A BROKEN LAMB

While I was working for an international AID organisation, the overwhelming exposure to poverty, pain, putrid conditions and hideous cruelty had me wanting to turn a blind eye and walk away – pretend it didn’t exist.

But, then, unexpectedly, an angel would turn up.

The most beautiful one I ever met was on the Cape flats – a little ‘Coloured’ (mixed race) girl whom I called Michelle in the original story that I wrote for the agency.

Her little bushy pigtails showed someone had cared enough, for a while at least, to dress her hair sometime in the not too distant past.

The rags she wore were as filthy as she. A club foot,  ruined face – eyes too wide apart, flattened nose, cleft palate – and the worst, urine trickling uncontrolled down her misshapen little legs. How raw and burnt she must have been, this ruined angel.

She was sitting on the pavement with her feet in the gutter along with three other urchins when we got out of the vehicle. But, she was the one who got up, hobbled towards me and tried to smile a greeting.

There was one last lollipop in my pocket. I unwrapped it and handed it to her. Her eyes lit up with delighted surprise as she thanked me wordlessly. Then, she crossed to the other little urchins and gave each a lick first before savouring the rare treat herself.

For a brief moment our Creator and Saviour let me see with His eyes and I understood why He still has patience with us – it’s because of His special lambs.

MA MOHAU

She was a tiny, wizened woman when I met her many years ago. Sister Enid Barber. An Anglican nun and nurse in the African township near Bloemfontein. Aids had just made its scrofulous and leprous appearance and was claiming its first victims.

Sister Enid had started with a handcart when she was a young nursing and religious sister fresh from England at the end of the Great War to end all wars – yeah right! Apartheid had not been born yet, but poverty had – a long, long time before, as we all know. She had come for those who were its chief victims. She took her handcart into the townships, the Black Ghettoes, dispensing medical care and the true gospel of unconditional love.

She had soon moved on to a donkey drawn cart, then a horse ambulance and finally a motorised ambulance. Meanwhile the authorities had built a hospital to which she could ferry her lambs.

Her own work, however, never changed. She tended, nursed, fed and rescued the poorest of the poor.

One of her lambs was a little boy with rickets. We visited him in ‘her’ hospital. She’d found him abandoned on the streets, like Charlie, a little boy I met in Johannesburg. But he’s another story. The spidery-limbed little boy’s face lit up with joy as the gentle nun stroked his face and spoke lovingly to him. She lingered with him, her special lamb and then moved on to others who were dying of the mystery ailment. To each one she ministered love and tenderness.

When there was rioting and it was not safe for whites to be in the African townships, she was there, still dispensing love and medicines without a thought of retiring despite approaching 90 years of age. 

She was never harmed by even the most radical and angry of rioters. She was one of the people, you see.

The Sotho people, whom she so loved that she gave her life for them, called her, Ma Mohau, Mother of Mercy.  Even the angriest and most violent of the young people recognised someone who had heard and heeded the Great Shepherd’s injunction: “Feed My Lambs!”

African Lambs

You may wonder why I write about animals. It keeps me sane.
I’ll explain.
Many years ago I was working for a GMO in Africa. One day a report
appeared on my desk. It was from an international group, a powerful and very
wealthy group.
The contents:
The world was divided into five regions – wealth the criterion.
There was the first world, of course, the second (Russia inter alia) and
the third – no explanation required.
But, then there were the fourth and fifth ‘worlds’. Couched in PC language,
it was stated that they would never catch up and so were consigned to the trash
bin. The populations of these countries would ‘die out ‘through internecine
fighting and disease.
Guess where they were?
Africa mainly, but also some countries in South East Asia.
Have you ever noticed how most of the famines, diseases and wars are in
these countries, especially Africa? Then, of course, there are the blood
diamonds, corrupt dictatorships undergirded by ? – I’m sure you can guess.
Some years later, I attended a lecture by a medical doctor from Brazil.
She had worked with an international AID organisation. She was a conspiracy
theorist and showed her map of the early AIDS areas in Africa then superimposed
over this map one of the inoculation programme of an international medical aid
organisation. Guess what – they coincided perfectly! Co-incidence?
Others seems to share this
conspiracy theory mindset as the film, The Constant Gardener, based on John le
Carre’s novel, demonstrates. Here, the
Africans (as happens in India) are unwitting guinea-pigs for pharmaceutical
giants.
So you see, the African lambs have been, are and will continue to be led
unknowingly to the slaughter, collateral damage in the great quest for wealth -
for the few – and medical miracles, again for the few.

 GULL GRATITUDE

As the blog suggests, I love animals and have been a rescuer of all things furry and feathered and even some with scales, or not.

I’ve rescued and sometimes successfully rehabilitated kingfishers, sparrows, hawks, owls, albatrosses, gannets and swallows, inter alia. All were interesting, but the seagull was the most unusual.

A beautiful pastiche of soft grey and white feathers, it had a dark bill and legs, hence a juvenile.

A friend had rung me earlier to say there was an injured seagull on the beach.

