Our little lawn mowers!

Remember when your parents would say they didn't need to buy a dish washer because they already had three of them (or however many children they had)? Well, P and I now have 13 lawn mowers, and only one of them uses oil.

Since about the time the grass started to grow we have been considering the "green" option of sheep keeping our lawn trimmed, with the perk of some tasty locally grown meat in the fall. (Disclaimer: The lawn immediately around the house we mow in the modern manner, and it's the larger acreage which the sheep are encouraged to eat.)

The story that goes along with acquiring the sheep is considerably longer, at least if P is relaying the story (and perhaps embellishing the details a bit ;).  The short version is that within 2min of the picture where C is unloading the sheep from the trailer, they easily found a hole in the cattle proof fence and were mingling with P's uncle's cattle.  The cattle thought the sheep were really weird looking dogs and didn't know how to react, so they panicked.  This lead to some nifty figure eight patterns of cattle chasing sheep and vice-versa.  The sheep flock eventually got split into to groups, nine running around in the fields surrounding our home being chased/trailed by P and three less adventurous sheep chillin' with C in the cattle pen.  Eventually we managed to herd the two groups back together and merge them into a pen rapidly built from "cattle paneling."

We've since been training the sheep to respect electric wire, not using tall metal fences, and rotating them through large paddocks where the grass is often taller than they are.

A few lessons were learned in this short period of 15min:

1. Sheep are incredibly cute, but fast little buggers.
2. When one sheep crosses some sort of barrier (fence, creek, brushrow) all the rest are sure to follow even if you're standing in front of them yelling and making a scene, whereas cattle would likely turn around.
3. Sheep herd quite nicely when they are hungry and grazing.
4. Sheep like dandilions, cedar trees and forbs in general.
5. Not all sheep are electric fence trained.
6. It's awesome when your uncle keeps a number of cattle panels (12'x4' heavy gauge fence sections) around the yard for you to quickly create a sheep proof coral.
7. When/If you are anxious around sheep it's important to have a really good poker face, and a calm disposition.