Hurry Up and Wait

When I let the sheep out in the morning they all run out of the barn in a rush, except of course the bottle babies who hang back with me. With poor grace, on Angel’s part. She’s torn between her desire to Always Be First and her determination to make sure Mira doesn’t get any treats behind her back. It’s very deeply frustrating, sometimes she has to punch Clover about it if he’s nearby.

“Hurry UP, we’re going to be LATE!”

Mira on the other hand is a dawdler. I have to chivvy her out of the barn so I can close the door, then she has to check on her by-the-barn pile of sticks and rocks, and then she has to check on her by-the-boys’-gate stick pile, and then she has to stop and investigate any new sticks she finds on her way to the yard gate, and she wants me to stand there and wait for her at every stop.

“What’s this stick doing over here, this stick does Not Go Here!”

She does not, however, want my help with any of her Very Important Inspections.

“Don’t leave, stay right there until I’m done fixing this mess! But don’t touch the stick, it’s mine and I can do it all by myself!”

I suspect that stick is bound for her by-the-yard-gate stick pile, which has the biggest sticks due to her flexible definition of “stick” and several dead and slowly disintegrating trees nearby that sometimes drop pieces for her to find.

She wanted that particular pile to be directly in the middle of the yard gate opening, but after having to move them out of the way over and over despite her protests I think I’ve finally convinced her that if she doesn’t want me to touch her sticks she has to keep them out of the footpath where I won’t trip over them. Or at least it’s been a while since the last time there was a chunk of wood directly in my way across the gate.

“Are you guys coming or not??”

Angel is very concerned someone might eat the exact blades of grass she was planning to eat if we don’t get a move on. The heat doesn’t bode well for future pasture health, but I think she’s panicking a bit prematurely.

“Hang on, I need to scratch my itchy wool! But don’t touch my wool, I can do it all by myself”

Poor girl’s always so very miserable with the itchy loose wool she can never get off by herself despite her firm belief otherwise. Somehow this does not translate into any gratitude for haircuts. I’m such a bad mother, always giving her haircuts and not letting her keep big chunks of tree in the middle of the path but not giving her enough treats attention when she wants it. It’s so hard, being Mira.

“Ugh, fine, you guys do what you want, I have to take this watermelon rind away from Nova before she eats it all.”

Because clearly that rind is all that stands between them and starvation. I think it’s just the principle of the thing, no one’s allowed to have anything that Angel doesn’t have.

“Wait for meee!”

Mira finally finishes her morning routine and catches up with the rest of the flock, temporarily reassured that her various collections are still in order and the wool situation can’t be improved without a haircut right now though she’ll definitely get it all off all by herself later.

“I kind of want that watermelon rind, but not enough to provoke Angel over it…”

Mira (right) and Duchess (left). They don’t know Mira is Duchess’s daughter and neither of them know Angel is Mira’s, but the family resemblance is clear. They’re so beautiful, even though they all three still need haircuts.

“Don’t make eye contact she’s thinking about haircuts again…”

The Shetlands are quite fed up with all this shearing business and are staying as far away from me as possible while keeping the Soays between us. They should know by now that shearing is an annual event, but since I’ve been catching Jeb and spraying stuff down the hole in his head every day for months now, they’ve probably decided safe is better than sorry.

“Hurry up, we’ve been waiting for you to come back for ages!”

Watcher wants me to hurry and throw his frisbee and Echo wants me to hurry and let him go back to bed. They were both disappointed. I keep telling Echo most dogs would be happy to have such a big yard to run and play in but no he just wants to lay in his bed and sleep. Going back to bed is also what I want to do most of the time so I can’t tease him too much.

I would have thrown Watcher’s frisbee, but he had to cancel the game to go say hi to Nova at the fence. I’m not sure if she was waiting for him or just wanting to eat grass on the dogs’ side of the netting. Nova and Watcher have been particular friends since they both were babies and hang out together often, but Nova is also very fond of sticking her head through fences.

“My mama always said the grass was greener on the other side!”

Her mama, Princess, did always say that, which is the only thing that mitigates my annoyance with her every time she gets herself stuck in spite of me, Watcher, and her own past experiences all telling her to keep her head and most particularly her horns on her own side of the fence. I have so many pictures of Princess with her front knees folded under her and her head shoved under fences, stretching as far as she can reach while there’s a whole field of grass behind her. I keep threatening to hook the electric netting back up to actual electric, but we haven’t done it yet.

I finally have all of the Shetlands sheared except Barney, who is a nightmare to shear and belongs in a category all his own, and the two half-Shetlands who may or may not cooperate but are easier to shear regardless due to inheriting the Soay lack of wool on their bellies and other twitchy places. After that it’s just trimming some of the Soays who are hanging on to their old wool, and tidying up a few hooves that I can tell need trimming.

I’m very late on getting the shearing done (thank you Jeb for complicating my life) but I’m finally getting caught up!