This morning as we were cooking breakfast, we heard a lot of BAAAAAAA outside the house. When this happened yesterday, I opened the door to see a herd of sheep trotting past our door. Luckily, I only opened the top half of the door, or else they would have come in for tea. Today, the bleating was coming from our neighbor’s yard, so I went over to investigate. The neighbor’s herd was milling around in their cornfield, and the teenage girls were trying to catch one of the ewes. Lina (the younger) had her by the foot. Since I’m a big guy (in local terms), I sauntered over and helped her using my favorite sheep-catching technique: fistfuls of wool, and lift straight up into the air, sheep feet flailing wildly. This my neighbors laugh every time, so I did it again to get a chuckle. Then I realized: why did they want this sheep? I tried to get them to explain, but we were having trouble communicating, and the sheep got heavy. So I set it down… and it took off like a bolt of lightning, and dived into the middle of the herd. This made them laugh more, as I just undid all their work.

We chased the wooly jumper around some more, and eventually caught her again, and Lina tied a rope on her. Once secure, the other sisters took the rest of the herd away to graze in the valley. This ewe had a baby, so of course the baby stayed too. Lina led the ewe up the hill to the sunny, grassy spot. There she tied the rope to a stake.

I tried again to get an explanation as to why this one was singled out. By now, the elder Lina was involved. “Cuesta!” she exclaimed emphatically. “No puede caminar bien!” she explained, waving offhandedly at the baby. What? But then upon closer examination, I realized she was right: the baby WOULD have trouble walking a long distance with the rest of the herd. It was the three-legged baby from a few weeks ago! I was kindof wondering if it survived, so now I know. Oh, and what looks like a half-length leg in the picture is actually it’s tail. The leg is gnawed off all the way up to it’s body.