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The Truth About Sojourner Sheep


Sojourner Sheep? Is that a Breed of Sheep?

I've been asked that question... twice.

If you know anything about Florence, the village within the city of Northampton, Massachusetts, you know that Sojourner Truth lived here for a few years.  She was born in 1797 into slavery, escaped to freedom, and dedicatedSojourner Truth her life to the abolition of slavery and and to promoting women's rights.  In 2002, Thomas Jay Warren was commissioned to create a sculpture honoring Truth in a small park in the village of Florence.

I didn't have Sojourner Truth in mind when I chose a name for my flock.  However, a couple of years after my sheep arrived, I became aware of the fact that Truth's life and future was, if just for a moment, linked to that of a few sheep. As a young girl she was torn from her family and sold at auction.  In an effort to step up the low bidding, a group of sheep was added to the deal.  You can view a painting of this event here.


I named my flock Sojourner Sheep in honor of the 1953 book, The Sojourner, by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (an author better-known for The Yearling).  This novel follows the life of Ase Linden, a New England farmer who stood by his values and became a steward of the land despite pressure from his family to sell the farm to developers.  This book is my favorite novel.  I see some of Ase's qualities in John Vollinger, the former dairy farmer on whose land my sheep "sojourn."

As I go about my shepherding chores,  I witness natural cycles: the birth of lambs, their days of grazing, their leavetaking, and the long winter of waiting for grass again.  The wild turkeys, wary of me when their chicks are small, oblivious as the summer wears on, utterly invisible during hunting season, then cycling up and down the hill in the snow and in and out of the white pines as the day performs its own cycle. All of the earth's creatures, and all that they eat, are sojourners.

And I know now, so well, the Truth about Sojourner Sheep.  Upon the dedication her novel, Rawlings offered a biblical quote:  "For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers; our days on earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding."