A Glimpse into the Life of a Shepherd

Just before midnight on Saturday, I woke up hearing a sheep baa outside the bedroom window. The barn and sheep pasture are NOT near the bedroom. I got up and dressed and went out to find about half the sheep roaming around the property. (The property is fenced, but there are lots of things, including plants, that I don't want the sheep to get in to.) I also discovered the reason the rest of the sheep weren't out was because a rather large ewe was stuck in the hole in the fence they had made, baa-ing her head off in annoyance.

I tried to get her out, but she was really stuck. I finally managed to get all the other sheep corralled (involving much bribery with hay) and then returned to my stuck-sheep problem. Apparently she had gone through the larger hole made by her predecessors but then got her head and the front of her body in a smaller hole. It was dark, and the sheep and I were wedged between the fence and a scrub oak. With a lot of pulling (of wire) and pushing (of sheep) I finally got her out.

After I returned her to the pasture, I had to figure out how to cover the hole in the fence, so the whole "great escape" didn't happen again a half hour later. I took a chain-link gate that I use for drying wool and lugged it back to the sheep pasture. I then barricaded the hole with the gate and bungy-corded it in place.

By now it was almost 1:00 am, and I had to take a shower after my close encounter with the stuck sheep. I stayed up another hour or so, letting my hair dry and reading a mystery novel, and then finally went to bed. Needless to say, I got a late start on Sunday, but at least all of the sheep were still in the pasture!