It was immediately apparent that it had become entangled in fishing line and looked a sorry sight with its wings trapped at its sides.

After a short stay in a dark box – to settle it down – I fed it some pilchards.

A fish-hook caught in the shoulder muscle had been there some time as the wound had healed around it.

After carefully removing the hook, I unwound the fishing line that had bound the wings so tightly. The gull lay quietly on my lap for the duration of the procedure.  It seemed to know it was being helped.

Another rest and feed and a testing of the wings (holding the body whilst letting it flap its wings), and it was time for release. I knew it would take a day or two before it could fly properly, but as it had come from a safe beach and had a crop-full of the cat’s fish, it would not be an issue releasing it close to the water where it could bathe and get rid of any lice that may have made their way onto it, as well as, hopefully, finding something to eat now that it was more mobile.

The release was to prove the only problem.

It refused to leave its perch, clinging determinedly to my hand with its paddle feet. I had to lift it off and place it on the sand

It was a relief seeing it finally scuttle off and head for the water. I wished it ‘bon voyage’ and a good life as it blended with the other gulls.

But, wait, that’s not all, there’s more!

Two days later, a juvenile gull landed on my back fence and sat there until I went out and greeted it. It allowed me to approach very closely, cocked its head, and, then, after a long eye-balling, flew off.

The same gull? Who knows? What I can say is that no other gull had done that before – they don’t come into my yard, courtesy of Bonnie, the Killer Maltese – and no gull has done so since.

I believe all animals are much smarter than we give them credit for. And, who's to say gulls can’t have grateful hearts! I like to think he/she came to say, “I’m okay, and by the way, thanks!”

A Couple of Swallows

Being called a bird-brain is a great compliment. Imagine the tiny head of a swallow containing a brain that can navigate continents and oceans, build a nest of mud and saliva so strong that it can be used over and over. A marvellous micro-chip that is as quick as its flight, turning and twisting, dipping and darting. It turns fighter pilots green with envy.

Many years ago, a little boy brought me a swallow with a broken wing.  As I held the delicate bird weighing only a gram or two (okay, maybe three), it seemed that it would not live long. The little heart raced and the tiny black eyes were fixed on my face. How could something so fragile survive the trauma and if it did, what would life be like for a non-flying swallow.

I rang a bird rescue centre close-by and was told to bring the bird in the next day. They would be able to tell me if the wing could be fixed.

This was not my first encounter with a swallow. Previously, I’d heard a woman screaming in the motel unit beside mine. A swallow was flying about her room and she was trying to bat it with a broom. It was terrified and exhausted so I caught it gently in the curtain and then held it in one hand with the other covering it so that it was in a dark warm place. Birds tend to drop off to sleep at once in a dark place. After a short while, I opened my hand and it looked up at me curiously. As I was outside, I  flattened my palm so that it could take off. For some time it lay there and then when I gave a small encouraging flip of my hand, it finally soared off and disappeared from view.

This new one would need full time care. It would also require regular feeding to keep it from dying of hunger – small birds have amazingly fast metabolisms so need to eat constantly – and be kept warm and quiet.

First – the dark and warm box.  Then, armed with a fly swatter, off to search for flies and other insects to feed my voracious little friend.

I fed the flies on tweezers and was delighted to see that it took them readily.

Back to the box for the swallow and back to swatting flies for me. The second time, I held out my finger and the little bird climbed onto it with its short, cotton-thin legs invisible beneath the downy tummy feathers. Its tiny claws were equally delicate filaments. This time it took its feed even more enthusiastically.

Rather than put it back into the box, I lay down and put it on my chest where it sat quietly for some time and watched me trying to read my book. As soon as it began to stir, the feeding was repeated. I did this several times before dusk when I was able to consign it to the box for the night.

The next morning, it was as tame as the day before and eager to get on with breakfast.

At the bird shelter and hospital, I was delighted when the wing was strapped up. The break was clean and my brave little friend would fly again.

This pure soul taught me that courage optimism and uncanny wisdom can come in very tiny packages.

SMART SHEEP

I wanted to make real Haloumi cheese, so I acquired 2 day-old East Friesan lambs, Daisy and Rosemary. All their family had botanical names, so I kept the tradition.

Snoodles was obsessed with them from day one. They in turn, loved and accepted her immediately as a potential mother and milkbar. Their udder-seeking head-butts were their sole and inadvertent retaliations to her rough games.

If lambs, without ovine mothers to teach them better, have an outstanding quality, it is their total trust. No doubt the result of their own mild natures.

Then, they never complain. When they got flystrike, which seems inevitable in Northland summers, I was distraught, but they didn't murmur, just lay down and looked sad. The treatment must have caused some distress as I tried scraping off the monstrous maggots to see how deep they'd burrowed into the tender pink skins. The powder applied to their wounds must have caused some discomfort, but not a sound - like a lamb to the slaughter and the silence of the lambs are true epithets.

And, they have no sense of revenge. Daisy loved me ever after and would come running at the sound of my voice, her lambs at her heels.

Stupid animals? Not at all!

