INTRODUCING: SHEEP OF THE WEEK!
So, we’re going to start having another as-regular-as-possible feature on the blog– Sheep of the Week! I’m a little late getting started today (ideally, I’ll be posting on Monday mornings), but I’d like to explain to you what this is all about.
There are a lot of y’all who are new to the blog, and new to the farm (this is pretty funny for me to say, being new-as-of-April myself!). Maybe you were googling around for cajeta recipes and found us, or maybe you read about us in a magazine, or maybe you bought some Juniper Moon Farm yarns at your LYS and were intrigued. And now you’re here, reading the blog.
One of my absolute favorite things about the blog is that it lets us introduce all aspects of the farm to people. We’re happy to provide all the cute goat kid pictures you can handle, but we’re equally eager to talk about different classes of anthelmintics, let you watch the sheep give birth on LambCam, and talk to y’all about the generally less-glamorous (but really interesting) sides of shepherding.
And so, folks who’ve been reading the blog for a long time get to know the animals pretty well. If little so-and-so was sick as a lamb, you can bet that visitors to the farm will ask after her, even when it’s two years later, and she’s a 140-lb. ewe. And it bowls me right over when people have such a strong connection with one of the flock that they come out to the farm to visit him in particular (I’m thinking of Alabama).
Anyway, the point of Sheep of the Week is this–
If you’ve never ever read the blog before: Hey there! We’d like you to get to know the sheep we’re crazy about. Some of them are old friends, and some are lambs you might not have met yet, and we love ‘em all.
If you’re a regular reader: You up for a walk down memory lane with a familiar face? Maybe just an update on how your favorite now-grown-up lamb is doing? Or, perhaps you’d like to be introduced to some up-and-coming, as-yet-undiscovered member of the flock? We’ll alternate between a popular favorite and someone you may not know so well.
You’re going to eventually meet every single sheep at Juniper Moon Farm. (um… and goat. But “Small Ruminant of the Week”? Not so catchy of a name.)
Sound good?
Ernest. Big E. The Abominable Snow Ernie. Our bellwether. Sheep #1. The Cotswald Lion. Ernie.
It only makes sense to start with him (we don’t actually call him The Cotswald Lion. Although we could).
Ernie was one of Susan’s first sheep. She was working at Stone Barns, which is where he was born. She raised him up as a bottle baby, so, when she left, they gave him to her as a present (which seems only fair. Once you bottle-feed a lamb for a few months– that’s a special bond).
He and Cini, apparently grew up together, as much as a sheep and a livestock guardian dog can. They’d play tag, or hide from one another, and– well, I’d have died to have seen it. They now both have a little too much gravitas to be caught playing tag, what with their respective positions of Bellwether and Top Dog.
He is getting on a little in years, and is getting a touch of arthritis in his knees. It doesn’t seem to bother him too much, though– he grazes and chews cud happily, and comes running up to us for food with a terrifying amount of momentum (he probably weighs 250 lbs!).
Of course, post-shearing, he looks like a teenager with an ugly-on-purpose-cause-I-don’t-care haircut. That doesn’t seem to bother him too much, either. His fleece comes off in these gorgeous, lustrous curls that the Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook calls “the poor man’s mohair” (and then is even-handed enough to add that, “this does justice to neither fiber”).
Ernie isn’t just the one of the first sheep. And he isn’t just the biggest-by-a-long-shot. Or the Abominable-est Snow-sheep. He also has the deepest, most imposing, un-sheep-like baa I’ve ever heard. It’s infrequent. But it comes rolling and growling out of his enormous body, and lasts, and lasts. If a mountain could baa. Or an oak tree. Like I said: gravitas.
Now, since some of you readers have been associated with the farm far longer than me, I’d like to ask you all for input– do you have any favorite stories about Ernie? I’m curious!
NEXT TIME on SotW: one of this year’s lambs!
NEXT NEXT TIME on SotW: Who’d you like to hear more about? Leave a comment, and we’ll tell you all about the most asked-for sheep (we’ll count ‘em all up next Monday, so, take your time).
{ 34 comments }
Can you explain what Ernie’s job as a bellwether is? I love this idea….. Sheep of the Week! Thanks,,,, bj
Could you post an audio of Ernie’s baa-with-gravitas? I’m having a hard time finding a video that features Ernie’s baa…
Ha, I was totally going to request audio.
