Happy Birthday, Bran!

Today is Bran’s birthday, which I only know because it’s the day after Mira’s. Most of the birthdays I don’t know off the top of my head.

Born only one day after Mira, Bran has always been Mira’s opposite. Mira was the smallest live lamb I’ve had, and has monopolized the spotlight on the blog and in the pasture ever since. Bran, on the other hand, was the biggest lamb I’ve had, and once he was weaned he just sort of… faded into the background.

It’s not that I’ve ever forgotten about him or neglected him, it’s just that he’s one hundred percent his father’s son: a low drama, mostly easy going kind of guy who just wants to hang out with his friends and eat grass, and has never wanted or needed much individual attention from me. Barring that time when he was a yearling and got a massive crab apple branch stuck in his wool, and that time he fought with Lana and the Dukelings ganged up and chased him all over for ages. Really, two high drama incidents in four years doesn’t even count on this farm.

He spent most of his babyhood trying unsuccessfully to get someone to play-fight with him.

“Wanna head butt?”

“No, I want to race!”

“Hey, come back! I want to head butt!”

“Wheee!”

“Here I come!”

“Yes! When you get to me, we’ll run into each other and hit our heads together!”

“Wait, you missed!”

“Haha, slowpoke!”

“And.. now she’s all the way across the pasture. I don’t think Mira understands this game.”

Bran was Princess’s second lamb, and the older of Liam’s two sons. He doesn’t show up on the blog much, and when I went digging for pictures of him I was appalled to realize I hadn’t taken any pictures specifically of him for over a year. He’s standing in the backround of a lot of pictures, usually near Jeb, and I got one of him, Jeb, and Duke around Christmas, but no close-ups of just him.

So out I went with my camera to correct this oversight! Fortunately today was less rainy than yesterday. Less fortunately, poor Bran didn’t get sheared last year, so he wasn’t looking his best.

“Why are you taking pictures of me? You’re making me nervous!”

The one good part of him being such a massive fluffball is that scaredy-cat Jeb can hide behind him. I was happy to see how often Bran and Jeb were together in my photo archives. I didn’t think Jeb had any friends, but I suppose big, easy-going Bran is a good companion for a timid guy like Jeb.

“Why’s she looking at us, Bran?”

“I don’t know, it’s very suspicious!”

Ugh, that fleece. I was so disgusted by having to photograph such a nasty mess that I had to catch him and give him a haircut, so he could be handsome on his birthday. Which is just what every sheep wants on his birthday, of course. (Not.)

There’s a method of sheep shearing where you carefully shape the wool to make the sheep’s conformation look better than it really is. I can’t remember what it’s called, blocking or bricking or something like that, but whatever it’s called, I don’t do it. My shearing is more “I swear this sheep doesn’t have scoliosis, the wool’s just a little longer where I parted it down his back and I can’t part in a straight line.” Or maybe I could say he’s going to play in Shakespeare’s Richard III, and that’s why he has crooked ridge down his back and one shoulder looks bigger than the other.

It took me the rest of the afternoon to hack that woolly coat off, and he was so traumatized that when I got done and took the halter off it took him a minute to recover from the shock enough to realize he was free.

“What have you done to me?! I’ve shrunk!”

Once he recovered his wits, he went flying out to the other sheep to warn them of my sudden treachery.

“Run! Run for your lives! ShepherdPerson’s gone evil!”

The boys didn’t recognize Bran without his floof. They all had to bunch up and investigate this “new” sheep, and Johnny, who is a bit of a bully and has not yet been relieved of his double fleece, insisted on fighting a duel.

“Don’t mess with me, new guy!”

“Stop that, it’s ME!”

Apple also insisted he was the boss, but I don’t think anyone really took him seriously. Bran’s heart wasn’t in it, and the impact was a very unimpressive little *clunk* noise after Bran and Johnny’s loud *Crack!*

“I’m Apple Stop That, and I’m the toughest!”

“Whatever you say, Apple.”

Eventually he got tired of being harassed and decided to hide his reduced bulk by staying between his still-fluffy friends, Jeb and Barney.

“Nothing to see here, just all us fluffy boys who are much too big to pick fights with!”

I don’t think I gave him a particularly happy birthday, but I’m sure he’ll feel better with his hair cut. I know I feel better looking at him now. And on the bright side, at least he finally made up for all the play-fights he didn’t get to have as a lamb.