News photos — Grace McIntyre Toby Harmon, the school’s equine and livestock manager, cuddles one of the week-old lambs in the barn at North Country School on Monday, March 31.

LAKE PLACID — At North Country School, an average spring day might include spending the night in the barn listening in case a pregnant sheep goes into labor, watching your teachers deliver a lamb or hanging out in camp chairs in a steaming sugar hut as sap is boiled into dark, rich maple syrup.

Or all of the above.

At NCS, experiential, hands-on, interdisciplinary learning takes center stage. The campus life revolves around the land and the seasons. The school’s large property includes gardens and animal enclosures. They keep horses, sheep, chickens and sometimes pigs. Students each have an assigned day of the week to help with farm chores.

“It’s a really sweet way to live closer to the rhythm of the seasons,” said NCS spokesperson Rebecca Northrup.

Liam, a ninth-grader at NCS, was the one who noticed their first lamb was about to give birth last Tuesday, March 25.

From left, Charlie, Octa and Howard watch Jaden Rieck, a farm fellow at North Country School, pour warm syrup into a jug in the sugar house on Monday, March 31.

The giveaway? The lamb’s head was sticking out. He said his adrenaline kicked in right away as he ran to call for help. One lamb, a ewe, was born without a hitch. The ram, however, was a bit bigger and got a little … stuck.

“It was kinda scary,” Liam said. “It didn’t present right, the arms were back with just the head poking out, instead of both hands out with the head.”

The ram ended up weighing 11.5 pounds when he was born, quite a bit bigger than the average 8 pounds, said Toby Harmon, the school’s equine and livestock manager. The students had recently learned about dystocia — the different ways sheep can come out the wrong way. For example, they are supposed to come out feet first, not head first.

“We were very fortunate with the first birth, that there were no issues and they did fine. Warmed us up to it,” Harmon said. “Now we’re like, ‘OK, more babies.’ I want to stop waking up at three o’clock in the morning.”

They have six pregnant sheep this year, some of which are Texels, a breed that is notoriously difficult to help birth, Harmon said. He is working to selectively breed sheep that will work well for the school’s purposes — the school uses them for meat and wool.

News photo — Grace McIntyre Steam pours from the sugar house on North Country School’s campus during a syrup boil on Monday, March 31.

The students help with other side projects and experiments that revolve around the livestock. They read that feeding pregnant sheep around the same time you’d like them to give birth can actually influence when they go into labor, so they’ve been feeding them around the middle of the day to try to avoid middle-of-the-night wakeup calls.

The students also helped construct a specialized enclosure called a lamb creep that only the lambs can fit into. This is where they put the specialized feed — and it’s a place for the lambs to get some space from the big sheep.

“Just a little extra space for them to be rebellious little kids if they want to,” Harmon said. “It’s the lamb clubhouse.”

On Monday, March 31, Liam was getting ready for his first “lamb watch,” a night spent on a bed of hay in the barn. The lamb watch is the culmination of years of farm chores and a responsibility only entrusted to the 9th graders. They sleep in groups of three and have a radio to call the farmers if anything happens.

“I’m looking forward to maybe seeing another lamb being born,” he said. “I’m also nervous about if there’s a lamb being born — what if you don’t wake up?”

In an update Tuesday morning, Northrup said a lamb was born Monday night, so Liam did end up getting his wish.

While students and faculty wait for the lambs to come, there is still plenty to do. Monday morning, students collected sap from buckets around the campus and brought it to the sugar house. The structure was built by a NCS class in the 1970s. The sap is piped from huge 400 gallon containers and boiled until it reaches seven degrees above the boiling point of water. Students help feed the giant wood oven that heats the syrup, then they help bottle it up for use in the kitchens.

The syrup isn’t just for the students though — on Saturday, May 10, the school is hosting a pancake breakfast starting at 9 a.m. that’s free and open to the public. There will also be barn and garden tours, hay rides, and a mini farmers’ market including items from local farms, nonprofits and the school’s store and farm.