Welcome to May MEMOIR!
Day 17
For the entire month of May, I'll be sharing part of each chapter from my memoir, Ca va? Stories from Rural Life in Southern France.
Shortly after Christmas, Christophe took me to his uncle sheep farm where he spent a lot of time as a child. His aunt and uncle, Marie and Jean, warmly welcomed with open arms, an abundant dinner, and hysterical stories that took us late into the night. The next morning, Christophe and I woke up early to help with the animals and I quickly learned feeding farm animals is not as easy as I thought it might be.
Chapter 16: The Farm
After breakfast, I go with Jean and Christophe to the barn. Jean fills buckets of feed for each of us to carry to the year-old sheep.
“Lynn, you take two”, he instructs. “Christophe and I will carry four each.”
The buckets are heavy, but I am balanced with one in each hand. We leave the barn and head down to the field where the animals are waiting for us. Christophe and Jean have each taken at least 30 pounds of feed, but it has not slowed them down. They walk quickly and talk even faster as they catch up on what has occurred since Christophe’s last visit.
“Be careful of the electric wire on the ground”, Christophe calls out from in front of me.
I look down and see I am inches away from an ankle high wire and carefully step over it. As I continue down the path, I focus on not slipping on the frosty ground. In front of me, I see Jean and Christophe are already at the gate waiting for me. Just behind them are 50 bleating sheep.
When I finally arrive, it looks like Christophe is about to jump out of his skin with excitement as he stands proudly next to Jean.
“Keep your buckets up at chest level so the sheep cannot get to it until you get to the trough”, Jean explains while opening the gate. “If not, the yearlings will knock you over to get to the feed”.
There isn’t much time to react. Once the gate is opened the sheep surge towards us, but Jean and Christophe simply glide through the herd with their buckets held high and make their way to the troughs. I heave the buckets as high as I could, but one sheep successfully knocks part of the grain out and the rest swarm upon the fallen feed in front of me. My feet are stepped on a few times and they continue to butt me to get out of their way. Slowly, I advance through the sea of bleating sheep as I get tossed and tussled from every side. I look ahead and see Christophe is at ease in his element. He moves smoothly through the animals and pours his buckets into the troughs. He moves back and forth, spreading the feed out evenly and even manages to caress a head or two of the passing sheep. I feel like I’m about to be taken down by the herd when Jean yells out to them, and they scatter momentary. I take the small window of opportunity to race to the troughs and dump out the remaining feed as fast as I can before I am completely overtaken by the yearlings.
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