SHEEP!!!!

I (Alice) got to start the day by helping with the health checks on a herd of sheep from near Santa Cruz. The sheep were fairly wild, and very scared of people, because they had lived alone on an island for a long time before they came to the Farm Sancuary in 1997. They're at the farm because the government decided to restore the island to it's natural state and began shooting the sheep. The Farm Sanctuary swooped in to rescue them.

To do the health checks we took groups of about 12-20 sheep and cornered them in a part of the barn with pieces of fencing. Then we took them out one at a time, dragging them by their horns in most cases, and held them against a wall while they had their checkup. I met a hornless sheep called Simon, and a very skinny one named Ed. Ed was pulled from the herd onto another area, because he was too skinny. Simon was harder to hold, because we had to hold him in a headlock instead of grabbing his horns. Part of the checkup was a hoof trimming. A farm worker cut bits off of the hooves that were overgrown kind of like trimming fingernails. Some of the sheep were inclined not to stand up during their inspections, which was fine for most of it except when their back legs and feet needed to be checked.

It was very funny watching the sheep when they were let out the gate after their checkups. Most of them were very excited to get out of our grasp, and raced as fast as they could. A bunch of them jumped and leaped too, which was quite adorable. The only one that I saw taking his time was Simon.

Random comment about sheep: They have very pretty eyes.

Then I went and helped cut wood for the goat jungle gym. We are almost finished making the platforms, and hopefully we will get to start putting it up for tomorrow. 53.5 inches is a very strange length to cut a piece of wood.

After lunch we got to make vegan cookies for selling at the farmer's market tomorrow. I made chocolate chip cookies with Michael and Kerrigan. The dough was very delicious, and so were the cookies after they were cooked. I also got to lick a wooden spoon covered in chocolate. That was also quite delicious.