Lamb Dinner

Last night, my husband and I had our friends Jacques and Odile over for dinner, together with Roger. I was sitting facing the "French" doors. Just as I had served the main course and had sat down and put the first bite in my mouth, I glanced at the door and saw three black-eyed lambs staring at us through the doors.

I was so shocked, I could only stutter "ah, oh, ah . . . " I think the rest of the table thought a robber was at the door. I raced out the door, but had to come back because in my haste I had left my sandals under the table.

Luckily, the lambs had not learned the bad habits of Blanche, and they didn't touch the flowers. My husband and I tried herding the lambs, but we just managed to chase them out of the yard, across the bridge, through the walnut grove, and onto the road, where they stood in the middle of a curve daring a car to come by and hit them.

My husband and I finally figured out how to direct them the way we wanted them to go and got them across the bridge and to the gate for the pasture. But the gate wasn't open so they ran back into the yard.

The other four sheep, who had been grazing peacefully, noticed the ruckus and began yelling out for their commrades to return to the fold, but the three rebellious EWES, ignored them. (My husband pointed out that the Buck was well-behaved.)

Our guests came out of the house to help and the five of us tried to chase three sheep into their pasture. After a lot of maneuvering, Roger aptly described it as "playing rugby," we chased two of the young ewes into the pasture. In the distance, I could hear the third one yelling, so I went to track her down.

She had run out of the park, across the bridge, through our walnut grove, across a small canal, and was standing in the middle of someone else's unkept pasture, at the edge of the creek that divides that pasture from our sheep pasture, and she was yelling for her flock . . . and they were yelling back, but she couldn't figure out how to return to them.

I was able to "shepherd" her back across the bridge. I stood guard at the bridge while she ran around wildly for ten minutes, being chased by my husband and guests. They finally cornered her and she JUMPED OVER THE FENCE (just like a counting sheep) into her pasture.

Amazed, we all returned to our meal, winded and laughing about the excitement of playing Keystone Cops in the middle of dinner.

I still can't figure out how the three sheep got out, why the other two young ones who are always with them did not initially know that they were missing, and why they decided to look in the dining room window to alert me to their escape.

This morning, I opened up the kitchen doors, and they are all out there contentedly laying under a tree, in their pasture.