Okay, let me back up. Yesterday morning, I slept in a wee bit after staying up part of the night with a sick Bridget. So I crawled out of bed, a bit bleary-eyed, and started doing my thing to feed my starving child (that'd be Molly - the other two were still asleep). As I placed her breakfast in front of her, she said to me, "Hey mom, I can see sheep!" You might guess that I wasn't really prepared to fully consider the possibility of it all - I mean, sheep? But she assured me that she could see them just out the window. I gave it a cursory glance which, without my glasses, looked something like this:
and tried to think of how to say, without hurting her feelings or anything like that, that she was off her rocker.
"Molly," I said, "those are rocks. Maybe we should get your eyes checked."
"Uh, mom, maybe you should get your glasses, because there are sheep out there. Do you see them? They're MOVING."
So, I tried again, adjusting my vision upward a bit, and that's when I saw that, indeed, my second-born child was not cursed, like I am, with the need to wear glasses before implying that someone can't see very well:
Yes, that's right - right across the little service road below our house, and up the next hill, were sheep. Everywhere. The picture above is just one small section; there were surely close to 500 sheep out there.
Dude, how cool is that? And really, how much more confirmation do we need to believe that we have left metro Orlando and have moved out and up into the boonies?
So, I ran outside, snapped some pictures, tried to get the dog to quit barking (I'd have better luck teaching a rock to speak Swahili), and went inside again. Every so often, we'd check to see if the sheep were still there, and for the next couple of hours, they'd change positions slightly but basically, they were still there. And of course we were enchanted. Heh.
After lunch, we noticed that the sheep had gone. I mean, all of them. Around the corner and across several other hills, I reckoned. I stepped outside to see if I could tell which direction, and noticed that there was one lone sheep on the service road behind our house. Just standing there, looking around, with this expression on his face like, "WTH?"
Now, the working dog version of Cinnamon actually helps herd sheep, but I'm pretty sure that Cin would view this as an opportunity to run like hell and fuhgettabout the sheep already, so we brought the dogs inside, got our best (hahaha!) hiking gear on, and figured we'd help the poor guy get on his way.
Lesson #1: These aren't petting zoo sheep.
I mean, there was NO WAY we were going to get near this animal. And, instead of that endearing bleat they make, this guy was making this sort of gutteral noise, like he was trying to convince me that he was actually a mountain lion and that he would not hesitate to rip me to shreds if I came any freakin' closer, lady. And although my maiden name is, in fact, "Sheppard", any sort of ancestral ability to do that job has apparently not made its way to the current generation.
So, what to do? I mean, thanks to our help, the poor guy was heading toward OUR HOUSE, which was definitely not the direction of the rest of the flock (I know because by now, I was wearing glasses, remember?).
So I said to James and Molly, "Hey kids, go back up that part of the hill, come up above him, and try to get him going on this direction." This, of course, being the direction where I thought the sheep had gone. Molly and James thought this would be a good time to try to talk to the sheep, and well, what the heck, I joined in. Yes, that's right, we all four were down there, about 30 feet from the sheep, bleating away. Meanwhile, the sheep looks this way, then that, and then gives me a look that confirms that even he thinks we're nuts.
Anyway, so the kids realize that's going nowhere, and off they start up the hill:
And then come 'round over and above the animal.
Suddenly, he bolts, and starts trotting and then running through the trees, past the next set of rocks, and around the next hill (which is the right direction, I think. I hope.).
I tell the kids that that's it, he's on his way, and since there are too many rocks and probably a lot of snakes, we're done.
But that doesn't stop James from discussing plan B with his sisters; yes, he did draw a picture (of what, I don't know - he's never been further than where he was standing so it's not like he could map out the terrain beyond that spot) and tell them what each must do next:
However, the sheep was smart enough to stay away, and we can only hope he was reunited with the others.
...and on the way home, the little match girl brought with her a few more to bolster her already impressive stash of sticks. Oh shoot, wrong story.
So, I don't know where Little Bo Peep was, but she definitely needs to brush up on her sheep-finding skills.
