My sheep are kept in a field a short distance from my house. I had read and re-read the sheep books describing how to care for ewes during lambing. I decided to bring the flock (6 ewes) to my backyard for lambing so I could keep a closer eye on them. I set up a maternity pen off the shed in the backyard. Since I don't have much room in the shed the lawn tractor had to move out onto the back porch. This redneck tradition of piling implements on the porch each March continued for years. I did not have a trailer to bring the sheep so I decided to bring them with my dog. The problem is I live on a very busy road and my dog and I were novices. The sheep field is around the corner, with a short leg on my busy road, then an equal leg on a less busy road. There is a pond belonging to the town inside this corner. If I look across the pond I can almost see the sheep from my window. My brilliant idea was to bring the sheep across the frozen pond, thereby avoiding the busy road entirely. I just needed some snow for traction. The lambing dates drew near and we had no snow. Finally we got a storm. This was my chance. I grabbed my dog and went up to get the sheep. We only needed to take them on the road for about 50 feet before turning in the entry to the pond. There was a short steep bank down to the ice. The sheep thought little of this option but the dog was persistent. We got on the ice and I realized it was still quite slippery despite 4 inches of snow. One of the girls kept slipping and falling, no doubt exacerbated by the dog working too close and fast. She finally lay down in the middle of the pond and quit. I tried lifting her. No luck. So here I was in a snowstorm standing in the middle of the town pond with 5 standing sheep, one sheep laying on the ice, a dog, and no clue. I gave up and took all the other sheep back to the field. I went back to get my reclining diva and she had managed to return to the shore so we collected her back to the field. Now for another try, this time I decided to cross further down where there was some rough area on the ice. This required another 200 feet on the road. We got almost to our planned crossing route and an impatient driver came upon us and tailgated about 10 feet behind the dog. I lost my cool, the dog lost his cool, and one sheep escaped and ran back to the field. We turned around and went back again. Third time was a charm, no impatient drivers and the footing on the ice was better at the lower crossing. I brought the sheep across the pond and into my back gate. Whew. I still periodically hear rumors in town about people swearing they saw a sheep laying on the ice in the middle of Woodward's Pond as they drove by. I just smile and say "Really!"
Now you may be wondering what I did when the sheep and their new lambs needed to get back to the field. The ice had melted. No problem, each ewe and her young lambs were stuffed in a very large dog crate on a big crate dolly. With one person pulling and another pushing the cargo was rolled down Route 113 and up Pond Street to the field again. I feel it is my civic duty to entertain the town. Fortunately I only had a few sheep back then.
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