Thursday, January 31, 2013

That Sheep Will be The Death of Me Yet


Brontë's got it in for me. One day you'll find me face down in the pasture with just one small cloven hoof print on my back.

Brontë is my Icelandic sheep. She's really more like a goat with wool. She's the most inquisitive, the most pushy, and the most adventurous of all the sheep. When I brought her little self home as a lamb (and when I say lamb let's just be clear that she wasn't all that little at the time - see above) she leaped out of the back of my trusty RAV4 and clocked me under the chin with the top of her hard little head almost knocking out all my teeth. (And so started the migraines I suffer from today.)

I'm not positive it was her, mind you, but the other day I was walking ahead of the sheep with extra hay to put into the mangers and going through the gate someone flattened me from behind. I went down like a ton of bricks and all I saw was a blurry sheep face. But when I gingerly picked myself up off the ice there were only two sheep in the pen: Siobhán and Brontë. And Siobhán is too much of a lady to flatten me.

So there you have it. Accident? I think not. I was lame for a couple days but no permanent damage. This time. Yesterday, after I put the animals into the pasture Brontë walked back to the gate and stood looking up at me (it's sort of a Brontë pose . . . as you can see) as if to shoot the breeze for awhile, maybe inquire after my injuries, assess the damage, survey her handiwork. She assured herself I was still mobile, seemed satisfied, and returned to the flock with a gleam in her eye. Plotting, I imagine, for her next opportunity.