Birchtree Farm

Rose is a pet. She comes right up to you, looking for that scoop or bucket you must certainly be carry that contains the pelleted feed. What? You mean you *aren't* carrying the bucket of yummy pellets? What's wrong with you? You're supposed to bring it! Well, at least you can scratch my head while you're here.

At least I think that's what she's thinking. I'm reduced to sneaking out of my own house in the morning when I walk the dogs so as not to be spotted by Rose, who will loudly demand that I come and bring the yummies NOW (even though they never get them in the morning, only the evening). As soon as she sees you, she begins a loud complaint. And she's teaching the others to do it too. I don't want them to wake the neighborhood at 6 or 6:30am, hence the sneaking.

But what's neat is that you can recognize their individual voices. Rose is obvious - a long drawn out deep bawl. Quinn sounds more like what people usually think of sheep sounding like - "baa-aa-aa-aa". Cozette sounds like she's got a frog in her throat and she can only get out a couple of croaky "Baa-aa"'s. Orange is somewhere in between.

Anyway, so far no one has complained. The neighbors on one side have two big dogs who bark and growl out their windows at anyone within sight, so they have nothing to complain about. And at least our sheep aren't up having bonfires or playing music till the wee hours on weekends. The other neighbors have expressed only interest or even delight that we have sheep. One said her father used to have a sheep named "Nottingham" that would follow him around like a dog, and even follow him into town on his walks.

Our new ram will be arriving in early September. I wonder what he will sound like? :-)