"Greener" Pastures

This week has been tough.  I thought Saturday would be a little easier because it wouldn't be just me, two little boys, two llamas, seven sheep, fourteen chickens, and assorted neighboring animals.  I would have a helper.  I forgot that the two little boys try to get away with more when Daddy is home.

We did a wee bit of housework before we went outside (thank goodness).  Tonight I won't be sleeping in straw/hay/mud.  (Well, maybe our sheet weren't that dirty.) 

Elsie wants out.  Who could resist?

Next on our agenda: letting the sheep out of the barn.  Scott had yet to witness the way the llamas react to sheep on the loose.  Powderpuff and Ivory put on quite a show for him, alarm calling and running circles around the sheep.  Everyone calmed down (a bit), and Scott went to the barn to make a new mineral feeder for the llamas--out of a bucket.

Calico sees buckets (and grain scoops and garbage cans and....) and goes wild.  All the other sheep follow her.  Something happened to scare them, and they started to run.  Calico started limping.  I freaked out.  ("She has a broken leg!")  The llamas started alarming and chasing the sheep.  The neighbors started to cross the road with their two dogs.

We tried to round up the whole flock in the barn.  It's usually not too bad, but for some reason (maybe little boys running around the barn?) they would not go in.  We finally ended up with all the sheep in--except for the baby, Theresa.  We've had the sheep for six days, and this was the first time we've heard any of them "baa."

We caught Calico (I fell in poo, but I do realize that it's a part of the job), and it her leg was stuck through the neck of her coat.  After much (but very brief) debate, we decided to let her go without a coat.  She has a nice fleece, very fine wool, and hay sticks to her like white cat fur on a brown corduroy couch.  Sigh.  I will be spending a lot of time on her fleece or paying the mill a lot extra to do it for me.

Calico, the second from the left, is busy loading her fleece with vegetable matter. 

We decided that we should put the sheep into the other pasture.  It took awhile, but was fairly uneventful.  We went in for lunch.  The instant Scott took a bite of his sandwich, a red-tailed hawk flew over the chicken coop.  His sandwich waited while he put the chickens on lock-down and scowled menacingly at the hawk.

The sheep enjoyed their new pasture.  They met the chickens.  They met the cows.  They lounged.  They chewed some cud.  While they were happy, we put up an offset electrical wire to keep the cows from lounging on the fence.  (The cows are testing it out now.  I think some of them must be thrill-seekers.)

Lounging and chewing cud.

Sheep meeting cows, without any much drama.

Even though the sheep were in another pasture -- another non-adjacent pasture-- the llamas were not happy.  They both kept their eyes on the sheep, and Powderpuff kept alarming.

Ivory and Powderpuff.  They still  think"guard sheep" means to guard against the sheep.