I Have a New BFF

Just don't tell the cat. She won't be happy to hear that news at all.

Sophia must be the sweetest ewe that ever lived. She's like a grass-eating dog in high heels. I had done a lot of research before deciding what breed of sheep I wanted. One of the reasons I decided on the Shetlands was because they were supposed to be good-natured but I had no idea they would actually demand attention as much as they do.


Sophia has some of last years wool left over and stuck to the tips of her fleece. The Shetland breed actually sheds their wool every year naturally so if you sheer them ahead of that natural break in the wool, you end up with these little scraps called skodda. You can see them in the photo below. I need to remove them so they won't mat. Should be great practice for me before I have to really shear them next spring.


Anyway, when I sit in one of those plastic lawn chairs in the pasture Sophia will come over and rest her head in my lap. How sweet is that? She'll stand there forever letting me pet her and pull those little scraps of wool off by hand! She's going to be a great candidate for rooing next spring. For the non-sheepy people reading, that's the process of shearing them by literally hand-plucking the wool after they start to shed it.

It's a slow process. It might take me all summer, but I'm definitely going to try it. She and I both seem to enjoy it.