The rescue that wasn't

Jonathan came in around 11 a.m. to tell us that the sheep were trapped on a newly formed island. This might sound strange to you if you're new to my blog, but a creek runs through our property, and parts of our pastures flood at least a couple times a year. What we refer to as "the middle pasture" has a particularly bad habit of flooding, and that's where the sheep were grazing when the creek snuck up and surrounded them. The snow has been melting the past couple days, and with 37 degrees and precipitation today, we knew the waters would only get higher as the day progressed. This wasn't the first time we've had to rescue the sheep, so we had a pretty good idea of what needed to be done. Mike and Katherine were going to head out there and herd the sheep through the water before it got any higher. The first picture shows them surveying the situation, trying to figure out the best (most shallow) place to get the sheep to cross the water.

Much to everyone's surprise, as Katherine and Mike walked towards the end of the pasture with the shallowest water, the sheep seemed to know what they were thinking, and they also headed towards that end of the pasture. Then, before any human even attempted to go through the floodwaters, the sheep started running towards us! Maybe since we go through this every few months, the older sheep are getting accustomed to the idea. The younger sheep, of course, just follow the flock blindly. Katherine thinks they came running across the water because they saw her -- "hay girl!"

Now the sheep are back on the top of the hill, where we hope they'll stay!