Old Salt

Alternate titles: Don't bite more than you can chew
Spits or Swallows
Rinse optional

OLD SALT

At 21, I took Sheep Production 101, an animal science prerequisite that taught me, among other things, that a dressed lamb was really a slaughtered lamb hanging on a hook. I learned how to diagram cuts of meat, how to sheer, how to butcher, and how to castrate sheep in three ways. I read about ram lambs with rubber bands that shrank so tight their balls would fall off after a few weeks, and that domesticated lambs produced long swishy tails that had to be removed for sanitation. I took notes on the percentages of infection from each method of docking and castration. As a new student to Mount San Antonio College, and a naïve girl searching for approval, I wrote everything down with enthusiasm. Being naïve had its disadvantages. For the final exam our teacher required participation in a fieldtrip to learn the Basque ways.
I hadn’t banded, or used the hot-docker on tails, and the Basque method was still a mystery. “Doc”, my teacher, required full participation for an A, and as a girl trying to get into the Veterinary program at UC Davis, I needed every edge I could get. On that day, after a long field trip in pick-up trucks, our group of 18 male students and I, walked out to the country barn to pen pre-yearling ram lambs.
At first, a farm hand demonstrated sheering with old fashioned, long bladed scissors. He cut with one deft hand and held the animal pinned to the ground in an effortless hold with the other. Piles of perfectly shaped wool lay stacked next to him. He sweated and talked about how many he could do a day, I watched his back muscles through his thin plaid shirt, and could smell the combination of lanolin and his sweat. I could have watched him all day.

The teacher introduced us to the main rancher and he demonstrated a ghastly, but ‘sanitary’ method of castration. On a tree stump cut hip height, a male student struggled to sit the young ram of about 125 pounds in what looked like a wrestling hold. He wrapped his back-legs in between his forelegs and pinned the animal against him in a position that left the tail and the nuts dangling. The teacher first showed us the cremaster effect, that if the inner thigh was stroked, the testicles would jump into the body leaving the sac almost empty. In my own secret way I wanted to try that later, just to see if it had the same effect on a man. He pinched the sac and cut through it like it was paper. The ram lamb rolled its head and struggled, but in no way could free itself. In one smooth motion he pulled the cut sac away and revealed the insides of the sac. The animal bleated, struggled, but couldn’t break loose from the four-legged Nelson.

Knowingly, the rancher waited for the struggle to end, then leaned down, removed his hat, and pinched the first pink testicle with his teeth and lips, then backed it out of the animal. The skin holding it seemed to separate like layers of onion. He pulled it out, spat into a pie tin, wiped the blood off his moustache and went after the other one. Each of us on my side of the circle looked at the other in dismay. Some of the young men didn’t flinch, and didn’t look around. I knew more about their western plaid than about their faces. If it ended there, we would have gladly walked away. The rancher then wielded the scissor like blades of the hot-docker. He pulled the tail out, cut and cauterized it in another smooth motion. The vertebra sizzled and popped like fried chicken, and ran pink and clear with fluid. The teacher grabbed the white severed tail that was swishing only moments ago and flung it into the back of his truck, then dabbed the stump with hot-pink fly killer. The rancher carefully set the hot-docker down and explained that one bout of diarrhea would fix the tail to the sheep’s rear and it would die from fly strike. He proceeded to catch a young lamb with “tail rot” for demonstration. After separating the stuck tail from the haunches we could see where maggots were already burrowing into the flesh, he burned off that tail too. I wasn’t the only one that wanted to puke from the smell of burnt flesh, maggots and diarrhea. I wanted to crawl under the covers like I did so many times in childhood, but I couldn’t move. He flung the tail over with the rest, wrangled another sheep and got to castrating.
What did I know of country life? I was raised in East Los Angeles where concrete and Catholicism went hand in hand. Curiosity compelled me to look into the tin can where the rancher spat the testicles. “What are you going to do with those?” I asked. “Haven’t you heard of rocky mountain oysters?” he added with a big smile. His mouth repulsed me, his teeth were menacing.
I could escape into my own head. Stand with eyes open, but shift into a safer place inside. I gave myself a talk being a small animal vet, about the fact that large animals weren’t my future, that all I had to do was get through this junior college stuff and get into the real school. I had to do this to do what was next. I had to do this because I was a single a mom… The sheep was held there long enough for the teacher to lecture about screw flies, death and all the other maladies of each dock and neuter operation. Another sheep was wrangled and pinned, castrated and cauterized. The teacher would name the next student, and every one of us complied. When it was my turn I worried about my braces getting caught and sheep pellets flying into my mouth. I hadn’t had my face that close to any testicles, and I certainly didn’t want to start. I looked at the circle around me. They were silent. I imagined us as an exile tribe with secret rites. I lowered my head, and a trail of pellets fell from the ram’s ass. I smelled the mixture of dung, dusky lanolin and my own sweat. I ran my finger along the thigh to make the testicle ascend, then cut through the sac. Blood formed in beads along the cut line. I lowered my head, bit the teat of the testicle, pulled it out, spat the fat silvery glob and felt the blood salt in my mouth. When I looked around, no one met my eyes. I swallowed out of nervousness, covered up the gag reflex and leaned down to take the next one.