Meet the Sheeple

Well, at least meet some of them. I'll be adding to this post throughout the day as I can figure out pictures and all that sort of crap. Adventure! Excitement! A Jedi craves not these things.

Anyway . . .

Yes, I really really do have sheep. Six of them currently to be precise. I would have nine, but, well, let's say that my first attempt at making the little boy sheeps into little un-boy sheeps didn't go quite as planned, and it was a very sad time, and mother ewes wept and Sarah felt very, very bad and nearly had a meltdown and all that sort of thing, the end. Ah, the joys of livestock!

Our four adult sheep are pets. As in they have names and everything and will be around until they die of natural causes or The Husband shoots them in the head because they annoy him so much with all the screaming for grain, whichever comes first. The babies? Well, let's just say our family is all about the food, so don't be reading this blog if you like don't want to hear that meat you get in the grocery store came from somewhere other than that styrofoam plate and might have been cute and fluffy at one time in its life. Because usually it was. Sorry.

The oldest is Clarice. Yes, as in "do you hear the silence of the lambs, Clarice?" Blame The Husband for that, mmkay? *I* wanted to name her Petunia, but noooooo. Anyway, Clarice actually suits her just fine and she answers to it and all that jazz so it's all good.

So, here she is, in all her fluffy glory. She has always given us multiples. The first two years it was twins, and then this year it was triplets. So, needless to say, she's a GREAT producer and a fanfrickingtabulous mamma. I think we'll keep her. In this particular picture, this was her second set of twins.

She is the alpha female of the herd, for what that is worth considering that they are sheep. I mean, have you ever heard of the term "alpha female" connected with sheep? No? Me neither. But, she is determined to let everybody else know who's boss so we just let her go ahead with her bad self.

Clarice enjoys handfulls of grain, lots of #2 hay, rams that don't butt too hard, and long walks in the rain.

Our next two sheep are the same age. Chocolate Chip has only produced singletons so far, but they've all been stunningly healthy so we don't complain at all. At least she is earning her keep. She lost her baby this year in the Great Mistake of 2006(see above), so to distract her we actually ended up loaning her out to a couple of friends to do weed patrol for them. It worked out pretty well, and she became MUCH tamer as a result. Which is all well and good when you want to do something with them like, oh, shear them or give them shots. Shove a can of grain in this girl's face and she will do ANYTHING you want. Hubba hubba!

Here she is with last year's baby.

Rambo. The name says it all. He's big, he's black, large and in charge. Mere mortals tremble before his awesome forehead and other, um, parts. Well, unless The Husband is wielding the Rambo Be Good Stick (aluminum baseball bat). Then? He runs away. At least he learns, right? Sheep aren't as dumb as they say.

Funny/cute story about Rambo and my oldest daughter, Thing One. Thing One had a friend over when we first got Rambo. Both are approximately 8 years old and are very sheltered when it comes to the grownup world - they go to the same private Christian school. It was friend's first time seeing a sheep, and more specifically a male, intact sheep. Friend points at the dangly bits underneath Rambo and asks, innocently enough, "What's that?"

Thing One, being the good daughter that she is, has picked up on mommy and daddy's euphamisms.

"That? Oh, that's 'the sac.'"

Thank the Lord above that The Husband was around a corner when he heard this because it wouldn't have been a good thing for Thing One and friend to discover a fully grown man rolling around in the dirt with laughter. They just wouldn't have understood.

Now, remember that cute little lamb up above, peeking out around Clarice? Yeah, I mean the one over here on the right. Meet Oreo. Part Deux. She is the only one of the babies that have been produced to not meet Mr. Butcher. She belonged to our partner in livestock crime, The Chicken Man. The deal was, that we raised the four-footed creatures on our property, and he raised the two-legged and feathered ones. Unfortunately, The Chicken Man died last year of lung cancer, so we asked his family what they wanted to do with his lamb. The Chicken Man's daughter, The Kid, said that the decision would be up to his granddaughter, The Princess. The Princess decided she wanted to keep the little one, and she could be a producer of more babies for us. And so it was. I'll post an actual picture of Oreo later on tonight when I actually have access to it.

UPDATE! Obviously, the fluffy thing up above on my left here is an adult sheep. More precisely, Oreo. Here she is with her little girl from this year. She's a good mama as well. Very protective.