Kristin Kimball has grown her flock over the last decade from a dozen sheep to more than 250 animals. During lambing season, her day begins before dawn and ends long after dark, but she describes it as a joyous time.
Brian Mann/NPR
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Brian Mann/NPR
ESSEX, New York — It’s pitch dark and cold enough we can see our breath in our headlamps when Kristin Kimball leads me inside her barn.
“It’s about 5:30 a.m. and the sun is thinking about coming up,” Kristin says. “Oh, look, we have triplets.”
She wades through a sea of sheep, their long faces eager and curious. Her light picks out an ewe with three tiny newborns.
“Come on, let’s go,” she coaxes, guiding the ewe and her newborns into a separate pen where they can bond. “I just want to make sure she has milk and that all the babies are doing okay.”
The other day I was having dinner with Kristin and her husband Mark here on their farm in New York’s Champlain Valley. We’ve been neighbors and close friends for years.
I confessed I was feeling sort of blah, and Kristin told me she had the perfect cure: Spending time with baby sheep.
I kneel down next to Kristin in the fresh hay that smells of summer. Little lambs crawl over my knees. Imagine being cuddled by long-legged, clumsy poodles.
Imagine being swarmed by long-legged, clumsy little poodles. This is what lambing season feels like on a northern New York Farm.
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“These look like nice strong babies, they’re going to do just fine,” Kristin says.
It’s been a bountiful lambing season so far with lots of healthy lambs. Kristin expects 400 births before the work is done.
The only complication this spring is the unseasonable cold. Her farm is in the north, not far from the Canadian border. One night I spend with Kristin and her flock, it snows.
“It was 19 degrees [Fahrenheit] the other morning,” Kristin says, but so far the lambs have been holding up just fine. “They’re just born and they pop up and start nursing, which is what you want.”
Kristin Kimball gives extra nourishment to one of the newborn lambs in her flock. She hopes for 400 healthy births before this spring lambing season ends.
Brian Mann/NPR
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Brian Mann/NPR
Being here is such a joy, despite the cold and dark, I keep coming back. Sometimes I sit in the hay with the big shaggy shepherd dog while sheep nuzzle around us.
You’d think pregnant sheep would be skittish, but Kristin says lambing season is when they’re most welcoming.
A key part of the lambing process is bonding the ewes with their newborns, so they will nourish and care for the young.
Brian Mann/NPR
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Brian Mann/NPR
“This ewe for example she’s full of hormones, she’s got oxytocin coursing through her system,” Kristin says. “She’s in a mood to be around other creatures and just like give love.”
The birthing doesn’t always go smoothly. One afternoon when I’m in the barn, an ewe has a breach delivery.
“We’re going to need to flip the baby around and pull it out,” Kristin says.
This is a fairly common problem, but still a difficult moment. She calls over one of the farm hands, a woman named Anne Brown, and together they embrace the ewe. Kristin reaches a practiced hand inside the animal, while Anne holds it tight.
Kristin Kimball and Anne Brown work to help a ewe deliver another set of triplets after a lamb turns breach.
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“It’s like a puzzle cause she doesn’t know if she’s got two [lambs] or three in there,” Anne says.
“I feel a back but no legs,” Kristin says. “Now I’m going to find which legs go with this lamb.”
With her cheek pressed against the lamb’s flank, Kirstin manages to straighten the first lamb and guide it out.
“Now we’re going to go quick,” she says, and three tiny lambs pop out, one after the other, wet and floppy but healthy.
“She’s licking the lamb off, which dries the lamb,” Kristin says, sounding pleased. “That’s important when it’s cold and they’re bonding.”
She grins and I sit cross-legged next to her in the hay, grateful to be here. Soon I’m covered again in wriggling lambs, eager for warmth and touch.
“Aren’t they the best?” Kristin says, as a lamb pushes into her arms. “They’re so cute. Each time we have a new litter born, it’s just fun and beautiful.”
I see can Kristin is weary. Lambing is hard and messy, with long hours and late nights. But she also looks happy. There’s joy in this season, in this work and in all this new life.
Lambing is hard and messy. The hours are long. The nights and early mornings can be frosty cold. But Kristin Kimball and farm hand Anne Brown say this work and new life are joyful.
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