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With all due respect
Jan. 24th, 2009 09:58 pm(or something like that)
If you've ever seen the 1997 Dreamworks film Mouse Hunt, with that hilarious opening that takes place at a funeral, and things go downhill, or rather down the sewer, from there...
We took care of Shaun the Sheep's remains today, in spite of single digit temperatures and ground that was literally as hard as iron. We both tested with a pickaxe but gave up on that idea. The vet, a sheep-keeping neighbor, and the agricultural extension service all recommended composting as the best way to eliminate the corporeal evidence as it were. Seriously, there's no disrespect here. We loved Shaun, but he doesn't need what he left behind, and neither do we. The alternative, turning him into dog food, seemed much too distasteful, not to mention messy.
( Possible TMI for some readers, peek with caution and a sense of humor )
When I went back out to feed everyone and bed them down, I found myself examining the remaining sheep. After previous mortalities, and some given away, we have eight left. All but one of those are Shaun's offspring. Oddly, only a couple of them resemble him much in facial appearance, and both of them are black rather than white. The rest, and especially the wethers, look more like miniature versions of their maternal grandsire, Goose. He was a Finnsheep, white, with a bald patch on top of his head, and quite large. They aren't large, but they all have the bald patch and the sugar bowl haircut or tonsure around it (sort of like Moe of the Three Stooges.) I should get another photo. The family tree is convoluted, because Shaun is both father and grandfather to a couple of them. She-bah is dam to Salt and grand-dam to Ram-bo. All the rest are children of Jetta, who is She-bah's niece. (She-bah's sister, Ewe-nice, had but one lamb before she ate poison ivy and died of it. I guess the prospect of motherhood was too much for her to face. In spite of her limited reproduction, most of our remaining flock is descended from her through that orphan lamb, Jetta.)
In any case, Gary is recovered from mourning enough to actually have said that we could easily get another sheep or two, but let's not get another ram. Hence, no more uncontrolled expansion. ;p Not that we need any more sheep right now, but more attrition is likely. She-bah is eight years old. Salt is seven. Rambo and Jetta are six, I think...
If you've ever seen the 1997 Dreamworks film Mouse Hunt, with that hilarious opening that takes place at a funeral, and things go downhill, or rather down the sewer, from there...
We took care of Shaun the Sheep's remains today, in spite of single digit temperatures and ground that was literally as hard as iron. We both tested with a pickaxe but gave up on that idea. The vet, a sheep-keeping neighbor, and the agricultural extension service all recommended composting as the best way to eliminate the corporeal evidence as it were. Seriously, there's no disrespect here. We loved Shaun, but he doesn't need what he left behind, and neither do we. The alternative, turning him into dog food, seemed much too distasteful, not to mention messy.
( Possible TMI for some readers, peek with caution and a sense of humor )
When I went back out to feed everyone and bed them down, I found myself examining the remaining sheep. After previous mortalities, and some given away, we have eight left. All but one of those are Shaun's offspring. Oddly, only a couple of them resemble him much in facial appearance, and both of them are black rather than white. The rest, and especially the wethers, look more like miniature versions of their maternal grandsire, Goose. He was a Finnsheep, white, with a bald patch on top of his head, and quite large. They aren't large, but they all have the bald patch and the sugar bowl haircut or tonsure around it (sort of like Moe of the Three Stooges.) I should get another photo. The family tree is convoluted, because Shaun is both father and grandfather to a couple of them. She-bah is dam to Salt and grand-dam to Ram-bo. All the rest are children of Jetta, who is She-bah's niece. (She-bah's sister, Ewe-nice, had but one lamb before she ate poison ivy and died of it. I guess the prospect of motherhood was too much for her to face. In spite of her limited reproduction, most of our remaining flock is descended from her through that orphan lamb, Jetta.)
In any case, Gary is recovered from mourning enough to actually have said that we could easily get another sheep or two, but let's not get another ram. Hence, no more uncontrolled expansion. ;p Not that we need any more sheep right now, but more attrition is likely. She-bah is eight years old. Salt is seven. Rambo and Jetta are six, I think...
