How to Rile Up the Animals

     Gesh, I tell ya, it doesn't take much to stir things up around here.  I just came inside from evening chores.  The last thing I do is walk around and do a head count of sheep and lambs.  No big deal...usually.
     Tonight when I took my nightly walk around the pond pasture I noticed behind the levy there was a clump of white wool on the ground.  At first my heart did a bit of a jump, as I hadn't seen the two white ewe lambs yet.  Then as I got closer I noticed it was Fella's wool - and I saw the lambs.
     You see, Icelandic sheep do this thing called rooing, which is when their wool comes off on it's own in the spring.  Sometimes it works well, but other times not so much.  This year I let Fella roo his wool off and it worked quite well for him...except for the wool hula skirt he was sporting because that particular area of wool wasn't ready to come off.  That's what I found laying on the ground.
     Since it was just laying there I picked it up.  Oh my goodness, you'd think the sky opened up and hurtled lightning bolts in the pasture!  Tucker's head came up and he started doing this snorty thing.  After that it was shear pandemonium!  Tucker and Rain ran across the levy with the sheep trailing right behind.  Tucker and Rain came blasting down behind the pond where I stood while the sheep kept running away.  And then I realized.  It was the wool I was holding.  They thought I had a lamb in my hands.  
     I tried to convince Tucker it was just a clump of wool, letting him sniff at it, but he didn't believe me.  He looked at me like I was an evil lamb snatcher.  I just shook my head and walked away to visit with Crystal.  The rams were eyeing me like I was a lamb snatcher, too, even when I shook the wool at them so they could see it didn't look the least bit lamb-y.  Then when I bundled it back up and started walking to the gate the riot formed again.  Horses must have a short memory.  It's like they totally forgot what I was carrying.  At that point their noise had gotten the sheep baaaing, roosters crowing, geese honking, and dogs barking.  If the rabbit made loud noises I bet I'd have heard him, too.  They're all nuts.
     So, there you have it folks.  Seems it's not very hard to get things stirred up around here, even when that's not my intention.  I left the field with wool in hand, knowing next time I'll think twice about picking it up.  Maybe I'll let Hon do it instead.  Smiling & Waving, Sharon 

---