Sunday, March 13, 2011

War Ponies

I trimmed feet on all un-bred sheep yesterday. There are 9 sheep in that little group, 6 yearlings and 3 older wethers. Song had a delightful time holding them in a corner for me so I could catch each one, flip it, trim the feet, and then mark it so I knew who was done. I was using a piece of red marking chalk that had fallen to the storage shed floor then been swept out with the leaves. I spotted the red lump sitting in some ice and decided to use it up. The chalk was fairly well saturated with water and rather crumbly so I marked up the front of their faces rather than into the fleece. The color came out extremely strong with the wet chalk, a rich red stripe up between the eyes of each animal.

This morning I went to feed and had Fina push the sheep back as always while I put out the feed. This little group was eager to dine and as I was working they came back towards me, stopping about 15 feet from Fina who was parked between us. They stood there, heads up, proudly defiant, but not quite ready to actually try to get past Fina. They were arrayed on a little knoll above me, and looked like a group of war ponies. Heads up; ears up; war paint on. About half of them are Clun mules so they even had speckled faces like Appaloosas. I almost expected them to shake their heads and snort.

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