truck as a plank that Daisy would somehow walk up, willingly or not. It’s one of many tasks we needed to do together and doing tasks together, working through the plan, the steps, and actions, is pretty new to us despite nearly 33 years of marriage. Part of this sheep farm adventure has required us to figure out how to be a team, but today I think we were both on edge about taking her to the butcher. Standing in the kitchen, neither of us understood the other. We headed out the door anyway.

I went down to the field with grain and brought the gang up as Todd put the truck in a position we hadn’t discussed. “Is this what you meant?” he asked. No. And it wasn’t what he’d been thinking, but we both knew immediately it made the most sense. But we didn’t say so. Instead, we turned to separating Daisy from the rest of the flock. We’d brought them up to the chute that leads to the barnyard without incident, but as Todd went to close the inner door, he missed Jackie, and as the door swung, Jackie escaped outside the fencing.

A year ago, we’d have panicked. Today, we knew she wasn’t going to bolt.  We needed to slow down, work together and think about how to bring her back in. We used grain, patience, timing, but I was also nervous, frustrated, and losing the new dance steps we had begun to learn while working together.  It was a mistake that Jackie got out, Todd I’m sure was frustrated by that, but I couldn’t shrug the tension of taking Daisy off the farm, and I couldn’t help shoving that tension into the work we were trying to do together.  Each small action seemed to be Your Idea or My Idea. Good idea or Bad idea, we’ll each decide for ourselves.

Jackie was recaptured, Daisy was cornered, and the rest of the flock was sent back into the west field.  Todd got a rope around Daisy’s chest and behind one front leg, I got a harness over her jowls and out the gate the three of us went for about four steps and then she plopped her 250 pound body down against the ground. I tugged on the harness, it popped off, Bad Idea, Todd shoved her, she rose, I pulled up a leg, Todd pushed her forward and in just seconds she was up the ramp and enclosed in the capped bed of the truck.  I started the truck up and had to turn it off twice to run inside to get things I forgot.

I don’t remember if I said good bye to Todd before heading down the driveway. As I swung out on to the road, I thought, “Did he turn the electricity to the fencing back on? Is there diesel gas at the station near the highway because there’s not enough gas to get anywhere far?  My phone battery was dead. Of course. I was on my own and could no longer shove my anxieties at Todd. I left the radio off. The growl of the engine mixed with Daisy’s low cries. The road hugged the river and the rushing water ran against the direction I drove. Up on interstate 89 the hills rose and folded into each other all shades of late summer green. I live in Vermont. I am taking a six year old ewe who’d been a crummy mom and a loner sheep to a butcher I’ve never met. This is what farmers do.  This is part of the new life you signed on to.

The floating calm that came with the drive ended when I walked into the butcher’s front office. I fought the urge to gag the moment I inhaled.  Breathing through my mouth,  I explained I was new, didn’t know what forms to fill out, and then using the excuse that some guy was by the truck, I bolted.  The man in jeans and a faded plaid shirt said he’d wait while I got the right forms filled out.  Back in the office I was met by a butcher in a white jacket who walked me through the choices.  Yes, leg roasts. Yes, ground meat. Yes, some stew meat.  No to heart, liver, lungs.  Yes to the hide. Out the door. Resume breathing.

Per the instructions, I drove to the back of the small one story facility and the plaid man waved signals as I backed the truck up to the drop off point. I asked how they put animals down.  A stun gun to the forehead numbs the brain and then, he said, we slit their throats. I nodded very calmly, but I wasn’t. A second man in a butcher’s long coat joined the plaid man and together they opened the cab to retrieve Daisy.  She moo’ed like the cow she isn’t and she struggled against their weight.  I leaned toward the wrestling action, “Daisy, it’s okay.”  Like hell it’s okay.  But I said it anyway. Suddenly, Daisy was out of sight behind worn green painted metal bars.

The phone will ring next week to tell us we can pick up our meat and a hide that will be damp and will need to be salted and cured a bit before sending to the tannery. I haven’t salted a fresh hide before. It will be Daisy’s. And I simply don’t know what that will be like. I do know what it’s like to go to the butcher with a live animal in my truck.

Peggy