A happy ending...

On the farm, you can plan for one kind of day but often another sort of day shows up at your doorstep. Today was one of those days.

Tom, Tony and Shannon gave up their weekend to join us in the vineyard; weeding and end-post duties were on the agenda, but not until after a morning browse through our beloved Farmers’ Market. The group had just arrived when my cell phone rang.

It was my next door neighbor playing third stop in an old-fashioned round of “string-and-can” telephone, the kid’s game where a story’s details change with each retelling. “Your sheep are out!” the neighbor told me. “The man who lives down by the electrical substation woke up this morning and looked out and saw sheep. He called Kruse’s and they called us – everyone wondering who had sheep. I told them it was you.”

I looked at my market visitors, who were eyeing snap peas and jam and the frittata I had cooking on the grill. “Our sheep are loose!” I told them. I never had to say the word “go.” They were gone.

Ten minutes later I got a text message that read: They’re back.

Seems they never left in the first place. I called my neighbor back. This time she told me another neighbor had driven his hog carrier to where our herd was last seen, and found only one sheep. It was our little lost lamb! At least, it had to be.

The crew dispatched on the 4-wheeler with a rope, determination, and a former high-school football linebacker. I wasn’t witness to the pursuit, but apparently a gas-powered engine can outlast a stressed ovine, especially when a 180-pound linebacker goes for her knees.

The ewe was raced on the back of the wheeler back to the pasture, where she immediately bolted through the fence – again! She made it only 30 feet before former number 99 flattened her again. This time, she was shuttled into the lean-to in order for fence repairs to commence. And then the clouds opened. Fortunately, barbed-wire repels water nicely.

While hubby and Tom added layers to the wire fence, the nine sheep (who, despite rumors, never did leave the pasture) used their time to get used to their voices, scents and demeanor. The flock opened up. It also started communicating with the sheep sitting in confinement – a ewe who has affectionately been named Thelma-Louise.

When the fence work wrapped up at day’s end, Tom assumed the duty of shepherding Thelma-Louise back to her sorority. The reunion was amazing. The nine ewes bleeted to their stray, and when she was freed, from a spot well inside the perimeter, she dashed to rejoin her flock. The others nuzzled her – as warm a welcome as any of us humans have ever seen.

Of course, the end-posts are still sitting on the ground where they’ve been since early May. And just a few weeds got picked today. But none of that matters. Little Bo Peep may have lost her sheep, but we found ours and once again – we have ten.

Hubby spending a day in the rain stringing barbed wire.

Thelma-Louise put up a fight, but this guy knows how to throw a tackle.

Even with friends awaiting her return, Thelma-Louise puts up a fight.

Thelma runs to rejoin her herd, where she was welcomed with lots of friendly nuzzling. Sweet!