Finding The Sheep

Grandpa used to run a small herd of about a dozen sheep.  Having watched his relationship with them for several years, I can still only wonder why.  He would butcher one for meat once a year and he had the shearers come each spring and would sell the wool.  I loved watching the sheep being sheared.  The long winter coat of wool would just fall off the sheep as those electric shears would buzz around their bodies.  He would sell a few of the lambs every so often.  Several times we had to raise lambs from birth because the mother had died.  I can still remember pulling a black nipple over the end of a glass pop bottle and holding them while they drank warm milk.  It didn’t take too much of that before you found yourself attached to them.  Keeping the sheep was a time consuming enterprise.  I suppose it generated a little cash for him, but to me, it couldn’t have been worth the headaches they caused.  He would have to feed them all through the winter but at least you always knew where they were.  In the summer, he would move them around to graze in different pastures.  It was from this summer migration that the trouble originated.  Grandpa would make arrangements with some of his friends to have the sheep graze in their fields.  This kept their weeds under control and provided free feed for Grandpa.  It was quite the symbiotic relationship.  When the sheep had eaten every plant to the ground in one location, he would move them to the next.  Each day we would drive around to check on them and make certain everything was all right.  Many times we would arrive at where they were supposed to be only to discover they were somewhere else.  They often found a way out of their temporary enclosure and if one went, they all went.  We then began looking for them.  Once we located them, which often took quite a while, we had to herd them back to where they had been.  We then had to patch the fence.  Had he inspected and patched the fence first, his time would have been limited to the patching.  But once they escaped, he now not only had to patch the fence but spend time to find and return them.  Of course, I don’t suppose one can discount the enjoyment Grandpa received from driving around town, seeing people and stopping to talk.  When farm machinery breaks, the repairs are usually more constant than variable.  You know what parts are needed and how to replace them.  But with sheep, the set of variables is compounded dramatically because sheep, unlike machinery, act on their own.  They move, and move quickly.  Their presence at inappropriate places could further complicate the situation.  They weren’t welcome everywhere, particularly in a person’s yard or garden.  They wouldn’t always stray to the same place.  Their movements were fluid and difficult to predict.  Grandpa sometimes found it difficult to get the sheep to see things his way.  Perhaps it was the nagging issue of the lamb chops and mutton that prompted the parting of ways.  What I learned from this experience is that unlike maintaining equipment, a lack of corral care invited the exercise of individual agency.  Relationships between people don’t just automatically maintain themselves.  It takes work, concern, and attentiveness, among other things to build and keep relationships with others healthy and vibrant.  Just like the sheep, whose priorities didn’t always mesh with Grandpa’s, our priorities don’t always match those with whom we would like to, or need to, have a relationship.  Patience and understanding can go a long way in building and keeping a relationship healthy.  And even then, sometimes the view from the eyes of the sheep will just be different than Grandpa’s.  Sometimes, relationships never do mature or end suddenly because of something beyond our control.  A bountiful understanding that sometimes the sheep will get out, be difficult to find, and not always be eager to return can be valuable when interacting with others.  Everyone has the right to make their own choices.  I suspect the best we can hope for in this life is to mitigate as much as possible the opportunities for a person to escape through a hole in the fence that we were not wise enough to mend before it was too late.