Your Sheep Are Out...

We got sheep...and goats. Two of each-all girls. They are sooo adorable. We found them at a farm that was going out of business at the other end of the state (2 hours away). The sheep are merino (imagine a soft and beautiful merino wool sweater or afghan) and the goats are angora (premium fiber there too).

Mark built this ghetto a** fence! It wasn't what I wanted, but he insisted it would work. It's about 100 feet long by 30-50 feet wide (it's not exactly plumb). It was an inexpensive option to what I wanted. Oh well.

So the other day, I gave him a shopping list for Thanksgiving dinner. He had the day off, I didn't. While he's roaming the aisles frantically searching for the items on the list a man walks up to him and says "you're Mark, right". Mark responds in the affirmative and the man (of course Mark doesn't remember his name) introduces himself as one of our neighbors around the way (our road is several miles long). Then the man tells Mark "your sheep are out". Mark says something like "excuse me" and the man repeats, "your sheep are out" then tells Mark to have a nice Thanksgiving.

Then Mark heads for the checkout line and is stopped again by another neighbor. This neighbor knows our address, but not the name. He also tells Mark "the sheep are out". Mark then stops at the corner store to get cancer sticks and guess what, the owner says, "hey Mark, I heard your sheep are out". When he finally gets home guess what, the sheep are out... They had challenged the fence and were able to squeeze their way under it. They were just grazing, all morning. They stayed on our land but grazed up field, down field, in the wooded area near the road. The had plenty of food, but no water. The goats were still inside the fence.

Mark spent the next several hours chasing the sheep, trying to guide them back into the fence without letting the goats out. He called me a number of times cussing and spitting and threatening to shoot them. He said they were "slick". He even called Carlton to help him. They almost got them in. He finally just let them be until he could get a third person. I was the third. We used the quad to guide them up the fenceline, Mark and I to keep them on the fenceline, with the truck angled by the door to force them toward the entry. That didn't work. Then we cornered them with the quad on the fenceline. Mark got a hold of one and popped her over the fence. I was scared they hurt her, but she seemed fine. The other one got away. We cornered that one near the wooded are, while the one inside the fence was butting the fence trying to get to the other one. Carlton tackled the sheep and plopped her over the fence.

It was all quite exciting. In the end, Mark reinforced the bottom of the fence the next day and they've been happy as clams inside the fence ever since. It's all good.

SolarFest Follow-up

It has been suggested that we cut down trees to accommodate solar paneling on our roof.

This is what the front of our house (the part that faces south) looks like from the top of our driveway. This picture was taken at the beginning of summer.

This is gorgeous (to us) and we wouldn't think of cutting down these trees. Time to think of alternatives. Any other suggestions?

Pitch Black Follow-up & Getting Hot Water

Bart and his girlfriend came and helped us fix our hot water heater (that is a long story*) so we went and helped them stack wood. It was great exercise. OK, so it wasn't fun, but we were happy to help out. Besides, they are way cool.

Any way, on the way home, at twilight I noticed that the long dark road that felt 10 miles long was actually 2 miles long and had quite a few houses on the road. Glad I was able to get a better perspective. Still wouldn't want to have car trouble there in the middle of the night...


*Living in a rural area requires quite a bit of adjustments. Actually moving to a new community is always an adjustment. When I moved into a condo back in CT, we had just had a major snow storm. It was cold. I adjusted the thremostat so we could warm up. Although the blower came on, it was blowing cold air. I called the previous owners who said they had no problem with the heat. The husband even came over to make sure I was using the thermostat correctly. Guess what, I never called the gas company. Previously, heat and hot water were included in the rent, who knew I had to call someone for heat and hot water!!! Of course the gas company didn't consider it an emergency. Fortunately I had a place to take a shower and had a portable heater so the bedroom was toasty because the earliest appointment I could get was two days later between 6pm and midnight. Guess who showed up at 11:55pm, the gas company! I was tired and irritable.

Fast forward several years later when we run out of kerosene. We have kerosene for the water heater, gas for the heat and cooking, and electricity for everything else. So guess what, no hot water. It's a pain to lug pots full of hot water to fill up the tub so you can take a warm bath. And guess what, the oil companies don't consider it an emergency. If you want them to deviate from their normal route, its an additional $100!!! Plus, the minimum is approximately $300 worth of fuel!!! (so you can't have them come out for $50 worth...) Thank goodness it's not yet the dead of winter. Thank goodness it was just the hot water. Thank goodness we resolved the issue quickly!