Boys Toys and Lots of Noise: The summer of sheep

I'm really sorry for how huge of a post this is but since this was a huge deal this summer I wanted to remember as much as I could about it.

This summer will always be marked as the first summer we had sheep. I’ll be honest, I was really worried how this would go. I knew I wasn’t in any shape to do a whole lot with the sheep and was worried my boys would totally drop the ball on it. What happened was pretty much the opposite for the most part. Tyson really stepped up this summer. Blake did a little but was nervous about the sheep as they got bigger. For the first couple of months we had to go out with bottles in the morning, lunch, around 5 pm and right before bed and feed our baby lambs. We slowly got to where it was just three times a day then just morning and night. Soon my boys would get up and go make sure they had grain and water every morning. Most days I would look outside and see Tyson in the sheep pen chasing them around and talking to them. There is no doubt they were our pets. We loved them. Well I’ll be honest, Frodo (the bigger one) started to jump on me for awhile and I didn’t like that very much. And he would sniff at my butt where he was just the right height and I didn’t care for that either. For the most part though he was so good. And really good with my kids.

Shawn is the smaller sheep and he had a totally different personality then his brother. Frodo was super social and usually the first one that wanted to be fed. He was the leader of the two. Shawn has been a scared little guy his whole life. He even was nervous with Tyson. And he HAD to be next to his brother. He would freak out if he couldn’t see Frodo and baaah and run around the pen. Frodo would almost always let you pet him when you walked up to their pen. He was like a dog that didn’t make noise.

As apart of 4H we needed to walk them. We would put them on a halter rope and walk them down the street and around our yard. Blake was my only kid that didn’t really like this because Frodo (his sheep) was kind of crazy with him and would jump around. That would make Blake super nervous. Even Brett would walk him sometimes and laugh when he would jump. The boys called him Frods. Tyson really loved his sheep Shawn the sheep. He, by far, paid more attention to Shawn. If I asked Ty to check on the sheep or get them anything he would always do it. The kid loves animals.

Right before the fair we got Frodo sheared and cleaned up. He looked so much worse without his wool. He looked all wrinkled and weird. Monday they set up their pen. Wednesday we took Frodo down to get him weighed and put in his pen at the fair. Frodo was 107lbs and Shawn ended up being around 95lbs. Because we can only sale one sheep at the fair we found someone to buy him for his meat. (Bryan’s boss). We lucked out and our neighbors in our ward have sheep in a pasture a block away and are letting us put shawn there until we can get him processed. Which I HATE even saying that really it makes me sad. Thursday Bryan and Tyson left early for the fair to get Frodo cleaned up. Bryan said it was really awesome to be there with hundreds of 4H kids as they washed and cleaned up their sheep. This first day the sheep are being judged on the market value. I was REALLY nervous on how Ty would do. I didn’t want him to be the one kid that lost control of his sheep and watch it run off. They have to walk it in just using their hands and no ropes. Ty came in second in line and the kid in front of him lost control of his sheep. I was thinking oh crap here goes Frodo but Ty kept a hold of him and he did so amazing. He held his sheep and put him in line PERFECT. Seriously I was so amazed on how well Ty did. Frodo didn’t score very high for his meat value which is totally fine to me because Ty did perfect. He was like 11th out of 14 kids but really I think that is even because of where in the line he was. They started pulling from his side of the line first to place them. Ty still got a 2nd place ribbon (they all get a ribbon) with $9 on it. He was so proud of himself.

I wanted Ty to did the showmanship day on Friday but Bryan wasn’t willing to wait ALL day to do it. Ty was the last group. Ty didn’t much care either but next year I really want him to try. Saturday is the big day where the kids sale their sheep. The whole reason we had sheep was for two reasons: the kids to learn responsibility and earn some money they can save in the bank for missions. We wanted his sheep to sale for a ok price. Bryan and I paid for all of the expenses which were a ton. We totally didn’t make money on these sheep but Ty will.

We had to wait for awhile for his turn but Ty finally got his turn in the auction. He had his back turned to half the crowd but oh well he didn’t realize what he was doing. Frodo sold for $350! A guy from a bank down in Provo brought it. (they do it for charity mostly and sale it to these meat guys who pay them meat market price. Frodo was about 150 bucks in the meat market so they paid about 150 in the end.) Ty had no idea when he walked out how much he had made. When Bryan told him he was hugging and cheering for Frodo because he was so excited to have made that much money.

Then came Saturday night when we went down to make sure Frodo had food. We knew we had to say goodbye to our pet. We let Ty take him out and walk him around a bit. We were the ONLY people doing that out of the hundreds of sheep. I got pictures of all the kids with him then we took him back to his pen. These cute girls from our 4H club were in the pen next to ours just crying their eyes out saying goodbye. I knew I was in trouble. My boys started to hug him and it made me tear up I won’t lie. They were all heart broken to say goodbye. Then my boy who was the most scared all summer with the sheep looked up at me and from under his cowboy hat I saw huge tears streaming down his face. Poor Blake was devastated. He said something like He was such a good sheep mom I don’t want to leave him. It’s just so sad. He cried and cried. I just couldn’t hold back the tears then to see him that upset. Stockton was crying pretty bad too. Tyson of all kids was holding it together pretty good even though I knew he was sad. The hardest part of all of this is knowing this little baby lamb that we had bottle fed and loved and cared for was about to be butchered and he didn’t even know it. He trusted us. He loved us. It’s a hard life lesson to learn.

Our 4H leader said something to us that makes me feel a little better about it. Had we not taken them they would have had a lot sadder life. Especially our little bum lambs I’m sure they would have starved to death without their mom to take care of them. We kept them alive and gave them a good life. I doubt many other sheep were loved more then them.

I have to add something here too. Bryan has really, really loved these sheep. He was always the one who went out at night to feed them. When they were little he would go out and hold them trying to get them used to people. He would talk to them and play with them. The boys laugh that Shawn was always chewing at Bryan’s leg hairs. They loved Bryan, especially Frodo. Bryan would talk to them and just spend time with them. He has loved them as much as Tyson. When we would go feed Frodo down at the fair he would jump up on the fence so Bryan could rub his head. That made me feel really bad. Most peoples sheep didn’t really care too much about people but Frodo did.

So would we do this again? You bet we would. I hope we can do it next year. So many life lessons learned from our little lambs.