Sheep’s In the Meadow……..

Our farm experiences in Southside Virginia were so much fun for us.  I opened my antique business in the basement and spent my days refinishing furniture, polishing silver, or mending, cleaning, or ironing the beautiful antique linens which were my particular specialty.  Business and life was good.

My husband had a workshop out back and a “lean-to” of sorts that he had his prize 65 mustang that he was restoring in his “spare” time.  He guarded that whole area with his life.  It was entombed in plastic – out of sight – and NOBODY messed with his stuff where the mustang was. This is where things get a little nasty. 

I always did my refinishing furniture outside where I could hose off the furniture refinishing chemicals and kept buckets of water for my rags and my brushes, etc.  I had saw horses, etc. set up under some trees to keep out of the sun.  I usually just left my things where I worked.  My mess.  I’d clean it up when I finished. 

Sheep are kind of dumb animals.  But they’re smart enough to find a little tiny place in a fence to get out and when one gets out, he says, “OK gang, we’re free”.  So the whole flock of sheep goes ambling down the middle of the country road not bothering to move for any moving vehicle.  The moving vehicle has to move for them or blow the horn.  Then, they might move.

Well, just about every day, we could count on a flock of the dumb sheep ambling down the road and up our three acre driveway into our yard and proceed to do their business.  Not pretty.  Of course, we would shoo them off, by blowing the horn, running and shouting and screaming but they would just silently, slowly, eat their way back down the road from whence they came.  The manager of the farm would eventually see that they were loose or somebody would call them and they would round up the sheep put them back in the fenced area and so it would go until the sheep found another little place they could get out later on that day or the next.

One day I’m inside and hubby’s outside on the lawn mower yelling to the top of his lungs.  I run to the window and look out and see him like an angry driver with road rage chasing a big black faced buck sheep around and around the front yard.  Now, there are big pine trees out there, so they are going around and around the trees, in and out, round and round we go.  The buck would stop.  Hubby would crank up; head straight for him and buck would run back toward the house.  Hubby wants to head him down to the road but buck wants to go back to the back yard.  Round and round they go.  This goes on for a while and I’m running from window to window watching this fiasco.  Hubby looks like a mad man!  Buck is in back yard now.  Goes running through Hubby’s lean-to.  Uh Oh.  Not good!  Buck has diarrhea all the way around Hubby’s mustang!  Bad news!  Hubby runs in house!  Yelling to call Farm Manager!  Can’t get Farm Manager.  Hubby jumps in truck.  Drives up the road and gets Farm Manager.  They come back.  Farm Manager (Hispanic no speak English) lasso’s buck in the garden which cows have destroyed.   Buck sits down in garden.  Doesn’t move.  Lasso on neck.  Tongue is hanging out of buck’s mouth.  Husband is saying to Farm Manager “You’re going to choke him to death”.  Farm Manager says “I hope he die”!  Finally, Farm Manager drags poor buck to truck and leaves with him. 

Hubby calms down and goes outside to clean up around mustang.  Discovers dumb sheep has drunk all the water from Kutz-It Paint remover bucket that I left from refinishing my furniture.   We never saw the sheep again.