Here & there: Lessons from summer

Sheep in field, location unknown, April 17, 2021 | Photo by Ilja Enger Tsizikov via Scopio, St. George News

FEATURE — Summer is gone, both according to the calendar and the weather outside my library window. Black-gray clouds lick at the mountain tops to my east and intermittent bursts of wind take hostage leaves left brittle from too many scorching hours of sun and carry them off down the street. The temperature has dropped twenty degrees in the last two days. Flash floods are predicted down south.

Kids getting ready for backyard movie, location unknown, Aug. 17, 2017 | Photo by Marie Dashkove via Scopio, St. George News

But before all that, summer got its official farewell around here with our annual outdoor end of summer movie. Our friends who host the event go all out: a big screen; resplendent cinema lights; popcorn with thick, yellow butter; mini versions of all the best theater candy like Junior Mints, Twix, Dots and the most important of the M&M’s – peanut.

Neighbors sprawl their outdoor blankets, lawn chairs and bodies on the crunchy, yellowed lawn, children’s arms and legs flop carelessly over other arms and legs like a family dog pile, even if they’re not exactly related. The sun goes down and the movie flicks on.

Together we’ve said our summer goodbyes with the past help of the Iron Giant, ET, the Black Stallion, and The Incredibles. This year, it was Babe.

Babe. That little pig that doesn’t quite know he is a pig. That little pig who half thinks he is a sheep dog. Except he doesn’t bite or harass the sheep like the other sheep dogs. Instead, he talks to them. In turn, he wins their confidence. And, also, a sheep herding contest – as the controversial entry named, “pig.”

Every animal on Babe’s farm has a purpose. The dogs help the farmer herd the sheep. The cows provide milk for the farmer and his wife. The chickens lay the eggs to feed them. And the cock crows to wake them. And Babe? Well, Babe is to become the Christmas ham. That is before the farmer recognizes something special in him and the rest is history for Babe.

The same is not true, however, for the farm duck. The farm duck, who is to become duck l’orange, tries instead to become a cock. The farmer’s wife doesn’t take to his efforts and replaces him promptly with an alarm clock. He, in turn, flies the coop.

I cried at least three times during the movie. Ok, maybe four. My two teenage boys were horrified. “Mom, you know Babe wins in the end, right? And the duck doesn’t even die,” one of them said as he roughly jabbed my ribs with his forefinger. Yes. Yes, I did know all of that. But still, farm life is hard.

White sheep and gray sheep on green grass field, location unknown, Aug. 5, 2018 | Photo by Thiago Garim via Scopio, St. George News

Two weeks ago, my husband and I found ourselves on an afternoon walk about with a local sheep farmer on the Dingle Peninsula of Ireland. The forty-something farmer was a sheep farmer by birth – his mother was a sheep farmer; his grandfather was a sheep farmer; and so on.

He and his dog, Lulu, met us at the waist high wood gate at the end of a long, winding dirt road. We were an hour late and didn’t realize it. He gently rebuked us and then invited us along for his walkabout, which he’d delayed for us.

Up we climbed, green step after green step, after the farmer and his dog. Up through the tall grass. Up through the heather and peat. Up over the miniature carnivorous plants he’d crouch over to identify. Up along the uneven mountain side that had no discernable path. Until we reached the top of the four-hundred-meter mountain on the northern rim of his property.

Along the way, we’d seen several sheep and met three: Angelo and twins Buck and Puck. They were friendlier to humans than most sheep, the farmer had explained, on account of them being bottle-fed by him and his mom.

Irish farm, Nov. 16, 2020 | Photo by Cyndi Bussey via Scopio, St. George News

Buck and Puck had to be because their mom simply wouldn’t – or maybe couldn’t – feed them. Shortly after birth, she’d bleated incessantly in the yard until the people intervened. And when they finally did, she simply walked back up the mountain without her two kids.

Angelo, for his part, was an orphan. The farmer found him one afternoon during a walkabout. The kid was lying by his mother’s dead body near the top of the four-meter mountain we climbed. The famer speculated that she’d either died in childbirth or perhaps had been killed by the crows during childbirth. They’ll do that, the crows, according to the farmer. They’ll kill a mama sheep by pecking her eyes out while she’s in labor. Then, leave her. As if labor isn’t hard enough.

So, maybe I wasn’t crying for Babe during the farewell to summer movie. Maybe I was crying for Buck and Puck and their mama who wasn’t strong enough to nurse them. Or maybe I was crying for Angelo and his mom who might have been killed by the crows. Or maybe I was crying for the end of summer, and all the promises it holds.

My grandfather, who was raised on a farm in West Weber, Utah, never understood how the next generation could be effectively raised outside of farms. Farms teach life. Farms teach death. And farms teach everything in between.

So, maybe I was just crying for all the lessons I’d learned.

Kat Dayton is a columnist for St. George News. Any opinions given are her own and not representative of St. George News staff or management.

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2022, all rights reserved.

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