WATER WAYS
“Water, water everywhere / Nor any drop to drink,” said Samuel Coleridge in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I often think of these words as I struggle with the drama that is water on our Perth, Ontario, farm. I know that it sounds a bit dramatic as a way of describing water management and conservation on a farm, but ’tis the truth!
As I headed to the barn to check on the status of our lambing ewes (female sheep), I was struggling through the onslaught of 30 cm of snow that was still coming down hard, stranding us at our farmstead. The laneway and roads were plugging up rapidly with the gale-force winds that were driving the snow into drifts. I thought of starting the equipment—tractors to clear the snow—but that would have to wait until a lull in the lambing schedule and the end of the storm.
As I entered the barn, I was greeted by the tiny bleats of newborn lambs. It’s always a special sound, a sign of resilient new life, particularly poignant in the depth of a winter snowstorm. I quickly penned the lambs with their mother
