A New Sheep Home

Wooly, Lily, Lucy Belle and Black Bob have gone to their summer home. I took pictures of the operation (get the sheep from the pen into the trailer), but they are on a camera at school and I could not get them before leaving today.

Everyone wanted to help (and we were all out to witness the operation). How do I choose when 21 hands are up and willing? Two helped with the big ewes. That was easy. The ewes are easily enticed to stand still if you offer corn in their feeding trough, and that is how the wonderful Sommer (mom to one of my students) got halters on the two.

I should have put on my chore boots, because my foot got trampled by Wooly, or was it Lily, I'm not sure who, but I am now the poster child for not wearing sandals into the sheep pen. Leading them to the trailer was work, but done without incident. Getting them in was another story.

The babies were trickier, but Sommer managed just fine. Bob was timid and not sure about being lead from his safe pen, but since he is so little he was pulled/lead outside. Lucy was a stinker. Not moving, and probably 70 pounds by now. Sommer was pulling and a kid was pushing. When she got outside she finnegled her way out of the halter. You should have heard the children. Screaming and running. Sommer was calm and got the children quiet and let Lucy go back into the barn and again got control of her and started out to the trailer.

Getting them into the trailer was hard, because they did not want to go in, and were just so stubborn about it. A big wheeww from both Sommer and me when the trailer door was shut and locked.

It was fun to let the children climb on the trailer to see "our" sheep and say good-bye to them. That is the picture I most wanted to share. Perhaps next week.

In regular work we are having LOTS of birthdays (summer celebrations), making sure we know what perimeter is, and learning the history of our nearby town, Newton, which used to be known as the "wickedest town in the West." We are mostly happy that Newton is not wicked anymore (some would like more cowboys).

Only four days left in this school year. Two will be field trips (nothing like waiting until the kids are DONE with school to try to corral them into field trip behavior) and then activities to pull closure to our year.

Sommer sent a picture of the big ewes enjoying the fresh grass in their summer pasture. They look so happy.

My toe still hurts.