Finding Punxsutawney

February 1, 2022, by Ellen Nieslanik

Let me start with some semantics surrounding lambing season. I’m learning for non-farm readers it’s helpful to have glossary of terms first……Bums, orphan lambs; Jugs, small pens in lambing barn where ewes and lambs are placed immediately after birth for nursing, bonding, and to verify there are no health concerns with either before processing and turned out on pasture; Processing lambs, term used which means a series of health and identification therapies including spray painting numbers so we can determine who goes with whom in the first few weeks. Droppers, term used to describe the Groups of ewes closest to lambing I.e dropping lambs at any moment or the next few days.

It was Tuesday, February 2nd, 2016, just another rainy day during lambing season in Scio, Oregon. With bums fed, droppers sorted off the big flock and moved close to the barn, ewes and new lambs jugged and everyone with a full belly, I hooked up the trailer and headed to Corvallis for a load of alfalfa.

Allow me to digress here for a moment. We leased some pasture along Highway 20 near Crabtree where we ran ewes and new lambs for three weeks prior. It was a great pasture for new pairs. They were easy to check and if we were short time even a “drive by” would suffice in a pinch. On Sunday, just 2 days prior, we gathered pairs off the leased pasture and hauled them home. When sheep go to pasture we count in and out and when we got home we were short one lamb. Usually a ewe (and lamb) will bleat loudly when separated from each other, but there was none of that. The flock was quiet when we gathered and quiet when unloaded at home. Sunday afternoon and again on Monday I returned to and walked the leased pasture to see if I could find a dead lamb or learn the demise of our missing lamb, but I left Monday with no better idea of what had happened to “two dot red number 10” (meaning twins from ewe number 10). I guessed the lamb must have died and a fox/coyote packed it off and it's mother seemed content with the remaining twin, so we marked that one off the list of unsolved mysteries.

Back to February 16… As I turned left onto Highway 20, headed towards Crabtree, approached the leased pasture on the left, I slowed and caught sight of a small dark figure limping down the shoulder headed the opposite direction. At first I thought it might be a small dog so I slowed down to take a closer look. It was no dog; it was a wet little lamb. Ears drooping and limping as he went, he was headed somewhere with wobbly deliberation. Immediately I recognized the red number "10" that I painted on him when he left the barn with his twin and mother. There was my missing lamb. How had he survived two days of pounding rain without anything to eat or the shelter and protection for his mother?

My brakes squealed as I frantically pulled over, and piled out of the truck. I had to wait for a couple of logging trucks to pass and then scrambled across two lanes of traffic towards the lamb. In my excitement, I’d startled him and I should have known better. He abruptly stopped an changed direction, then stumbled and staggered away -- a little weak after not eating for 2 days. He was at risk of running right into oncoming traffic, so I regained my calm and slowly worked myself between the lamb and the lanes of oncoming traffic. He was becoming more frantic with mounting fatigue and his flight response increasing with each passing moment. I was going to have to catch him soon or he his demise would happen right in front of me on the highway. I reached for him once.. damn, I missed. Again I grabbed at him, but made another miss. This time, however, he spun and ran up the embankment which was my call to action. It was do or die (literally) so I took a few long strides and then dove on the lamb, and this time a successful catch. Both seeker and sought were soaked and covered in mud. We returned to the truck where I wrapped him in a sheet and placed him on the floorboard right under the heater. Crazy as it sounds I always kept a sheet or a couple of old towels in the truck for this very reason to warm a lamb and protect the seat.

Right away he started nibbling on the sheet he was swaddled in, so I broke off a corner of my zucchini bread (breakfast) and offered it up. His little lips tried to suck or nurse from the slice, but finding that unfruitful, he nodded his head up and down and to my surprise he enthusiastically and awkwardly chewed and swallowed it. I turned the truck around and headed for home. Once at the barn, I offered him a bottle of warm milk laced with a couple of squirts of lamb super vitamins which he took to right away. There is some great satisfaction in seeing that little pink tongue wrap around the nipple, those lips push in against the bottle cap and that tail start to wiggle back and forth when a bum has a will to live. I placed him under the heat lamp. Full but shivering from the warmth in his chilled belly I returned to the truck and again headed to Corvallis Punxsutawney, “Punky”. became my “lead bum” and barn-buddy that year. “Here Punky Punky” was all I had to say and he came running leading the rest of the bummer pack with him — bucking and leaping as they came. Long after he was weaned and turned out in the large meadows with his contemporaries he’d seek me out and follow along for an ear rub or kind word when I moved the flock. Now I don't know if Punky saw his shadow on that Groundhog Day all those years ago, but I’m pretty sure that the shadow of his lonely winter cold was over and warm milk and hope of spring were here for him. What will and hope that little guy had! I hope you find the will and hope of my “Punky” on GroundHog Day this year.