Notes From Zone 4

Frank’s mother, Ginny, has been terrified of animals her whole life. She worked as a home economics instructor for Detroit Edison, and often visited houses to teach women how to use electric ovens and do lighting plans. She said she dreaded going to houses with animals. She is very nervous even around our cat.

But she sure is interested in these sheep! She shreds paper for their bedding and brings up the bags. She saves the kitchen scraps that she knows they will like. In order to save some money, she asked if she could have a couple of them in her backyard, so she wouldn’t have to pay the kid across the street.

We took Sue and Raven down, set them up on the lushest grass they’d ever seen, and it worked out really well. For a while. Every time we passed through town, we always drove by to see how they were doing. Ginny kept them in water, and they didn’t need to be moved very often. Mostly, they laid around and ate treats from the neighborhood kids.

On a Tuesday night, we were heading in to town to play bridge, stopped and checked on everyone before we left around 6, and all was well. On our way home, I told Frank to swing around to do a drive-by, just in case, so we did. I’m not sure why I thought it would be the case, but the fence was down, and the two rams were no where to be found.

We weren’t sure if the neighborhood kids thought it would be funny, they’d been stolen (those were valuable rams! Probably worth $500 each), or if Sue had decided he was bored, or the battery failed, or what. It was almost midnight, the village was pitch black and quiet. Traipsing through backyards in search of them was going to wake up the dogs all over the village, which wasn’t going to make us very popular.

We walked around with flashlights, but had no luck, so I called the Mutual Aid number, and they called the town cop. He got up out of bed, and showed up at Grandma’s house. He said it looked like kids to him, and he knew which ones. On the way to the kid’s house, however, he found the two rams walking down NH Route 10, taking it easy.

He called Mutual Aid to report that he “had the suspects in custody”, which is what the dispatcher told me when he called my cell phone. Whew! Frank rushed home for the truck, I went down to the store.

Turns out he only had the suspects under observation. Sue came right up to me, because I might have had grain, after all. Raven was absolutely panicking, and it took us about 20 minutes for the three of us to capture him.

We figured out after that though the bee fence, which is shorter than the regular stuff, was evidently fine to hold him at our place at first, once he knocked it down at Grandma’s house, and it could never hold him again, after that.

We don’t risk using her backyard anymore, because she has no fencing at all. She likes being around the critters, but it is too much for her to check to see if the electric fence is still working.

Bucky is an older guy who lives in the village, about a mile away. We’ve been on waving relations since we moved here in 1990. He’s the local handyman, and we pass his house on our way to town. At different times, he’s had horses, chickens, and dogs, and it was normal for the chickens and the dogs to be in the middle of the very unbusy road.

When we had to start traveling so much for business, he would come up and take care of the sheep for us. He’s such a sweetheart to them, and even when we are home, he comes up to check on them, make sure they are being spoiled enough. He often brings up stuff from his garden, weeds, old produce, etc. We pay him twice what he asks when he sheep sits, which isn’t enough. We try to bring him back whiskey or something fun from wherever we go.

Sometimes, if only one of us is home, and we have a break-out or something, he is just a quick call away and will come up and help. We all got pretty tired of chasing wet lambs that first year. Man did we need better fencing.

Still, it must not be too bad, or he was really impressed by their browsing capabilities and cuteness, because he asked if he could take a few home with him to clean up his very overgrown backyard. He collects all sort of crap from the dump or wherever, and much of it was covered in weeds and grass.

We sent all the boys to spend the summer with him, and they did a fine, fine job. We went up and moved them around using electronet for him. Those boys were so well fed that summer that they had zero interest in cookies or treats or grain that we’d offer them when we visited. Whatever. I’m full, Mom.

We left them there until it was time to breed the girls.

Last summer, with Valerie here minding the farm, she tried to do the same thing. Unfortunately, neither she nor Bucky understood how to ground the fencing properly, and we weren’t here to show them and we didn’t really understand what the problem was. But the boys got out constantly, and ate a few gardens in the village. They tried everything they could to get them to stay in the fence, but just couldn’t get it all working right, and they boys became obnoxious about getting out instantly. It was just unworkable, and they were becoming a nuisance to the neighbors, so they had to come back home.

I wonder what we’ll do this year. He also has a nice hayfield behind him that someone hays for him. I wonder if we could figure out a way for us to use it instead? Or maybe his yard has just grown up enough in the year off that it could hold a couple of sheepies again. We taught Valerie how to ground properly — surely we can show Bucky. Plus, I’ll be here to help mind them.

I hope they didn’t burn that bridge! I’ll have to get Bucky back up to see the new lambs in May. Lambs are awfully hard to resist!

In the late summer of 2005, the Quinns asked us to have our sheep help them reclaim a pasture, because their horses were cherry picking, and they’d seen the fabulous job the girls had done on our driveway. Since we were down to nothing and about ready to have to put them on hay, we happily agreed.

Moving the girls their was done in our newly purchased used horse trailer, one trip. They just all packed in there. I walked the llamas up. They loved it, and we moved them every few days. The Quinns paid a lot of attention to them, and we brought them water every day. Their fences aren’t good enough for sheep, though, so we had to weave our electronet around their horse fencing.

As we got so close to winter, it became harder to judge when, and they got out too often, and was a pain in the neck for the Quinns and us together. A few times, the llamas got out and went to visit Liz’s horses across the street, so we felt bad for two families then. They were all really nice and helpful about getting them back, but they were becoming unwelcome.

Bringing the sheep home was easy, but getting the llamas back was a pain. We eventually convinced Mary to follow her sister, but it was dicey for a while. The moving truck was packed and waiting for our temp move away, and I couldn’t leave Valerie a farm to watch with a critter out.

Last summer, Valerie found some place else to put the whole herd, closer to where she worked. (I’ll write about that place in another installment.) I wonder what the Quinns did to their fences in the intervening year. We should take a walk up there some weekend and say hi. We told them we’d be gone a year, and now we are back. I wonder if I can park some sheep there this spring.