Shepherdess: Notes from the Field

Ellison's experiences as a neophyte shepherdess have little enough in common with the bucolic mythology of the job. In the first few pages, she's already reciting instructions on how to deal with lambing problems, step two being ``wash your hands and arm with soap and warm water''; step three, ``lubricate your hand and arm''-you don't want to know the rest. Trained as a biochemist, Ellison left her job to become a full-time mother, but ``after ten years of being a nonperson in many social situations... I was ready for a change.'' As she lived in rural Minnesota, a two hour drive from the nearest university, she opted for a career as shepherdess. Occasionally, Ellison's exclamatory prose veers dangerously towards the gee-whiz (``Bosho the ram was out!''), but more problematic is her tendency to wonder if ``an intelligent, well-educated person like me couldn't do a simple task in less than five hours, how did undereducated farmers figure things out?'' But for the most part, she is a straightforward guide to lambing and its problems; sheep dung and its problems; and haying and its problems. The hardest chore of all, however, is learning to think of the sheep ``as farm animals rather than pets''-crucial when castrating lambs and taking them to market-without losing a sense of what is morally right. In this Ellison succeeds nicely. (Oct.)