It's Always the Mother's Fault

Thoughts on nut picking:

If reincarnation exists, I don’t want to come back as a squirrel.

For the first time ever in my life, I am in the position where I have to actually plan and force myself to consume calories so I’ll have enough energy to function.

As I was hauling my nuts in my wheelbarrow to the little nut factory, an image of the Keebler Elves popped into my head.



Ohhhh, my aching back. I cannot use the nut machine because it has been raining every day for a week. So I go out and pick nuts, off the ground, by hand, for four to six hours a day. Lately, it has been six hours a day. The washing and arranging of the nuts in bins takes another two hours. I pick in the rain, in the hail, in the cold. The wear and tear is starting to get to me. However, I’m the thinnest I’ve been since 1992 and there’s no way I would have put myself through such suffering in a gym to achieve this weight loss, so forced labor has its upside. The downside is that there’s no one here to appreciate my new-improved body.

There is another "downside" to losing weight in France. While I'm at the farm for days at a time, without having any outside input, I admire myself in the mirror and think I look really hot . . . my rear-end looks really small and firm. But then, I finally go into town to the post office, and I'm standing in line cockily thinking I look fantastic, and then I notice that the three women in the line in front of me have smaller and firmer rear-ends, and one is in her sixties! So that experience was a great emotional setback, discovering that there's more renovation work that needs to be done on my rear-end. A very sad thought if you knew how many nut-picking-squats I do each day. If I was in the U.S. I would strut into the post office knowing that the odds would be extremely high that I would have the best looking rear-end in the building . . . maybe the entire city block. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17EATING.html

But enough about my rear-end.

Blanche and Soixante-Douze are keeping me company. Yesterday, Soixante-Douze approached me and allowed me to briefly pet her nose with my finger. So we’re making some progress in our testy relationship. I think she’s developing an interest in me because she now views me as a source of food. I have been giving each of the sheep their own bucket with a little bit of corn and grain in it each night, which makes me a very attractive sight to the two of them. They come bounding across the walnut grove when I come out, call for them, and shake the pails. It’s a very amusing sight because Blanche is so large and fluffy that she looks like the Michelin Man lumbering towards me at great speed.

The sheep graciously keep me company while I’m picking nuts. They wander around, silently grazing; and when they’re finished, they come back and lie near me and chew their cuds. I really enjoy the sight of sheep lying on the grass. The sight epitomizes the peacefulness I feel here. And the two of them look so huggable when they’re sitting down because they curl up their scrawny legs underneath their bellies so that they appear as big round huggable blobs. If I am in need of a short break, I go and sit with them.

A few nights ago, I finally took the time to spread straw in their shelter. They were staying out under a bush in the rain, or when they wanted variety, under a big pine tree, and so I’m trying to entice them into using their shelter by decorating it with straw and stocking it with their salt block and nightly serving of grain. While they head for the bush or tree when it starts to rain, they don’t seem to care about getting entirely out of the rain, and I think that they need to get in the habit of staying in their shelter, because all this rain can’t be good for them. There is a hoof disease that sheep get if their feet are always wet, so I would like them to start using their shelter so they can at least dry their shoes out. Blanche is very white now, and those of you who know Blanche will be happy to hear that even her black tail is half white now.

Blanche is a very beautiful sheep. However, it is always an embarrassment for me when visitors catch a glimpse of her derriere. While it doesn’t bother me, (that’s what unconditional love will do) it seems to horrify others. As my son describes Blanche's tail as having dreadlocks – urine soaked dreadlocks.

The late Olympia had a very cute long, fluffy white tail because she would lift her tail when she urinated. Soixante-Douze has a white long tail because she squats and lifts her tail when nature calls. Blanche just lets loose, soaking her tail. So while the front and sides of her are very attractive, her backside is a fright.

There are two theories regarding this lapse in hygiene. My husband thinks that her tail was broken at some point before I brought her home. But watching Soixante-Douze, I’ve developed the theory that Blanche, not being raised by a sheep-mother, as Soixante-Douze was, but instead being brought up in an orphanage and by a human-mother, Blanche never watched other ewes going to the bathroom. So she doesn’t know that she should squat or lift her tail. I should have taught her this maneuver.

It’s tough being a mother. Every “failing” of your child can always be traced back to you. There are so many variables involved in child and sheep raising, that it’s hard to get all aspects of the business right.