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.