Neglected Sheep Finds a Home and Affection and Friends

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24 comments on “Neglected Sheep Finds a Home and Affection and Friends”

    10. They are. Trouble on four legs, but adorable. There was a neighbor who kept some very interesting animals, including some pygmy goats. One of the goats had a kid, and it was the cutest little thing you could imagine. One day, it got its horns stuck in the fence and I rescued it, so I had a friend that greeted me every time I rode past. Eventually that neighbor moved, but I had a friend indeed until then.

    12. They are fun. I used to pluck some grass, or cut a branch off of a Desert Broom plant when I went by, and that caused all sorts of happiness and excitement. The same place also had a miniature horse who loved a little bit of attention.

    14. I’ve been blessed to live in a place where a lot of animals are nearby. One neighbor had an off-track Quarter Horse, which was a magnificent sight. Deer are so abundant that I barely notice them, and smaller animals abound. Even the Coral Snakes are more a thing of beauty than any menace, unless you are so foolish as to approach one, too closely. The last fatal Coral Snake encounter in the area was in the 19th century, when a child started playing with one of these beautiful, brightly colored reptiles.

      The mountains a few miles from my home form a moderate micro-climate where wildlife doesn’t suffer the full force of summer’s heat. The deer love it there, and mountain lions love venison, so they proliferate there, as well. Occasionally, Jaguar are occasionally spotted there, but they believe these to be transient, and not a breeding population. There are even Ocelots in the area, but I don’t know anyone who has ever seen one.

      Then there are the Coati, which are sort of a heavy duty, four wheel drive version of a raccoon. 🙂 Not aggressive, thank goodness, but they can be a real nuisance, such as when one decided to homestead my neighbor’s shed for a couple of days. I’m the unofficial neighborhood wild animal wrangler, but my solution with this thing was to let it find its own way out, which it did after a day or two.

      Then there was the time I captured a very small skunk in a no-harm trap. The plan was to drive it out to the boondocks and “re-settle” it, but it was so small that it could raise its tail and spray, even inside the trap. I threw an old Mexican blanket over the trap, put on leather gloves and opened the trap with my right hand, while the skunk sniffed the gloved fingertip of my left hand.

      Buzzards, Hawks, Cactus Wrens, and annoying Woodpeckers take to the air, while the Roadrunners only fly to get into a tree, hop over a fence, or to escape a pursuer. Yes, roadrunners can fly, no matter what the cartoons may have taught us. They are also aggressive and it wouldn’t surprise me to see a roadrunner chasing a coyote, if the coyote was inconvenient to the roadrunner’s plans. I actually had to rescue a tomcat I used to have from an aggressive roadrunner. 🙂

    15. Frankly, this all sounds wonderful. What state is it? They are so busy crowding yet more people into New Jersey there is no room for the animals. There is a small group of deer that live near St. Francis Cathedral across the street from me. And of course we had the bear incident with Lee last summer when he was trapped outside having a cigar and the bear walked right past him and into the parking lot.

    16. I live in rural Arizona. I’m far enough away from Tucson that it’s relatively quiet, but close enough that I had breakfast in Tucson, this morning. It’s not my favorite place on earth, but it has its charms, and I appreciate the blue skies.

    18. New Mexico is beautiful, but also very impoverished and mired in its own politics. Simply put, the Santa Fe elite dominate. Anyone else needs to be happy with fast-food or WalMart wage levels and had better not complain.

      You have to be careful of the smell of the desert. Animal wastes become quickly desiccated in the dryness and heat, until the first monsoon rain of the season, when the air can get a bit rich. Hopefully, if the first monsoon lasts long enough, the problem literally washes away with the first rain. 🙂

    20. BTW, I’ve never seen a bear here, although they allegedly live in the area. In over 25 years, here, I’ve seen one Gila Monster, one truly beautiful Arizona Coral Snake, one Bark Scorpion, one Coati, a relative handful of Diamondback Rattlesnakes, and have seen evidence of Mountain Lions, in my neighbor’s yard. If I want truly wild adventure, I can always have a play fight with my Siamese; she’s as wild as a domestic cat can be. 🙂

    21. That really was great. It was a person who loved animals, and essentially had her own private petting zoo. She had complaints from some neighbors; I think it was a neighbor whose rightful place in the Universe was to complain about others, and has now focused their complaints on a different neighbor, but eventually, she just gave up, and the place sits empty, her animals were sold off and she has moved back to the city.

      But, for a brief, shining moment, it was a very nice thing to have nearby. I looked forward to going past, which I did daily, and some of the animals learned to recognize me, so I was often greeted, as soon as I came into sight.

      The day I rescued the goat kid with the horns stuck in the fence, a big male sheep came up looking formidable. I thought he would try to chase me away, but as soon as I spoke to it, he turned tail and left. I guess he only looked tough on the outside.

      I really miss the miniature horse. He was a handsome little fellow, looking just like a smaller version of a full sized horse, with great lines. When I came by, he would whinny a greeting, and if he was free in the main pasture, he’d come right up to the fence so I could tell him that he was a good horse. He really was a beautiful little animal, smaller than a pony, but a massive stallion, at heart.

    22. How sad that your neighbor had to give up. I have a feeling if I were in her place I wouldn’t . She provided a haven, plus a place where normal people would appreciate the presence of those animals. A neighbor like that would feel like a big bonus for me. Selling those animals must have broken her heart.

    23. I found it quite sad. There were some friends, or possibly relatives that lived there, at least some of the time, and helped to care for the animals. I always made a point of talking to anyone I met there, and occasionally, I will still see someone on site. The landowner and I have spoken, and she seemed resigned to what happened. No bitterness or anything like that. I think that she may choose to retire here, and will perhaps bring back a smaller menagerie, but the halcyon days of the past are apparently unrecoverable.

      I never thought that it was noisy there, nor were there strong scents, but someone saw fit to complain. I’ve had horses as close as next door, and other than the fact that it upset my gentle old tomcat, the same one who was chased by a roadrunner, the horse was no problem. I took the cat out and introduced him to the horse, and all was well thereafter. 🙂

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