I decided to fence off the trees with some plastic garden fence I already had. I drove in a few T-posts and attached the fence with cable ties. It wasn't a strong physical barrier, but I hoped it would act as a visual deterrent.
It worked at first.
However, less than two weeks after I erected the fence, the wind blew down a medium-sized dead cottonwood tree, which took out part of the fence. I removed the dead tree and repaired the fence.
Today I let the sheep out to graze and turned around to see Gimli, one of the rams, had broken through the fence and was happily snacking on young cottonwood leaves. I ran over and tried to push him away. He didn't budge. I took hold of the torn end of the plastic fencing and tried to use it to force him away from the young tree. He surged forward, and his head went right through the plastic mesh. Now there's a large hole the size of Gimli's head in the fence.
After extracting him from the mesh (he didn't seem to notice it), I started shoving him, trying to get him away from the trees. I felt like Harry and Hermione when they tried to get Hagrid to leave the centaurs after showing the two of them Grawp. Gimli didn't seem to notice me any more than Hagrid did Harry and Hermione. However, after several attempts, I finally got the ram to turn around and start munching grass instead of leaves.
I'm glad my sheep like me and aren't afraid of me, especially the rams. But their trust can be a drawback when I want them to do something that they're resisting. They ignore my efforts to shift them and basically look as if they're saying, "Huh? Did you want something? I'm eating, you know."
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