Escape!

It always seems like the animals pick the time right before I leave for work in the morning to cause mischief.  This morning, I looked out the window at the sheep pasture and saw the ewes and the lambs in one pasture and Dodge in the other...with a lamb!  Little Clive (Susan's lamb) wanted to visit his dad.  I ran out there and got into the pasture with Dodge and the lamb.  Clive and Susan were on opposite sides of the fence crying out to one another.  I went into the barn to try and figure out how the lamb had slipped over to the other side of the fence when WHAM!!! Dodge head-butted me, well, in the butt.  It hurt so bad I screamed and turned around in time to see him back up and came barreling back at me, head down, ready to clash again.  I stuck my boot out at him again and again until I could escape the pasture, creeping along the fence and not daring to turn my back.  When I got out, I was almost in tears from the pain and also because Dodge had never acted like such a ram before.  His strength and sheer bulk, not to mention those horns, freaked me out a little.  The fat sheep I hand fed slices of white bread to was replaced by a charging hunk of wool.  How was I going to get Clive back to his mom?  I went and got some hay to lure Dodge into the barn from the other side of the fence and locked him in so he couldn't attack again.  Then I had to catch Clive.  The lambs have grown a lot in the last few weeks and they move very fast now.  They are almost impossible to catch in a wide open field.  We can barely catch them inside the barn now.  But considering Clive was a little freaked out and desperate to get back to his momma, he did the only thing that made sense-try to jump through the fence.  Which actually worked to my advantage because his head got stuck.  All I had to do was grab him and pull his head out of the fence and then carry him out and around to the girl's side of the pasture.  And man, is he getting heavy!  He was happily reunited with his mom and his friends and in a couple minute's time probably forgot it even happened.  


But how did he manage his sheep shenanigans?  I walked the entire length of the dividing fence and at the very back corner I found 2 gaps: one between the bottom of the fence and the ground that he could have slipped under and one where the fence meets the back fence where he might have walked through.  As I was already running late for work, I covered both holes with piles of branches and brush that were on the ground back there.  Hopefully my baby-proofing worked and no one squeezed through while I was at work.  So, once again, there's never a dull moment at my house.


Oh yeah, for all you Modern Family fans out there, the lamb who escaped today is named Clive Bixby.  Complements of Joey.

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