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Picture this…. Sicily…. 1921 ….
Just kidding – it was yesterday – and my very first bottle-fed whether, Baby Love, needed a shot in the rump. He is one that used to follow me around like a puppy dog and lived in the front yard for the first year taking naps on the porch next to the door he continually tried to sneak into - but as the flock has grown in number and he has blossomed into a 2 year old he has become a bit more aloof. Aloof enough that he was not at all appreciative of me tricking him with kissy noises and an outstretched hand into an all-out body grab. Despite my clever naming of him that first day Baby Love is no longer a baby – being a whether he is much smaller than the 300-pound ram who is the same age but still, he is a solid 175 pound bag of Corriedale muscle. Being a beastly five-foot-one-and-a-half-inch (and YES! the extra half inch is extremely important) myself I decide to sling a leg over his back to keep him still enough to get the needle in that tuckus. He was being a very sweet boy and stood still long enough for me to get the cap off of the needle….. what happened next I am not completely clear on but I do know that I was horizontal and backwards on the back-end of a sheep, struggling to keep my face out his galloping hiney with a loaded syringe clutched in one hand, a needle cap in the other, and short, stubby legs flailing in the air. The half-hour life threatening (ok, ok at least eyeball threatening with that needle bouncing around in front of my face) thrill ride backwards and face down on the rump of Baby Love probably lasted closer to 5 seconds but in that time I managed to scream for him to stop, realize this particular sheep didn’t speak English, push my torso up out of his butt crack, and dig in my toes….. when the sheep sputtered to a stop and I hadn’t been impaled with a 22 gauge I was understandably relieved! But the boy still needed his shot so I planted my feet firmly, squeezed my knees to hold on, and I slid that needle into his upper thigh and GUESS WHAT HAPPNED THEN – absolutely nothing. He didn’t flinch, jump, try to run away, or even seem to notice….. I hopped off and he went right on grazing like nothing had happened – I on the other hand had to warm up a hot water bottle for my tweaked lower back I am sure I will need for the next 3 nights.
