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Poem
November 7, 2007
Poem works sheep under the tutelage of Dianne Bauman owner of the DogDome School in Wantage, N.J., about 25 minutes south of the farm. I was relieved to hear that Dianne thinks Poem has good herding potential, and that she should realize her promise when she gets older and through her puppyhood.
Poem is doing well now that she's turned 13 months. Here she is in a "Down" position (not a "Sit" position, or a "Stop" position while standing) patiently waiting for me. Notice that the ewes behind Poem keep an eye on her; they must always know where a nearby dog is. Everything works and so will the garlic...
This afternoon Poem and I walked across the garlic field when we went to look at the sheep. As expected I broke through the ice crust with each footfall but surprisingly so did little 29 lb Poem, so fragile in places it was. I love to have fun with my dog and my dog loves to have fun with me--and it was Christmas day--we hipped and hopped breaking the ice like Brooklyn gangstas, like I was Biggy and she was Smalls. We were "goofin," as they said in Flatbush when Frank was king.
The exposed patches of ground, or really of sheep manure, were not frozen but stiff from the temperature that fell with the afternoon light. Where Poem and I broke through the ice crust, the manure underneath was soft, squishy and very plantable. The snow and ice crust functioned as a mulch, and mulch is what garlic grown in cold climates needs to keep it from heaving when the ground freezes. If we're lucky, the snow will mulch the garlic for us. Some days I have to smile.
July 28, 2007
baa FINDING POEM Part 12
Friday, thirty-one hours after Poem was lost she was found, alive and well, where she was lost. Unknowingly I fenced her in with the rams; the orchard grass was waist high and it hid the rams too.
That afternoon Clara called and said that when she and the boys were up on the hill fixing fence they heard a dog barking in the grass by the ram paddock. But when she went down there, she heard nothing; nevertheless she thought she should mention it to me.
I was 80 miles away pulling into to the slaughterhouse in LaPlume Pennsylvania. I called Dominique and asked her to go to the farm and walk the ram paddock looking at every square foot of it. Dominique said she would call me from the farm after she’d searched.
The slaughterhouse was behind because the Fourth of July had fallen on Wednesday, their killing day. Mr. Darling said my sausage wouldn’t be ready for a couple of hours. I hadn’t slept well and with a market day in the morning I thought I should find a quiet place off the road and close my eyes for an hour. I remembered a grassy parking area that gave onto a small field that was mowed like a golf course on the road into LaPlume. The small sign in the lot said the field was for flying radio controlled model airplanes “only.” The afternoon was dark, there was thunder and lightening. No one would be flying today, the little airport was mine.
I kicked off my boots, cracked the window, bunched up a red hoodie for a pillow and lay my head down on it. I closed my eyes and thought of what I’d done and what I could do from here. Yesterday and again this morning I went back to the ram paddock and called her but got no response. If she were in there with the rams they would have been spooky or she would have driven them through the fence by now—but they grazed peacefully—I fell asleep thinking of Poem’s cold wet nose.
My classic, old phone ring tone awakened me; it was Dominique, “I found Poem.” “Oh, what good news…” “Her leash was wound around two tufts of grass and she couldn’t move.” “So that’s why the rams were undisturbed.” “She was happy to see me, wagging her tail” “Great news, thanks; I should be at the farm in a couple of hours.”
I drove back to the slaughterhouse, picked up the lamb, took 81 South to Scranton then got on 84 East to New York. It was a new day. When I pulled into the farm I could see her in the kennel. She had been out in the overnight rain and she was as black and as sleek and as clean as a new Porsche.
Now I had to reestablish the corner and close the fence. I tied poem up to another fence post, directly in the path of any ram who would try to go back to the green grass of the cows. But as I was gathering the fence, Poem broke free and ran through the rams. I called her, but she didn’t heed me. What she did do though was to turn the rams back to me and away from the unfenced part of the paddock. I was impressed—pissed—but impressed. I called her again but she sped out of site into the tall grass. Before the dog come the sheep. I had to finish the fence, then look for my errant dog.
Poem was nowhere to be found, I called and called. In the ensuing hours, I drove around the property line, I visited the neighbors alerting them and I went to the Goshen Humane Society. Poem hadn’t come home and the sun was setting. My spirits dimmed with the day. She had her leash still attached to her collar, a rope 20 feet in length trailing behind her. I feared that if she tried to go through the woods that surround the property, her leash would catch on a fallen branch; she, unable to move, would not come home and die a slow death tangled up in brush somewhere. But if that were the case, when she got hungry she would bark or so I hoped.
That night I opened the door to her kennel and put food in her dish in case she came back. Early the next day I went back to the farm hoping to find her, but no. Again I drove the property line stopping and shutting off the tractor off every 200 yards to listen for her. I heard nothing. With dread, I drove the roads around the farm looking for road kill. A dead deer ahead looked like a dog until I got close.
Poem had run off before but returned in an hour. Now she had been gone for 24 hours. Was she caught in the woods, or had she been hit by a car, or had she been shot by a neighbor as a stray dog?
The rams were in a loose flock about 75 yards away from us when we entered the field. Poem and I have been working on direction. "Go round" means go around the sheep in a clockwise direction. "Go over" means go around the sheep in a counter-clockwise direction.
We walked toward the flock; when I stopped, Poem sat and looked intently at the sheep awaiting my command. "Go round," I cast her, wanting her to cover the 75 yards, stay to the left and circle the sheep clockwise; but she veered right to circle them counter-clockwise.
I was about to stop and correct her, when I realized that instinct told her to go right, to go between the sheep and the electric fence, to drive the flock away from the fence, and not drive them into it as following my command would have her do, when she circled them. I had cast her in the wrong direction. She was 20 yards from the sheep when I yelled, "Poem, go over," correcting myself. Without hesitation, Poem continued round the sheep counter-clockwise. When she had the flock held between us as was proper, I called her off and to me. I stroked her head and said, "Good dog."
Good dogs make good masters.