Sheep Eat Flower

At midnight we returned from having dinner at a friend's house , to find a bag of lettuce tied to the front door handle with an attached note:
 
Sheep in little house
Sheep eat flower
Good night
Thérèse 
 
I thought it was a nice little bit of haiku from the neighbor.  The three of us headed for our beds. 
 
This morning, as I was stepping out on the terrace to drink my first cup of tea, I heard Blanche bleating.  I looked over at her pasture, to the corner nearest the house where she usually stands if she wants to communicate with me, and didn't see her.  I remembered the cryptic midnight note.  I glanced down at my geraniums and noticed that there were a lot of stems, without flowers, sticking out of several pots.
 
Yes, it was true:
Sheep in little house
Sheep eat flower
 
While walking towards the little house, hot tea sloshing over my hand, I passed by the ateliers and I saw in the distance that one of the large gates was hanging wide open.  Some male member of my family had not shut the gate. I have to wait until they get out of bed to find out who was the culprit.  I didn't go to close the gate, because I was in a hurry to respond to Blanche's insistent bleating.  She does not have any food in her sheep house because she doesn't go in there any more, and I wanted to get her out while the morning was still cool, and the flies were still sleeping, so that she could eat without being harassed. 
 
Blanche was happy to see me approaching her house, and when I let her out, she followed me as a well-behaved sheep should.  I had one tense moment when she stopped for a moment on the driveway to glance wistfully back at the geraniums that she hadn't finished off last night when Thérèse put an end to her vandalism.  Poor Thérèse, she innocently walked over to bring me a head of lettuce, only to discover that she had to herd sheep.
 
Thankfully, Blanche did placidly follow me into her pasture through the little foot path gate.  She ran out towards the walnut grove. She was out of sight, so I decided to quietly sneak over to the large gate, hoping the trees and bushes would hide my movements from the ever-clever Blanche.  I arrived at the other end of the walnut grove.  She spotted me, and came running.  I started running; we arrived at the gate at the same time, so I wasn't able to close the gate in time to prevent her from pushing me aside and running out of the pasture.  In May I ran a 7.25 mile race in ten minute miles, so I would have thought that I could have outrun a fat sheep. In my defense, I hadn't even had a full cup of tea yet.
 
I just spent the last half hour chasing Blanche around the yard.  The neighbors, if they were awake, heard me yelling continually, "Allez mouton, allez." Blanche is very smart, for a sheep. She always wants me to pet her and hug her and rub her belly, except when she's misbehaving and then she won't let me come near her. I can't wait to hear what Therese had to go through to get Blanche in her little house.
 
Finally and thankfully, Blanche let me approach her so that I was able to grab her around her neck.  I had read in a sheep book that if you can grab a sheep's neck and pull their head back and up, they will go willingly with you.  She didn't exactly go willingly, she weighs as much as I do and I sort of dragged her, but she did go.  Now she's standing in her favorite corner of the pasture yelling at me.  
 
People wonder why I lose weight when I'm here in France eating cheese with every meal, visiting the bakery every morning, and sloshing down wine with every morsel I inhale.  I'm convinced that it's my exercize regimen.  Foot racing and wrestling with sheep in the early morning burns a lot of calories.