And Then a Miracle Occurred

The last week or two has been somewhat frustrating. The critters have been rampaging, and even when they are relatively well behaved they are still taking all of our time and energy. Dixie the pig is particularly awful, getting out of wherever I try to keep her, and being aggressive with me, too.

Yesterday we got chores done and took a drive to Hickory to pick up our puppy (you might note the singular form of that noun) and Split. We’ve been just a little apprehensive about Split, who Michelle has described as having ADD, and indeed she was pretty wide open, especially compared to Gel, who is Mister Perfection Himself (and the pup’s dad).

We had a lovely visit with Michelle and Wally, and got inspired by their farm and all their beautiful and healthy animals, and then we lolled about on the lawn under a shade tree with the puppies, at which point—in spite of our whole family actually practicing saying “No, just one puppy please!” in the car on the way down—Michelle very easily convinced us to take two. Bernard fell in love with Big Mike, a big, mellow male ( who I believe has been renamed Benny), and ED really liked the darkest female, whom she has named Joon. So we actually came home with three dogs!

Our plan with Split has been to get to know her without trying to do any real work quite yet. We have no idea what we’re doing, and want to take things slowly, and develop a relationship with Split. So yesterday we took her all over the farm on a leash, and during evening chores she accompanied ED and me in the pasture while we moved fences and animals.

The first clue we had that she could be pretty helpful around here was when the three of us were walking through the pasture to the barn and Dixie came up barking and grunting and being a little bit threatening. Split assessed the situation, experimented with a few nips, and then bit Dixie’s hind leg hard enough to make Dixie decide that the other side of the pasture was plenty close enough. Dixie didn’t offer much fight, though we grabbed a big stick to make sure we could back her off if we needed to.

So that was good, and we were finding our walk through the pasture a lot more pleasant with Dixie on the other end of it. We finished all our fence moving chores and I got ED to hold on to Split while I moved the sheep from the barn (where they spend the day, out of the heat and bugs) out to their fresh grazing paddock. Usually this operation goes fairly smoothly—me, with a handful of corn, running in front of the eager flock—but this time three of them didn’t make it in.  I tried to lure them with more corn, and then chased them around and around the pen and just could not get them through the opening. I asked ED to stand with Split halfway around the pen to stop them going in circles around it.

and then a miracle occurred

Split, who was pretty excited by this whole inefficient operation, pulled the leash out of ED’s hand, went and got the three renegade sheep, put them in the pen, and came and lay down at my feet. ED and I stood there with our mouths hanging open.

I think this may work out just fine.

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