Lambs and Lessons Learned

From Lambing to Knitting: Recreating and Living the Life of our Original Rhode Islanders

Although a brisk wind swirls around the Job Armstrong Store, Polly Hopkins, with her husband, Kevin in the background, is enthusiastic as she lifts her presentation materials into place on the folding table during the general meeting of the Glocester Heritage Society on Monday, March 15, 2010.   Her blonde hair hangs shoulder-length and touches her light green turtleneck and pea colored down vest.

Nearby, the Chepachet River rises and makes its near flood-stage presence known, as the pump in the JAS basement pulses and whirls in five second intervals to remove the constant flow of incoming water.

“It’s a basic knowledge, a basic craft, of what all people in the colonial period knew,” offers GHS president, Edna Kent.  “She knows more about this than any of us.”

A banner recognizing the “2007 North American International Livestock Exposition” hangs below a display of hand-rolled yarns, woven blankets, and a wooden sheep.

“My great-great-grandfather bought the property in the 1800s.  He fixed up the barn.  I grew up down the road.  It was originally 180 acres, and they sold a lot to the Glocester Land Trust. I think they have 25 acres remaining,” Ms. Hopkins begins slowly but deliberately.

“We raise them mainly for show.  We have Lincolns, border Leicesters, and natural colored.  I do a lot with 4H.  I grew up in 4H and my kids grew up in 4H.  When I have time, I spin yarn. We use the mini-mill in Putnam. I’m involved in -- I don’t know how many organizations.  One is the Rhode Island Sheep Cooperative.  The 4H kids help us in June, when they bag it. It goes down to South Carolina to be washed and to Massachusetts to be woven and made into blankets, and it comes back to Warwick to have the edging put on.  My parents pick it up, and it goes out to all the cooperative farmers.  We also send the wool to spinners.. The better quality fleece which is better to spin.”

Polly points to a picture on her display board.  “This is the supreme champion at the Maryland Festival. It’s kinda like winning the Superbowl.”

“Fifty-eight lambs have been born in the last month at our farm," she continues.  "My  husband and I both work full time. Our usual normal day is to get up at 5:30-6:00, and, hopefully, if they’re going to lamb, they lamb before we leave for work.” She is matter-of-fact about her dual careers.

“We put little tags in their ears.  We have to give them shots.  We dock their tails.  They go down to the barn with the other moms and babies, and then we wean them.  At that point, we decide who’s good for show, who’s good for meat”-- the audience laughs --- “and who needs shearing.  We skirt the fleeces – taking out all the dirt --- and we get ready for the Rhody show.   We show sheep starting the last week in July.  Our daughter, who is now 28, is co-chairman of the show.  She lives in New York and is thinking about taking some sheep with her out to New York, as she misses the sheep.  Our son, who always complained about doing the sheep, volunteered yesterday to do some of the computer and website.  It all comes around.”

Polly describes the atmosphere at the livestock shows.  “They look for straight backs, good feet, and good mouths as breed characteristics.  We shear twice a year, with the border Leicesters or Lincolns, because nine months is the ideal length.  They have to have nine inches of wool to show, so we shear twice a year.  They have a real curly fleece, like the sheep in Babe or Charlotte’s Webb.  Full grown ewes may go up to 200 pounds for a show animal.”  The audience listens attentively and absorbs the new knowledge about agriculture, competition, and practicality.

“ We have about eight bottle lambs; we just had a group of triplets, and because the mom doesn’t have milk for three, we have milk replacement,” she instructs and smiles.

“We have two llamas to protect the sheep.  They have kept coyotes away so far. We weren’t really sure if they were guard animals or not."  She goes on to describe a time when these new llamas had an opportunity to contribute to their new community.  "In the field, there was nobody to be seen, and one got all those 25 ewes and babies into the barn.”  The llamas were a core part of the family from then on.

“We have Tuft’s Ambulatory that comes out from Woodstock. One girl had come from California, and she had so many clothes on in our cold, she couldn’t hardly move.  She was very good,” Polly says as the audience listens to the howl around the GHS headquarters and grimaces.

“We like to raise our own. The mothers are our own lambs.  We like to raise our own, so we know the genes,” Polly ends to a fully-felt round of applause from the audience.  The gestalt of old and new and, with it, the contradictions between the complex lives we lead in contemporary society and the favorable reminders of the lives our ancestors once had experienced were fully in view at the GHS this blustery night.

 Members of the the Hopkins Farm at the Big E in 2009.