I’m home from working on a project, and the sheepies mostly remembered me. As a matter of fact, I got a really fine introduction to life back on the farm because when we got home from the airport, I looked out back at the sheep and saw Panic sort of just wandering around, loose from his spot chained up under the deck.
I’m very glad I’ve trained these guys to the red scoop of joy, because it worked like a charm. Unlike the last time the sheep were out (and what a fiasco that was!) this time I just went for the scoop, rattled it for a couple of seconds, and over he came to eat out of it. Frank went around behind him, and it was all over in a very few minutes. No big deal, which is perfect. I don’t ever want to have the sheep running away from me again.
And last night, we heard rumblings out in the pens, but it was too dark to see what was going on. In the morning we discovered Sue in the lambs’ pen, and he and Raven had evidently been butting heads all night through the fence. We got him back where he belonged, and Frank looked at the damage done to the fence, said it could wait until after coffee, so we went back in.
We came out to find Raven in the lambs’ pen this time, but their heads must still have been hurting, because he and Sue were just glaring at each other. We got Raven put back, and wired up some pallets on the spots in the fence where they’d done the most damage.
It is so clear to us how badly we need permanent fencing. We knew all along that this was just temporary to get us through the winter, but we’re now not sure if it’ll last through the winter.