Love you, Ernie. I have spun your wool, and loved you. yay, Ernie!
Love this idea! Can’t wait to hear more about all my favourites
Lora, just imagine James Earl Jones singing “baa-ah-ah” and that’ll be pretty close.
Oh, Caroline…”ugly-on-purpose-cause-I-don’t-care haircut” – LOVE it! Thanks so much.
What a great idea!! When I was growing up–surounded by a pretty extensive extended family with a pretty extensive collection of animals–my sister and I instituted a “Nose of the Week” for the animals. We even had a little song to go with it and would sing loudly to whichever animal was lucky(???) enough to be the NOSE for that week. It was a wonderful tradition–with the family members and MOST of the animals playing along patiently!!! Just for the record,however, some bulls DO NOT like to be sung to!!!
um, – TRADING CARDS
Love that Alabama!
Great idea for the blog Caroline!!
I love the idea of sheep of the week. Ernie’s “teenage” haircut is great. What is (a) bellwether?
Ernie’s Fleece = my favorite handspun!
I’ve been with the farm for a while, but I’ll be honest and tell you I don’t know who all the sheep are, so I am VERY excited about this new feature!!
I love Ernie. I remember my first Shearing – Susie was telling us how Ernie had been on a diet and was “probably down to 300 pounds now.” I remember thinking that I had no IDEA a sheep could be that large! And then to see Emily dump him over like it was nothing? And take his fleece off in one piece that still was sheep-shaped? DANG!!
This is fantastic. I love it. Can’t wait to hear all about them. And I love the Trading Card idea from lasdem : )
Oh Caroline, that’s such a wonderful idea! (and one I might like to borrow–with your permission) It’s great to let people know that, though some may think a sheep is just a sheep and they all look and act alike, those of us who spend time with them every day, know how different their personalities can be. Love Big Ernie’s dreadlocks!
Caroline, I feel like you have been with us for YEARS!!! I have not yet made it to the farm in person, have no ‘Ernie’ stories but I love the picture of Erin when she was leaving, slinging Ernie into the truck!! In a skirt, no less, if memory serves me right. This is a great idea and you should, if not trading cards, put the posts somewhere altogether so we can quickly read them and review any we missed and all the new-comers to come can catch up quickly… And I agree, this is a great idea!!
Caroline, I have seen Big E and Cini play their peculiar brand of hide-and-seek/tag as recently as last year, so you never know, you may yet get the chance. It’s the kind of thing that you can’t really believe is happening even while you’re watching it; definitely a sight to see.
Another incredible aspect of Ernie is that he has no idea he is a wether. The first time we brought the ram Aldo to the farm, he and Ernie fought eachother *through a fence* until both had bloody heads. We moved Ernie into the barn to get him away from temptation, as it were, and he tried to launch his then-300-or-so-lb. self through the open top of the dutch door. Closing the door was no solution: he just rammed the door. Fortunately he quickly adjusted to the new order of things and got back to being his old affable self! Now the farm has an additional pasture in place so it’s easier to keep the visiting ram away from the hometown boys.
I was so glad to pop by today and see big beautiful Ernie.
He reminds me of my late Cotswold ram Price who also suffered from arthritis is his last year.
As a fellow breeder of Cotswold’s I think he is stunning,what a mug
Love, love, love the Sheep (or goat, or pig, or chicken) of the Week idea! and oh, Ernie was the best choice for the first ever Sheep of the Week. I just love Ernie, well, I love all the flock, but he does seem like such a sweet kind of sheep, guy, manly sheep type… well, you know what I mean…
This is a really cool idea!!! I can’t wait to read more about the sheep…and goats, too!
Loving this idea!!! Can’t wait to “meet” everyone:)
@bj and Pam, re: bellwether: Ernie’s really just a figurehead! In the old days of shepherding, you’d put a bell on your oldest, largest wether (presumably because you could trust him to not go charging off, like a ram would), so that you could hear where your flock was, because often you couldn’t see it through the fog or over the hills. Hence the modern usage of ‘bellwether’ (How’s the majority going to go? Watch the bellwether.). Anyway, now that we have things like fenced pasture, we just do it for fun & tradition.
