The Shepherd and The Sheepcote

"When dusk falls, shepherds lead their sheep to a safe place to spend the night, where wolves or other predators cannot prey on the sleeping sheep. Usually the shepherd builds a stone enclosure with a small opening and he calls the sheep one by one into the sheepcote for the night. When all the sheep are safely inside the sheepfold, he will lie down in the opening so that nothing can come in the only door to harm the sheep.



The Shepherd always protects The Sheep!"

Friday, June 29, 2012

An Old Blessing

 This is my Pepper.  She is one of two Shetland sheep that I purchased from Nancy Ellison's flock down by Zumbrota probably 12-13 years ago.  I started with her and a morrit ewe that I named Sassy and the two of them are/were the grand matriarchs of my flock of Shetlands.  I was not real inventive about names...Pepper because she was black and Sassy because she would stamp her foot at me whenever I got near her.
Sassy starting having some strange seizures a few years back and I would find her laying over on her side kicking or her fleece all full of dirt and dung and hay and I would know she had been on the ground thrashing around.  If I was there and got to her while it was going on I could settle her quickly and get her back on her feet and she would slowly come back to herself and return to normal.  A few months ago Sassy moved on to greener pastures with Our Good Shepherd.  I think Pepper feels a little lonesome for her and she knows that her time is probably getting short also.  The two of them used to be penned up with my big polypay sheep, "Polly"...see not real inventive but it helped me to remember what breed she was.  Anyway whenever those two little shetlands would find a hole in the fence and get out, Polly would sound the alarm as she was too big to fit through the same hole.  Pepper would walk through the garden like it was her own private salad bar... a bite of this, a nibble of that...let's even try the rhubarb!  I was really running for her then.
 Pepper is single coat and Sassy was a very long double-coated ewe.  Her fleece would be dragging by shearing time. 
I think I know how Pepper feels somedays when she sees all the new little lambs running all over the place..."kids"..."feed them sugar and let their moms take care of them!"  Pepper just stands there and watches them all be crazy with that quizzical look on her face. Such a sweet girl.  I hope that I get to be her shepherd for a while longer. God has blessed me with her and hopefully her with me.  May we all be a blessing to someone today.
Pam
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