With all due respect

[altivo]

(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.

So the vet put the sheepie to sleep Friday afternoon. It took a dose large enough for a cow, he said. Shaun was tough, but rams usually are. It was too late to do anything by then, already getting dark, so we left him to lie in state on his straw bed overnight. Once the temperatures got out of the negative range (F) we went to see what could be done. Gary prepared a spot at the edge of our old, very large, compost heap. Even that was frozen rock solid just above ground level, but it's deep enough to cover a sheep anyway. We took the wheelbarrow to serve as our hearse and went to pick up the deceased. Both of us expected him to be frozen stiff after 16 hours of subzero, but he was still flexible... and well-inflated. Ruminants. Of course, those busy bacteria who break down cellulose hadn't got the message yet. Poor Shaun was tight as, well, a balloon if not a tick. Popping him seemed too disrespectful so I didn't propose it. We took him at face value. Well, nearly. It seems even a dead sheep can exhibit flatulence. When we picked him up he farted. Loudly, and malodorously. There was still plenty of gas to keep him inflated though. One almost suspected that in a few more hours he would have drifted away like an errant balloon.

Anyway, we got him to his resting place, placed him in as reposeful a position as possible, and buried him, piling four feet of earth, compost, and manure over him. We'll keep adding to that for a while, more or less daily. The experts say he will have completely broken down in about a year, without any mess or odor. We'll see.

We went back indoors for a hot drink before doing our other chores for the evening. I wondered idly just how long those bacteria would keep working. It must be that the reason he was still limp was the heat generated by the bacterial processing still going on inside him. Otherwise he surely would have frozen up overnight. Soon we were both laughing at the idea of a gas explosion under the compost heap. A "volcano" of sheep manure, as it were. Maybe we really should have popped him first, but what's done is done. Besides, a good laugh helped to get rid of the melancholy air. I'm sure Shaun doesn't mind, wherever he is.

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...

Comments

[atomicat.livejournal.com]

Well that was less graphic than I expected but maybe it was for them non-rural types. Interestingly enough I just got "Mouse Hunt" on videotape last time I was in town, hilarious! Personally I hope my own funeral is a comedy of errors and misadventures, a last good laugh for my friends.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I thought the bit about string cheese at the end was rather too much, but the coffin sliding down the steps and the corpse flipping head down into the New York sewer system was as funny as it was absurd.

[atomicat.livejournal.com]

I think my favorite scene was the one with the mousetraps. I've always loved Rube Goldberg apparatus (and gags).

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The mousetraps were brilliant. Especially when the mouse used them to catch the ferocious cat...

When the film was first released, I was particularly taken with the scenes from the mouse-eye view. There are a lot of them, and I'd like to see how they made them back then.

We watched it again last night because I thought of it after Shaun's burial. What struck us this time was all the similarities to Disney's Ratatouille. It's like they stole whole concepts from the earlier film. The cockroach incident. The business of the mouse advising the chef at the end...

[quickcasey.livejournal.com]

Go out with a bang, Shaun.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Probably we'd get cited for something if he did.

[cozycabbage.livejournal.com]

Is it against the Geneva Convention to bury ram-mines?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

It is against county health regulations to bury "livestock". This is mostly unenforced unless there is a complaint.

You're supposed to have carcasses removed by a scavenger service. (Many county regulations here seem to be written to create business income for various interests.) However, none of the services will take sheep. They take cows and horses for outrageous prices. Small animals like chickens, of course, just get buried anyway or tossed in the regular trash unnoticed. They won't take sheep because they are afraid of scrapie, the sheep disease that is related to mad cow disease.

[hgryphon.livejournal.com]

Good reading after a full meal. ;)

Sorry to hear it was his time. You have my condolences.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

As long as the meal wasn't mutton.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Mmm, very interesting (if somber). I never knew that this kind of composting would be possible, although when you think about it, it's probably not entirely dissimilar to what happens.

The idea of an explosion there made me chuckle, too, admittedly, although I hope it won't actually happen. o.o

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I imagine humans would dissolve pretty easily too under the right conditions. Oddly enough, those who commit crimes of murder seem inclined to do unproductive things like wrapping the evidence in plastic before burying it.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Yes, I imagine they would; there's no real, fundamental difference between the body of a sheep and the body of a human, after all (from a pure biochemical point of view).

Hmm, and that's an interesting point, yes; I really rather wonder why people do that now.

[soanos.livejournal.com]

Oh, my... *hugs* Poor Shaun. I hope the compost heap won't start flying off...
He is probably chuckling into his beard at the comedy from the greener pastures. :>

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you'll see the news here first if it actually happens. You have to look at these things with some sense of humor or it just gets utterly depressing. Fortunately my grandmother was an old fashioned farmer and I sort of learned that viewpoint from her.

