Never Let a Sheep Drive

I bought hay yesterday. When I got home, I decided I was too tired to unload it, so I parked the truck up near the house and figured I'd feed the sheep out of it for a day or two until I got around to storing the hay bales in the barn.

So this morning I got up, threw a few flakes of hay from the back of the truck to the sheep, and went to work.

When I got home I parked the car, dropped my purse and groceries in the house, let the dog out, and headed for the truck. It wasn't there. Before my panic fully developed, I spotted it down near the barn. Then I really gasped. I could see the faint tire tracks slightly off the right side of the drive leading from where I had left the truck to where it now stood. It had taken a fairly straight path along the garden fence, over a shovel handle, near or over a good-sized rock (not sure about that), and then rolled smoothly to a slight rise about 8 feet from the shearing pen where it luckily came to a stop.

Apparently the truck had slipped out of gear. I've had trouble with it doing that a couple times before, so I always double-check that it's firmly in first gear when I park it. The emergency brake is more a brake in name than in fact. If you drive with it on, the most you usually notice is a decrease in gas mileage.

My guess is that a ram or two put their hooves on the back bumper to try to reach the hay in the truck bed. They've done this before. However, this time they appear to have set the truck in motion. It is very lucky that no sheep or lambs or chickens got run over as the truck made its way downhill. Everyone seems fine, including the truck. Me, however, I'm still shaking a bit with "what-could-have-happened" thoughts. Lesson learned.

I took this picture from where I parked the truck. It traveled a fair distance.

Wow, That's a Lot of Snow

An impressive snow storm came through Monday afternoon and evening. I haven't seen official snowfall totals, but we received at least 6".

Cotswold sheep love the cold, but they don't like rain and snow. They were quite put out. Everyone stayed crowded in the barn for two days -- what a mess. Now that the sheep are going out again, they are churning up the snow, which is melting, and the resulting mud is about 4" deep. It practically pulls off my boots when I step in it. I tried putting flakes of hay in the midst of nice, unmarked fields of snow, but the sheep don't want to wade out too far; they really sink. So, I put the hay flakes on clean snow right next to where they've already walked, so they can easily reach it while still standing in shallow snow or mud.

We had another lamb born on Friday -- a little black ewe with white tips on her ears. We've named her Lavender.