Under the weak barn lights, just before sunrise, I was looking for lambs to go with the ewe who had clearly given birth. Then I spotted one. This new baby looked a tad odd, black with a reddish white stripe, like it had rolled in clay, which would have been unusual, since it could only be a couple of hours old. Almost in the same moment, all became clear: The lamb was actually a large skunk trundling among the ewes and newborns as if it owned the place. It crossed the barn a few feet from my now very still self and squeezed into an empty lambing pen. The ewes didn’t seem alarmed, just curious (although none ventured to give closer inspection), and the skunk settled in to devour a hidden clutch of chicken eggs.

I left it at its feast and returned to the house for my shotgun. While skunks are delightful, I’m sure, to their kith and kin, they are simply varmints in the barnyard. They eat not only eggs but also chicks. Plus, and I’m sure this is my own failing, the risk of getting sprayed in close confines is off-putting enough to curb any appreciation I might otherwise have for their charms. Not to mention the fact that if I were to take a direct hit, I would be forced to bed down in one of those pens until the odor dissipated in a week or three. I dispatched the waddling gourmand with a single shot.

In the acrid smell that lingered (and who can blame the creature for the departing gift), I searched for and found the two newborns (real lambs this time) and moved the threesome into the adjoining pen. I did watch anxiously as the mother sniffed her babies — would she reject them for smelling slightly different? — but she nudged them both to her udder, where they got on with the business of suckling, tails spinning like propellers.

The rest of the flock ate their meager grain ration and turned back to the fresh bale of hay. None were willing to venture into the endless rain and mire that marks a Tennessee farm in winter. (To be fair, there isn’t much in the way of pasture to graze anyway.) Why, why, why does late April seem so far away at this time of the year?

Ginger emerged from her stall into the farrowing yard and began shoveling down her bucket of grains, fresh produce, and milk. Her offspring remained burrowed in the hay. In fact, since the piglets were born two weeks back, they have seldom been seen, as it has been either too cold or too wet, and usually both, for their liking. The feeder pigs across the fence have no such delicate concerns — they happily slopped through the muck by their gate, snorting for my favor.

The chickens splashed audibly down into the poultry yard from the coop. I didn’t have the heart to leave them up for a few hours to lay eggs in the nesting boxes, and instead I opened the door to their run and released them into the great, wet world beyond.

With only days left before their demise, the ram lambs in the hay paddock ventured from the shelter of the barn for their morning feed. (None of them inquired, as well they should have, whether the governor had called asking after their welfare.) They managed to look both sodden and well fed, so I left them to return to the dry comforts of the barn. There was no need, of course, to look in on the happy geese, as the rain started falling again.

Addendum: We are now on day three of no rain.

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Reading this weekend: Clementine in the Kitchen (P. Beck), a bit of a gastronomic WW2 era bit of fluff. The Seed Detective (A. Alexander), a highly recommended book that highly disappoints. Normandy Gastronomique (J. Sigal), a book that encourages you to reach both for the heavy cream and a bottle of Calvados in one fluid motion.

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