Did you ever forget to tell someone an important instruction when leaving them in charge of a job you usually do yourself? I did.
Sunday mornings, our family heads off to church. Now, sheep chores still have to get done, even if you consider Sunday as a 'rest' day, and this usually is something I still go do as part of the getting ready routine. This morning had an added complication though; not only were we having a potluck lunch after church, for which I needed to prepare a number of sandwiches, I was also speaking at church this morning. There I was, elbows deep in sandwiches and mentally rehearsing my sermon, encouraging my children to be mature and dress themselves, wondering how I was going to manage to get chores done and not be horrifically late for church.
Cue the husband. He was loading up recycling to drop off on our way home, as well as keeping kids in line, and he said "I'll go feed the sheep. Which pen do I open?"
"North one," I said, and slathered some more mayonnaise. He headed off, opened the gate so the sheep could access today's feed, returned to help me finish organizing kids and things into van, and we made it to church with minutes to spare.
Service went well, potluck lunch was tasty, and we had a pleasant drive home. We were about to settle in for a nice Sunday afternoon lounge, when my husband looked out the window to see what the sheep were up to.
"Where are the sheep?" He seemed alarmed.
"In their shelter maybe?" I joined him at the window.
Nope.
See, I'd forgotten to tell him that the other gate in the far end of north pen was still open from when we'd been spreading hay. So, upon finishing their hay, the sheep had decided that there must be more food through the gate somewhere.
Hah. My bad.
Thankfully, my sheep will sell their soul for food, and they hadn't gone far, so all it took was a shout and a pail of grain poured out on the clean snow inside the paddock to have a stampede of sheep quite happily put themselves back into their fence. While they were distracted with that, we got the gates closed up, and now they are once again safely contained.
Does this look like the face of an escape artist?
Ewe bet it does.
Some would say sheep are stupid to so easily return to confinement. As a shepherd, I know that no sheep is truly stupid. They're foolish, but I think that is different from stupidity.
Anyways, that's really all there was for excitement today! Sheep escaped, sheep returned. No big deal.
See you next time!