The sheep happily ran through the open gate, eager to get to the pasture that I had closed off for a few days. The three lambs, wandered away from the adult sheep, which tells me that they feel safe on the farm.
I sat down on the ground to watch them and within moments, Scott came up to me. He put his face close to mine and just stood there. So I scratched his head then his neck all the time we were nose to nose.
This went on for about ten minutes then he just turned and walked away.
Asher and Issachar will come up to me and let me pet them, but they were bottle-fed so that not unusual. But I’ve never had any of the sheep behave the way Scott did.
I’m still not sure what to make of it. I wonder if he’ll do it again.
Kim complained when Constance jumped in the feeder to eat this morning. I couldn’t help thinking of all the overeating that usually happens on Thanksgiving.
I had to pick Constance up to get her out. I carried her out of the truck when Liz brought her to the farm, she’s definitely heavier than she was a few weeks ago.
I hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for all of you.
Fate and I spent some time visiting with the donkeys and sheep in the back pasture today. With my long sweater under my butt, it was warm enough to sit on the grass and just be. It was like a twenty-minute, eyes-open meditation. (Plus 10 minutes for picture taking).
It was one of the Bellydancing videos from the Bedlam Farm Open House that got things moving with my YouTube channel. It now has 1.3million views. Far more than I’d ever gotten before. The video was from a few years ago but people just found it a few months ago.
My subscriptions picked up to over 6 thousand (it was around 300 for years and years) and a few of my other videos went viral. The latest is one of Liz shearing Liam which has over 5 million views. Many of the people seeing the video leave comments in languages other than English, and many of them are disturbed by the shearing thinking that Liam is being harmed in some way.
Since the video went viral, I’ve written a description of the video and what Liz is doing, but it doesn’t seem to matter for a lot of people. They either don’t understand the language, or they still think shearing a sheep is somehow not good for them.
I don’t really bother with the comments much, although they’re kinda fun to see. And I’m stunned at how many people have watched Liz shear Liam and some of the other sheep. (A video that my Bellydancing teacher Julz, took of me shimming and showing off my the coinsash that I made, also has over 100,000 views.)
I have no idea why these videos went viral, but I am enjoying seeing videos I took years ago suddenly get so much viewing.
Last week I uploaded the video above to my YouTube channel and forgot to put it on my blog. But I saw that it got 875 views. It hasn’t gone viral, but again I have no idea why this video is more popular than most of my videos which average around 300 views.
Whatever the reason, I thought if that many people wanted to watch it, I’d best put it up on my blog for all of you to see it too.
When I first got my sheep I knew little about them. So little I even wondered if they really had different personalities.
If I hadn’t already seen it with Tess, Suzy, and Socks, the first three sheep I got I had no doubt when Zelda came to Bedlam Farm. I named her after Zelda Fitzgerald who had a reputation for being an independent woman, in touch with her wild side.
Now I’m sure that the farmer who gave her to me did it to get rid of her.
He drove her to the farm with a flock of his sheep who were grazing there for the summer. When I tried to put her with my new sheep, she broke through the fence to be with her flock. Eventually, I just let her stay with them, till the farmer took his sheep home in the fall.
When we came to the new Bedlam Farm, where we live now, she broke out of the fence again. This time taking the rest of the sheep with her. They ran up Route 22 as cars and trucks dodged them. When they got to a house that had two donkeys in their pasture, the sheep stopped to graze. They broke out one more time before we got the fence secured enough to hold her.
When Zelda died last year I kept expecting someone to take her place, but no one did.
From the first, I saw something in Constance, that reminded me of Zelda. She came out of Liz’s truck making a lot of noise. The first time she saw me put hay in the feeder she ran to it. When the other sheep pushed her away, she went right back, finding a place next to Asher and plunging her head into the hay. She’s comfortable around Fate and Zinnia and isn’t intimidated by the other sheep.
Constance still mostly hangs around with Lori, Merricat, and now Scott, our newest lamb, but she’s often out in front of them leading the way.
Constance has the kind of confidence, attitude, and determination I haven’t seen since Zelda. I think she just may grow up to be the new leader of the flock.
Hunting seasons started yesterday so Fate and I will not be walking in the woods for a couple of weeks.
In all the years I’ve been walking in the woods behind the farm, I’ve only seen other people there twice. Yet the trees are sprinkled with hunter’s tree stands. It makes me grateful that they only use the woods to hunt in.
I do love having it to myself.
There’s one tree stand, in a big Pinetree that I like to sit in. There’s a wooden ladder leading up to a small platform, a massive tree limb to lean back against. Lenore, our black lab used to wait for me at the base of the tree when I sat there. Now Fate does the same.
I prefer the woods, but Fate seems just as happy to walk on the road.
