Two weeks away from the sheepies and they almost forgot me. (sniff) When I went out in the morning to feed hay, instead of calling out when they heard my voice like they did before I left, they waited until they heard Frank before the chorus of “baaaa”s got going in full force. Then when we both got down to the back of the sheds to spread out the flakes of hay, they were wary of me for a little while, but warmed up quickly because, you know, breakfast.
I spent a little time wooing Panic to come get a few pellets out of the red scoop of joy, and that worked well. I was really concerned about the short chain Frank had him on, which he’d tangled up so much, so we put a longer, heavier one on him that will hopefully give him more room to roam, will be less likely to tangle, but hopefully won’t give him enough length to pull the deck down on top of him. Poor Panic, all by himself. Soon we’re going to put all of the boys in together, but that’s an adventure that will wait until I’m home again at Christmas. We’ve been reading madly on the net for how people re-introduce their rams.
The mid-day treat bowl ritual was more of a success. I went out with bits of onion, bell peppers, and some really old corn taco shells that have been sitting in the pantry forever. I think the picture of Leon eating one is hilarious. These guys are great for cleaning out the pantry. Everyone came up and got a treat and a scratch, and I got nuzzled by many, including Raven.
We had a bit of a stir when Minx decided to come into Sue’s pen to chase down some more treats. Man is she named well. It will be a damn miracle if she’s not pregnant, as she’s been in both Sue and Raven’s pens now when we’ve been there and who knows how often when we haven’t been there. Frank had a stand-off with Sue, while I shooed her back from whence she’d come. We then put logs where she’d pulled up the fencing to hopefully block yet another escape route. She sure finds many. (I noticed the other day when organizing photos that when we went to Wendy’s to look at these guys before we bought them, there was one sheep out of the pen. Guess who?) There’s an article in the current issue of Graze Magazine about turning sheep like her into dinner before she teaches the rest of the flock her evil ways.
The only other thing of note is that I’m a bit peeved with Raven. Now that he doesn’t have Panic to pick on any more, it seems he’s now beating up on Leon, the Shetland wether. I thought those two were buddies, and my understanding is that they were purchased as a pair and have always been together. Several times when I was other there, I saw Leon down in the end of their pen, hiding behind the stump like Panic used to do, with Raven chasing him down there and coming after him. Leon seems to stick up to Raven far more than Panic could, but still. Raven needs to get over his damn self pretty quickly here. I can’t wait for breeding season to be over.