Basil, Daisy's first ram lamb whom I gave to friends, a gentle and friendly fellow who had never been handled other than once for his injections and de-tailing, is evidence for the defence.

Three years after he'd gone to 'stud' - a prolific sire of mainly twins and some triplets - I visited his owners who were shearing.

As I was chatting to one, suddenly, a loud bleat, a ram rushing up to me, and then my hand being licked. It was Basil. He remembered me.

Truly, My sheep know My voice.

Snoodles

Lambs are surely the most innocent, innocuous and gentle of all creatures - hence the name of the blog.
I have learned most from those with pure hearts - most animals, little children and, of course, the Lamb of God.

The site is dedicated to Snoodles, one of the most pure in heart I have had the pleasure of knowing.

 

Shay aka Snoodles and Snoods,

you were the first to show me that one can learn much from lambs, ewes and even rams, and all those others with innocent hearts - cats, birds, horses , cows and fish.

But first, let’s talk about you.

Your mother was an uptown standard poodle who fell in love with a working dog, a bearded collie.  Your mother’s human companion was outraged and consigned your siblings to the care of the SPCA. Someone saw the black bundle of fun and took you home. Her husband was outraged – a POODLE! Not a bloke’s dog! You had to go – immediately!

Just when you were about to be consigned to the SPCA for the second time, a friend told me about you. I went, I saw and I was conquered. For the SPCA price tag, you were surrendered to me.

Three shiny black dots at one end and an enthusiastic pompom at the other end of a ball of curly black fluff distinguished front from back as you crouched in the prison cage.

As soon as you were released, despite earlier rejection and abuse, you exploded into my life with undiminished joy, optimism and love. That never changed throughout the remaining five years of your life.

The two lambs I was raising were a surprise to you – as white as you were black. Your play was a bit rough, but they got their own back when they were larger and could butt you, rolling you over in turn.

When you were old enough you had to be ‘fixed’ since you were a rescue dog and that was the deal, so you never had pups. But you did a good job of helping me raise orphan lambs, washing them, keeping them warm at night as they snuggled up to you and playing with them during the day and giving them the love they so needed.

You were the same with the kittens I rescued. You loved everything and everyone. Even TV! Well, the Dr Harry show and Tux Wonderdogs – I made sure to switch on for you so that, summonsed by the theme tunes, you could ensconce yourself in front of the large screen and interact with the other animals, licking the little ducklings and kittens and barking back at the working dogs.

You were the smartest dog I’ve ever known and were housetrained the first day I got you. It just took rushing you outside when you squatted and then much praising and patting when you ‘went’. That was all it took!

Jumping came naturally too. I noted how you jumped every obstacle even as a tiny pup, and when I held up a stick to see what you’d do, you sailed over it. “Over” got you over legs, tree stumps, streams, chairs – anything and everything. Children loved this and you never tired of making them laugh at your antics, upping the action as you were urged on by their joy.

A trip to the beach was pure fun – you’d run and run and run, chasing sticks; swimming and surfing through any type of sea (eat your heart out Lotto’s Wilson, Snoods did it first!) to retrieve said sticks; then, want to start all over again once we got home.

You loved horses too – greeted them with a kiss on the muzzle as you did the sheep – and ran with them when we rode out to enjoy forest and beach. You probably did double the distance of horse and rider as you chased possums and rabbits, your sworn and only foes. You were a merciful executioner, though, killing instantly with one bite and a shake. Strange that you did have the killer instinct even though you never ate your prey and never extended your enmity to any other creatures. Did you know they were fair game while everything else wasn’t?

Indeed, Snoods, you were absolutely the funnest, jumpingest, swimmingest, runningest, lovingest, joyfulest, optimisticest, forgivingest, kindest and smartest dog ever!

So, how could anyone have imagined you’d harm their stock?

One neighbour did – offering dire, unasked for predictions of how you would cost us our home and land us in hot water with the authorities.

He was convinced you would bother his cattle, the one animal you ignored, or join up with other dogs and kill someone else’s sheep.

Your other ‘est ‘thing, the diggy one, sadly, was to prove your downfall.

Remember how uou roamed the area disposing of rabbits, much to the delight of most, but not that one? And, how, on his property, you excavated a whole warren, leaving caves that a man could fit into. Of course the rabbits were all gone, but you had dug on his property. “His cattle might crash through the sandy ground into the caves and be injured, blah, blah, blahity blah”.

Outraged, he complained and warned again.

If only you hadn’t been the diggingest dog too, you would still be with me. But, tragically, a bullet ended your digging and everything else.

Of course, I don’t believe you’re dead, not the essential you. That lives on in my treasured memories. And then there is that wonderful Nordic legend.

It tells of a beautiful meadow just outside the pearly gates where friends like you run free and happy until one day a familiar scent catches your attention. You prick up your ears and follow your nose. There you meet with your human companion and after an ecstatic reunion, together (in my case we will be several) we pass through those wonderful gates into paradise where there are no more goodbyes.

So, we’ll meet again one sunny day, my wonderfulest dog.