[Jacob-list] Back to the primitives...

[Susan Nielsen]

An observation from this morning, that (please forgive me!) makes
me open up the subject of primitive characteristics again...

In the early light of dawn I looked out the window and saw that
the ewes and lambs had all escaped their paddock into the llama
pasture. Stolen grass is always better than your own grass, I guess.
I dressed and went down to round them up and drive them home (oh,
I so wanted that last half-hour in the sack, since we are still on
lambing vigil during the night).

All the ewes had slipped through, and most of the lambs with them.
The exception was one pair of twins, the offspring of the ewe I like
to think of as "different." This old girl is the one I think of as
primitive: she is of a lighter build, has a lighter fleece, just looks
different, behaves in a sort of more wild animal way when it comes to
curiosity and investigation and territory. She's just a different sheep
from the others. She was down in the llama barn, gobbling llama hay
(which is the same hay as sheep hay, but of course belongs to those
other animals). Her two lambs were back in the sheep shed, alone and
waiting for her, for all the world like two wild animals left in the
nest while their mother foraged. When I saw them there, they stood
side-by-side and stared at me, looking like two lambs before the wolf
("Are _you_ the wolf?").

It had never occurred to me that lambs would not follow their dam
wherever she went. When the ewes saw me at the gate, most of them
bustled off to the far side of the pasture, looking as guilty as can
be. But my odd, half-wild ewe came barrelling back to the sheep shed
as fast as her little hooves would carry her.  She knew perfectly well
where her lambs were, and she came through the gate at a run.

Now: this is definitely Different. Is it Primitive?

[Fred: Please don't ask me to define Primitive again; I'm working
on it! ;-)]

Susan
--
Susan Nielsen, Shambles Workshops      		|"...Gently down the
Beavercreek, OR, USA -- snielsen at orednet.org  	|stream..." -- Anon.
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