Sheep

the adventures of Laurie, Moe, and Curly

In the words of my 3-year-old grandson, “What the world?”

My husband is a dreamer, a visionary. I wrote about it here in case you are wondering what that means in practical, everyday terms. You would think after 42 years I would stop being surprised, but instead, when he says, “I was thinking . . .” I find myself bracing for impact. It is traumatic in its own way.

Last year at the end of February, Ben left his career and began working in earnest to build a company he started with a friend and coworker a year before that. We agreed to give it six months to win a government contract. Six months came and went rather quickly with nary a contract win in sight (the government still works at the speed of cold molasses), and then the government actually shut down. What fun. Then even after it opened for business again, nothing much was happening.

During all this waiting, Ben and his partner spent time researching other opportunities, trying in earnest to buy a company that apparently didn’t want to be bought, and generally working toward something that would produce income.

But there was downtime and more of it than is normal around here, which spells danger for the family of a visionary. Never let a dreamer be bored.

Ben came home one day last fall and announced he had bought three sheep from Simeon, our Amish neighbor, and would I please write a check.

Sheep.

I didn’t ask why or what he was thinking. I didn’t remind him we don’t know anything about sheep because last time I noted that (regarding cows), he replied, “What’s to know? You put them in the field and they eat grass. How hard can it be?” and it became a family joke that he now gets credit for.

Then we spent a month preparing for the hay barn build and watching it go up. Ben was sick most of December. January came with all of its ice and snow and ended with Ben’s shoulder surgery.

By this time Simeon was wondering aloud when we were going to get our sheep, which were still grazing with his flock a mile up the road.

Finally one lovely Saturday in February, our very kind son Elijah came over with his family and spent half the day helping Ben add a fourth strand of high-tensile wire to the fence around the pasture where Ben decided he would put the sheep. Surely four strands of 6,000 volts would keep our woolies in.

Their new home was to be right next to where the cows are being wintered, pretty close to the house. It would be lovely to look out and see all the animals happily grazing together.

See the three large white reels hanging on the fence mid-photo? Those are attached to wires that cut this pasture in half to keep the cows on their side and the sheep on theirs, presumably.

But this is not the prophecies of Isaiah (11:6), and sheep don’t lie down with cows, at least not these sheep and these cows.

As Elijah and Amy were leaving that day, Elijah said quietly to me, “I give those sheep 30 minutes before they get out.” I did not relay these odds to Ben.

Monday morning Ben put a fresh roll of hay in the sheep pasture and had a plan for water in place. That evening he took the stock trailer and went to claim his new ewes. Apparently there is no shoo-ing them into the trailer. Simeon (whom they know and trust) had them in a pen in the barn, and he just picked them up and carried them into the trailer. Then the men came back here and decided it would be a good idea to leave them in the trailer with feed and water overnight to let them calm down a bit before putting them out to pasture.

The next morning in the rain, Ben and I went out to emancipate the sheep. We had the trailer gate and the pasture gate set up so the girls could just walk into their new home and be impressed by all the fruits of our labors.

Ben opened the trailer door and we waited. The sheep huddled together in the far end of the trailer, terrified. This was not Simeon’s farm and they knew it.

Then Ben said, “I think I’m going to have to go in there and push them out.”

He stepped up into the trailer and walked toward them in the back. Then suddenly one flew out like she was shot out of a cannon. I had no idea sheep could jump so high or so far, and they actually twist their bodies as they do it. The other two followed likewise and all three of them made the turn for the front fence of their pasture. The first one started to stick her head through the strands of wire and got zapped. She jumped back, spun 360°, and charged the fence, blasting through with the other two following.

In the large gate, out the fence about 15 feet away.

Elijah, it was not 30 minutes. It was less than 30 seconds.

Fantastic. Now we have three crazed sheep loose in the big pasture and the only hot wires are on the perimeter fence around the 32 acres. The farm is divided into paddock rows, but the interior wires are only hot when they’re connected to the perimeter fence, which they are not at this time of year because the cows are all in the winter pasture.

Ben said he was going to get a bucket of grain to lure them with, and I should stand there and watch where they went.

They ran all the way to the back perimeter before Ben could get down there to push them back toward me and the gate we wanted them to go in. Where’s a trained sheepdog when you need one?

The Three Stooges began running toward me, then stopped dead when they saw me in the middle of their row. They looked back at Ben, then at me, back at Ben, then began jumping through the paddock row wires in quick succession.

I ran to the top of the pastures in an attempt to hook up wires to the perimeter, but every time I tried, they got through the next row before I could get anything attached. When they were approaching the end of our land, I realized the big gate was open by the old barn. I took off running (in my clunky chore boots) to reach the gate before they did.

Cows . . . sheep . . . same stress.

Praise the Lord, I made it. I’m not sure why I thought this was a victory since they’d already proven their willingness to be electrocuted in order to escape. Ben caught up to me with the bucket of grain, and we decided to walk away from them, hoping they would at least stay inside the perimeter.

This was not to be. They shot through the last 6,000-volt deterrent and took off for home, a mile up the road.

No worries, we thought. We know where they’re going and they’ll be easy to find.

Ben spent hours that afternoon and evening walking the neighboring farms and forests looking for them. I wanted so badly to call him Bo Peep when he came in, but I didn’t have the heart.

Two days went by and we saw not one fuzzy hair of these sheep, two white, one brown. They did not show up at Simeon’s as we’d hoped.

Finally word got around the community that our ewes were missing, and both Simeon and our neighbor Mike turned out to help. They found the sheep close to Simeon’s farm and, with the help of Simeon’s flock and the sheep’s instinct to follow, they were able to get our three back to his barn.

During all the drama I suggested that, if we ever found them, we should put them in the field across the road where we usually grow out young steers. That one has true field fencing and isn’t near the cows, who the sheep might have been afraid of. So Ben and I spent Sunday afternoon fixing a few compromised spots and adding fencing to the two gates so they couldn’t get through them.

Monday, Ben went back to Simeon’s, who once again loaded three sheep into the trailer. Simeon said he noticed that one of them was “a little skittish,” so he swapped her with a calmer one. I imagine he was feeling sorry for the dumb Englishers who don’t know how to keep sheep in the fence.

This time, Ben drove the whole rig into the five acres, opened the trailer door, and walked away. Eventually they came out for the grain he’d thrown in a feed bunk not far away.

So far, so good. Laurie, Moe, and Curly are happily eating clover, ignoring the giant hay bale, and have not attempted another escape.

Please pray for Ben to find work soon.