@Lora and carlene: I wish I could! Short of taking my laptop down into the pasture and Skype-ing him in to y’all (and even that wouldn’t work with our slow satellite internet), I can’t think of a good way to record it. Until then, I cannot laud @jellenp’s description highly enough! James Earl Jones as a sheep, YES!
@Elle: I love the idea of NOSE of the week! (Now I’m the one wishing for audio…)
@lasdcm and Christina and Fran, re: trading cards: I’ll ask Susan! Seriously! And, if we can’t do trading cards, I’ll try and see if we can at least make SotW a Feature (that drop-down box right under the header, all the way over to the right).
@Dianne: Of course, please do use the idea on your blog! I’d love to read about your sheep! In the interest of scrupulous intellectual honesty, I have one thing to admit– I was all Zac’s idea! (I asked him. He said yes.)
@Erin: If you’ve seen them play together within the past year, then I’ve got my fingers crossed for it.
That’s so funny that he doesn’t know he’s a wether! (I guess it doesn’t take away the urge, just the… efficacy. I guess he’d still try if given the chance?) I hope he doesn’t get too riled up about this year’s ram!
I love this idea too! Just curious, why are his “bangs” not sheared when the rest of him is?
@Megan: I am partly responsible for Ernie’s bangs. Susan doesn’t like them to be left like that (she doesn’t like how it makes him look, I think). During spring shearing Emily asked how she should leave his head – bangs or no? Since Muffin and I (maybe Caroline as well?) were the only ones there to answer (Susan was manning the games), we both answered “Bangs!”.
And so she left them.
I promise you if Susan was there it would have turned out differently.
Very handsome, that big guy.
Oh Caroline, you’ve done a beautiful job of capturing The Big E’s spirit. He is, I confess, one of my favorites and the first to convince me that, yes, it is okay to sit in grass covered in sheep poop and allow animals that outweigh you by 100 pounds to come so close that they might, indeed, just plop down in your lap like an overly gregarious toddler. Brava!
the scritching the head pic just slays me-so uber cute
yep, i’m all about ernie’s bangs. i look at that adorable face in all its gravitas and i just can’t help loving it more with his bangs!
Caroline,
One of my favorite Ernie stories:
My then 5 year old daughter, Sierra (who maybe weighed a tenth of Ernie’s then closer to 400 pounds – he was so LARGE) and I were doing evening feeding one glorious fall evening. Sierra wanted to hold the bucket of grain so we went through the instructions…Stay calm, the animals will be excited and keep it held high so one of them won’t stick their head in and hog all the treats. I asked her again if she didn’t want me to hold it. Nope, she was sure.
We hopped the fence to the pasture and were greeted cautiously by almost all the boys. Ernie had been in the upper part of the pasture so he was barrelling down the hill with that slow powerful trot of his. Sierra had the bucket of treats for the boys held up high just like we talked about and was super excited to get them to eat out of her hand. She was having a lovely time with them and they were patient and gentle with her. Until all of a sudden before either of us realized what was happening, Ernie’s big head pulled that bucket down and he plunged it into the bucket and he started dragging that tiny little girl who gripped the handle ever so tightly! She was squealing and trying to run with him until she finally just let go…and layed there in the pasture laughing and giggling and wide eyed. It all happened so fast that neither panick nor fear really ever have time to set in for me…but those few seconds have been a source of laughter and learning for both of us!
I miss the farm…it’s the most beautiful place to spend Autumn.
Trading cards! What a brilliant idea.
You can see Ernie’s sweet character carrying right through from the darling lamb picture to the current gentleman-of-a-certain-age shots–what a big, sweet guy he is, and handsome as heck with his dreads hanging coyly over his eyes . . .
That second-to-last picture makes me think of Sam Sheepdog from Looney Tunes!
Please bring us up to date on Feenat!
Ernie is my September Sheep pin-up on the JMF calendar. He was the first sheep I ever watched shorn in person at the (then) Martha’s Vineyard Farm spring shearing. I love that you chose him for the the first Sheep of the Week.
Do you still have Miss Martha?
I always wondered why Ernie wears bells!