HOLLIS, Maine — The last few days of March were especially busy ones at Lily Brook Farm, where owner Nina Fuller had her hands full with the arrival of spring lambs.
“Last year we had maybe twenty-one total babies, but seventeen were born in the first four days,” she says. “This year it’s been about ten days and there are ten lambs born with another five or six moms to go. So it’s a much slower process this year. It’s much more laid-back.”
It’s far from a 9-to-5 job, though, especially when a mother rejects a lamb, as happened this year. At that point, Fuller’s workload expands dramatically.
“She’s six days old now,” she says, pointing at the abandoned lamb. “For five nights, I was coming out to the barn at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning and feeding her. But she’s fine now.”
Fuller has raised sheep in Hollis since 2011, along with goats, chickens, and a few other animals. Before moving to the farm, she worked mainly as a photographer, with subjects ranging from Barack Obama to horse expeditions to rock stars playing at the Cumberland County Civic Center. The sheep hadn’t been around for long when she realized it would be useful to have pictures of them for her records.
“I started photographing them, and I was, like, 'Wow, this is amazing,'” she says.
The sheep, it turned out, were remarkably photogenic, especially when shot in black and white. And it soon became obvious that people wanted to hang these images on their walls. The photos now sell for handsome sums at the Portland Art Gallery.
Although a good night’s sleep is rare during lambing season, there are compensations. A day-old lamb, all woolly fluff and innocence, is not only a splendid subject for a photographer but also a living symbol of rebirth and renewal on the farm. Fuller smiles just thinking about it.
“It’s my favorite time of year,” she says.