[doco.livejournal.com]

Having just returned from visiting my laid out father at the funeral home (who, ironically, died with an overinflated belly, even though he's nowhere close to a ruminant), that little story about poor Shaun made me chuckle. Thank you. :)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

*eeps* Thank goodness it didn't hit you the wrong way.

[dakhun.livejournal.com]

That was a very poignant and moving funeral service.

poignant:
1. pungently pervasive [LOL]
2. deeply affecting

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Perhaps owing to the cold, the pungency was limited to that few seconds of post-mortem flatulence. Of course, we have the spring thaw to come. Hopefully we'll have him buried deeply enough by then that it won't matter.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

Poor thing. Though I am glad you are able to have a little giggle.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yep. Shaun had a good life, one that lasted quite a bit longer than if he'd been in a commercial sheep flock certainly. He'd have been dog food years ago in that case. Being able to laugh about the aftermath does make things easier.

[linnaeus.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I'd think that scavengers would be a concern, but I guess the aroma of the compost would be enough to conceal any smells that might attract local coyotes or the like. Anyway, sorry to hear you lost him, though it sounds like he had a good full life, for a sheep.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Scavengers are of some concern, though we have yet to find evidence of coyotes on our own land. Loose dogs are the more likely culprits, and they will certainly dig for something smelly. The thought of some of the neighbors' more obnoxious wandering mutts carrying back a ripe foot or ear to offend their owners, though, is so pricelessly funny that it doesn't bother me much. I think, though, that we have him buried deeply enough. By the time things thaw, it will be deeper still.

[hellmutt.livejournal.com]

*notes sheep names* You and your puns. :)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Unmentioned above: Ewe-dora, Ewe-genia, DodgeRam, Bah-Bah Louie, and Wetherby. Ewe-dora was not bright, and died young by strangling herself in a fence. The others are all with us. Wetherby is the youngest at one year next month or so.

[hellmutt.livejournal.com]

Beware the Finnish flock, my son,
The coats that curl, the names that catch.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Beware the ewesome crew and shun
The quarrelsome wether batch.

[farhoug.livejournal.com]

I gather manure composts run pretty hot once they get working, it should speed up the cycle of nature quite nicely. Thus, there's more gaseous anomalies to be expected. :-)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

That's the "common wisdom" though frankly, I haven't observed that manure gets that hot. What does heat up fast is wet grass. Hay that hasn't been properly cured or that is baled up after being rained on can get hot enough to burn you or even catch fire on its own.

[farhoug.livejournal.com]

I guess hot is a relative matter, it probably won't go that far that it would kill the bacteria within, or it would rather find a balance somewhere there.

Hot grass? I wonder what's happening with that...

[farhoug.livejournal.com]

Looks like it's the same thing, just suitable environment for various microbes to start munching the grass. Hot little critters...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yep, they really are hot. I first noticed the effect when I was quite young and a neighbor used to pile lawn clippings next to his garage. They looked all soft and pleasant, so I sat down in them. Yikes!

Now that I have ten years of daily experience with hay bales, I can tell you that spontaneous combustion of wet hay is a real danger that must be taken into consideration.

[farhoug.livejournal.com]

Yeah, better keep an eye on'em, until they settle...

[saythename.livejournal.com]

Poor Sheepy!

@.@!!!

And Walken showed up too? I heard he never turns down a script
but...c'mon!

*Imagines Christopher Walken, dressed in black with a white
collar as you dig*

"We...look, the sheep...itgaveitslife, and now...your digging
a hole...with a pick!"

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Or not digging a hole, as it turns out. In any case, the strategy seems to have worked so far.

I'm talking about endings. *plays Mirror Force Trap Card*

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

Just as a ewe needs no praise or congrats for giving birth to lambs, a dead sheep needs no funeral rights.

In case you hadn't heard, I've been thinking about death & the ceremonies humans erect around their ideas of human life, mortality and their desire o ignore and even deny death in the blatant face of death. If human bodies weren't embalmed (AKA: pumped full of preservatives) or entombed (crammed in a coffin & buried six feet under) they would decompose rapidly wherever they fell and never moved again. I'm sure you know all this.

Due respect? If humans thought about how living things treat the dead (birds pecking out the eyes of corpses, carnivores gnawing off genitals and tearing out interal organs... not to mention the little things the grubs and maggots do...), they would find their idea of respect is a fallacy. All journeys come to an end. No end is ever what humans want it to be- they typically would rather it go on forever.... and that's the end of this.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

I made the decision to cremate my kitty when the time comes and keep the ashes. She didn't really have a favourite spot outside to be and liked being inside.