Beware of Sheep!

Tuesday was not one of my better days, LOL. Oh, yes, I can laugh about it now...not so the other day. My mother is always giving me a hard time about going up to the barn alone at night. It is about 7 miles from my house, down in a gully, and not so close to any houses. There is no electricity there either. I don't listen though.

So, Tuesday night, Addie (my dog) and I head up there to feed the animals and unload some hay. All is going well, we get grain to all the animals, throw some bales of hay out there for them. Addie did a marvelous job moving the sheep to where I wanted them. I have a couple of horses, llamas, alpacas and sheep in the pasture. We are just about to switch to unloading hay, when I realize that a couple of the sheep have left the group and are trying to get into the horse's grain. So- I send Addie around the barn ahead of me to "get the sheep". Apparently one of the large ewes (the romney) got spooked (most of the sheep aren't overly intimidated by the dog, but this one is) and comes flying around the barn at full speed. At that very moment, I'm walking innocently around the barn to make sure everyone is back to their right spot.

It was dark, and the ewe being black...I didn't see her until the instant before she hit me. I had no time to react, though, and she slams head first (you know- those rock hard heads that sheep have-argh) into my left knee. I hear a pop, and feel my lower leg go in the wrong direction, and I go flying through the air. Sheep keeps running...without care that she just tried to kill her foodsource. (Okay- now, I know sheep aren't the brightest animals on a farm, but this one is especially dumb, and if she wasn't my sister's sheep she wouldn't even have been there.)

I could not believe the pain I was in- I thought for sure I broke my leg (which I didn't- but I did seriously sprain my medial collateral ligament in my knee- apparently an injury that football players get a lot- great). I layed there yelling for help for a good hour before someone heard me (like I said- there is not really anyone around there). A jogger heard me and with the help of a flashlight, found me and called an ambulance. I'm so thankful for the jogger. We were expecting an ice storm to start in another hour or so, which would have been horrible.

I did have my english shepherd dog (farm collie) with me. She was so good. Not as good as Lassie (wasn't my dog supposed to go to a neighbors house and bark in morse code to dial 911?) but, she did stay right with me, with intermittent runs to the middle of the pasture to bark for help, and then right by my side. She wasn't so sure she wanted to let the ambulance people near me, and went into protective mode, but once she saw they were there to help, she let them work on me, going back and forth licking them. But- I'm thinking next time I go up there late at night...I'll bring a human buddy as well!

Moral of the store...watch out for psycho sheep!