Frosted Mini Sheep

Today is back up in the fifties, but yesterday it was only 21℉ when I let the sheep out. When everyone was lined up at the feeder, it was easy to see which of the boys didn’t sleep in the hoop house.

“Hey, what’s all over Jeb’s back?”

That is unmelted frost, Johnny. Barney also had some frost on his back, but it doesn’t show up that well in phone pictures against his blond wool.

Frost will stay on wool until the sun melts it. Even a solid layer of snow will stay unmelted on their backs for ages. Wool is an excellent insulator.

“Cold? What do you mean, it’s cold? It doesn’t feel cold to me!”

Especially when you have so much wool you become spherical. Nina is turning into a puffball with legs, and in her case I’m almost certain it’s all wool. I’m also certain she won’t be feeling the cold at any temperature it’s likely to drop to in Kentucky.

Nina has embraced the local lifestyle with great enthusiasm, meaning that she spends so much time up against my legs begging for crunchies that it’s becoming increasingly hard to get a picture of her with her whole face in the frame.

“Crunchies, please?”

She’s ahead of Holly on that front, even though Holly was born here. Holly just started accepting crunchies from my hand in the last few days. I’m very happy about that, I was afraid she was going to stay shy forever.

“You thought MY daughter, Neo and Will’s sister, was going to be shy?”

Neo may have been friendly pretty much right from the start, but in my defense, Lady wouldn’t eat from my hand until she was over a year old, and Will was quite determined to hate me for most of his youth.

Of  course, Holly has had the benefit of learning the ropes from an extended network of friends and relatives and her best friend/rival/cool big sister, Mira. Mira taught her all sorts of Splendid Games, like climbing on the hoop houses, and head butting, and most recently, climbing up the stack of hay bales in the barn to steal hay from the bales on top.

“Always eat the highest hay you can reach; Auntie Duchess says the hay on top is always the best!”

Holly has had such a good education, with so many excellent teachers. I can’t wait to see what she has to teach next year’s lambs, when it’s her turn to be the cool big sister.