When my sister Megan and I were little, we had a small family of sheep.
(This was almost twenty years ago. Megan is now married with four amazing children, but I am single and clearly still hung up on these sheep.)
And yes, this blog post is about literal sheep. If you were looking for a post about Hillary supporters or Trump supporters or the two-party system or anyone who trusts the mainstream media, you’ll have to go elsewhere on the internet. Not far, I’m sure.
It all started with two sheep that we found in the basement of our barn. The barn was to be a sort of retirement home for the two, who happened to be extras in a live nativity scene.
It was a cold December afternoon when we found them, shrieking with delight when we happened upon their great woolly frames. They were not as excited to see us. In fact, they were terrified of us and raced around the barn, their eyes rolling back in terror.
We set about to tame them.
We were very good at taming animals back then. Megan, who had a yearly subscription of that venerable publication, Birds and Blooms, had studied the art of taming birds and had experienced great success at applying the methods to barn cats and gerbils.
I, in the meantime, poured over animal behavior books from the library in hopes of being a professional dog trainer or a veterinarian.
Together we had developed a foolproof methodology of winning the hearts and minds of wild animals, and we set about immediately upon the terrified sheep.
- As always, one begins with food. In this case, we obtained some feed corn from the barn next door, which immediately piqued the interest of the quivering subjects.
- One must be willing to sit for hours, quietly, holding out a handful of corn, in order to win trust. Soon, the animals relaxed. They became curious.
- No eye contact. An animal does not look deeply into your eyes to get to know you. No, they sniff you to know you. So we sat quietly, letting them come up and sniff us, not moving a muscle, staring in unison directly down at the ground, until finally…
- The moment of connection. If you move slowly enough, speak softly enough, and provide food, an animal will fall for you. It is as simple as that.
And they became our best friends. They came running to greet us every afternoon, and even made so many escapes from their pen to join us in the yard that they finally received an expanded pen that included the whole barnyard.
The snow melted and spring broke warm across the farm, and one beautiful day, Megan’s sheep, Sunshine, gave birth to twins. A few days later, my sheep, Funny, gave birth to a little one.
The little family was indeed our pride and joy. Spring slipped into summer and we spent every afternoon with our sheep.
Of course, we love and we lose.
We lost the sheep one night, tragically, to a pack of wild dogs. The dogs were eventually found and captured, but not before leaving a trail of dead livestock across the farms on our road.
Megan and I were heartbroken, but it hit Megan hardest. We knew we had to let go.
It was still summer, and not long after the sad news, we came upon another sight.
A tiny baby bird had fallen from its nest.
It looked so little and fuzzy and vulnerable.
Megan and I looked at each other. She raced to the house for a warm blanket and a syringe, and I started digging up worms.
We knew what we had to do.