You can use its coat for knitting

Every once in a while the mind throws a blank as to a suitable blogging topic, and equally every so often a topic is tossed into one's lap; a gift of immense proportions.  Today was one such day.

Visiting around Blogland memories of the past were stirred into action.  Pets and childhood!  I guess many children have a kitten or puppy, or a guinea pig as a pet.  I had pet lambs.  One was terribly spoiled and even in her older age, a dignified mother of frisking and frolicking lambs she stayed close to the house, no doubt remembering the joyful days of her youth. 

My Dad owned a small farmlet, almost 30 acres in all.  In the beginning we had cows, but 'regulations' were tightened making it uneconomical to milk cows in a shed that wasn't up to hospital hygiene standards.  We went into sheep, that were imminently better than cows.  Cows, especially if poked through the yard fence by long sticks by my brother, tended to the wild side.  I, a quiet little girl, knew better than to tease milking cows ... or any cows in fact.

Going into sheep often meant pet lambs, and although my Dad sometimes took the coat from the still-born lamb and put it on a motherless lamb, more often than not we could persuade him that a motherless lamb would be better off as a pet.  Pet lambs were given preferential treatment.

My pet lamb of some reknown, was Frisky.  However Frisky somehow didn't sound 'just right'.  I altered it to Frisco, which gave her a aura of movieland [well San Francisco is in California as is Hollywood].  Frisco was bottle fed, several times a day; several times a day more than absolutely necessary to sustain life; she became rotund. 

On a good day she would deign to be dressed in doll's clothes, to be sat upon my knee for her bottle feed.  Please remember, dear reader, I would have been all of ten years of age; a mother in the making.  When one doesn't have small brothers or sisters, a lamb is a substitute!

Frisco had several saving graces; the main one she was an excellent lead sheep.  We dipped our sheep down the road at the neighbours, and while Frisco had to be enticed, and often placed in the boot of the car [my Dad, for some unknown reason, objected to her riding in the car, but I am positive she would have enjoyed the novelty of motor travel with a view] she was in her own coming home.  Once out of the dip she headed for the road, and as though running a marathon, headed for home.

Sheep being sheep, the rest followed like sheep.

The result of having the privilege of possessing pet lambs has given me a soft spot for sheep all my life.  When I knit I insist on pure wool ... none of this artificial acrylic stuff!  Long live the Sheep!