Logistical complication is a great antidote to contemplative thought. This morning, as I might have been ruminating about the morality of sending four of my animals to slaughter, I was totally focused on all the tasks I had to complete in order to get the sheep to Blood Farm before 9am. Things were going quite smoothly until I counted the sheep in the trailer and only came up with three. I widened my focus and saw that #132 was in the driveway, looking unsettled. Cass is still a very inexperienced dog, and finesse isn’t her thing yet; but finesse is critical if you’re trying to herd a single ewe, especially if she’s already on edge, and Cass was the only sheep gathering tool I had at that moment.
By the time Cass had finished “retrieving” the ewe, they were in a standoff at the edge of the woods across the (busy-ish) street across from the farm. Eventually, I was able to get Cass to move the ewe close enough to me that I could grab her, and there we sat, ewe on her backside, sitting between my knees, and Cass intently wanting to help. Eventually, a truckful of DOT guys that I kind of knew drove by, slowed down, and asked if they could give me a hand. Together we half-walked, half-carried the ewe back to the trailer. Friend Wendy showed up around the same time and kept Cass from helping any further.
Once the ewe was back, I took a moment to figure out what had gone wrong. I’m not sure if my shepherding skills are improving, but my ability to understand my shortcomings are gaining ground. I realized that the ewe had jumped over the 36″ panels I was using to guide the sheep into the trailer; my first mistake was not using taller panels. The second mistake was that the chute leading to the trailer took a hard turn before reaching the trailer; a straight-on approach might not have offered up the tempting jump. And perhaps my biggest mistake is that I didn’t control Cass well enough — she was amped up, and transferred that energy to the sheep, who ran down the chute toward the trailer. A calmer dog would have allowed the sheep to saunter through the chute, eliminating the momentum that carried the ewe over the barrier. And I’m quite certain that premonitions of doom played no role whatsoever in the ewe’s escape; I’ll wrestle with the implications of my farming without recourse to the supernatural.