Yesterday’s shift of the sheep fences looked different this time. I normally keep the truck out of the sheep’s pasture they are occupying. However, being rushed to get everything done, I pushed down the boundary twine and rushed the truck across their field to pick up the posts and twine for the next move. This is when I don’t want the sheep to follow me or approach.

So the race is on, the sheep are running toward the truck, and I’ve got to beat them through this gap. I’m not so sure they were actually hungry, since it was led by one of my older bottle lambs, now grown. Whether she felt good, was curious, or just was being obnoxious, it meant everyone was trying to rush toward the gap I drove the truck through.

What does a shepherd do? I have to get them to change their mind. I’m not actually preventing them from getting the fresh food, but they don’t know that. So perspective is everything when the Lord is asking us to wait.

The video is from 2018. Once they get moving like this, it is hard to turn them back.

The post When sheep rush you appeared first on Shepherd's Muse.

Healthy and content sheep do skip, jump, and do “silly” things. They also rest longer, or they sometimes butt their heads together. They might stand in a group or go out and “dance.” This place of satisfaction is easier to see in young lambs being well-fed by their moms. They will have lamb races and love to climb the highest mound. The Waimea flock lacks these mounds. However, there are pits in the ground dug out by cattle in previous years. Young lambs speed around like race cars, hopping in and out of those pits.

My personal excitement and joy come from relaxing into what God’s grace actually looks like. I crave the feeling of belonging in a group or chatting together with another person.

The post Skipping and jumping appeared first on Shepherd's Muse.

The post Not afraid appeared first on Shepherd's Muse.

When sheep are huddled together, it shows their design kicking in. In a fierce storm, they will stand so tightly together it helps them to stay warm enough. When dogs come raiding that flock, they also try to huddle tightly together. I know as an earthly shepherd, when all the sheep heads are raised, staring out in the same direction away from me, that I need to take action. At other times, it is a false alarm.

Any sheep who is always alone, not really paying attention, and doing their own thing also alarms me. Something has gone wrong with them. It might be illness or greed. It can still be a healthy sheep, but I pay attention long enough to see if it is okay.

What is really interesting to me is when I hear students or friends share their stories. I can perceive where they feel really alone, and carry feelings of abandonment. I do relate to that. God has been directing me to pull closer into a group. For that to happen I work to rebuke lies, such as I’m not interesting enough or they don’t care enough.

I really pay attention to those who lost family members. It’s a place where the Holy Spirit steps in, and I’m privileged to pray that they sense this in increasing amounts. In short, God encourages me to be there, supporting them in the storm and afterward.

The post Sheep signaling danger appeared first on Shepherd's Muse.

October 7, 2024

Lambs raised on a bottle can surprise you with their behavior after they are weaned. Some of them stay loyal, coming to me even when I don’t have any treats to offer. Some are stubborn, doing exactly as they please, which makes them inconsistent leaders for the flock. Others act like I never provided the milk they required six times a day.

Recently, I sold a couple of these bottle-fed ewes because getting them across the open field into the corral meant they zig and zag, always spying “greener grass.” This cute, fun one called Mimi is in this 2019 video as a baby lamb doing this crazy wild dance similar to a goat kid. I sold her because she developed the habit of powering through the electric fence during my twice-weekly moves, tangling or breaking the fence. It was not easy to sell her; however, her choices challenge the safety of the other sheep.

The post Zig and zag appeared first on Shepherd's Muse.

Stubborn sheep.  But they can change too.  One of this year’s bottle fed lamb’s personality really demonstrated independence.  He would often be in a different area of the paddock, then start crying his heart out not just for milk but for them to pay attention to him. Yet he was the one that missed his grain, since he kept looking for something better. The paddock has a flimsy wire barrier atop a rock wall, so if he jumped into the back, there was no return.  He would start yelling at the top of his voice long and loud. I could hear him from my condo.  I patched the hole in the barrier, but then he would do it again.  But that journey started when another lamb his age that I wrote about earlier this month.  She needed the grain but would not stay in the pen where the grain was fed.  He followed her over the rock wall barrier only a couple of times, and so she taught him to go off on his own. She had to be removed to another field, so that grain stopped for her. 

And now he’s changed. He realized his grain was coming from me.  His provision was always there but he needed to remain near his source.  

Ring any bells?  My life is being changed not by what I do, but who I remain close to. And now as I see my first love once again, my heart is excited and refreshed far more often. 

The post Battle of wills. Part 2 appeared first on Shepherd's Muse.

This last lambing season, I ended up with four lambs that got rejected by their mom, or their mom died. Also, two additional rejected lambs showed up, and those were adopted by other mama ewes. Yet one of those adopted lambs fell behind, and it later revealed that the two-teat milk supply was on one side with abundant supply, with the other half barely producing. For just over one month, while the bottle lambs each received their daily five cups of milk replacer, I assumed this fifth one got enough from its adopted mom. But she wasn’t. Normally a lamb like her will not switch to eating from a bottle, but she was showing interest at bottle feeding time. To my surprise, she did like the taste of the milk replacer.

To feed the mama ewe, I moved her to new grass away from my expensive feed reserved for the bottle lambs. So the adoptive family went to our food forest pasture just behind the bottle-feeding area. In between them and the bottle lambs was a wooden panel, with a hole to allow lambs in to eat, but block the mama ewe from entering.

Now that it was time to stop feeding milk, I wanted this struggling baby to get more high-protein grain that I could only buy when I was in Hilo, nearly two hours away. The thief was her huge adoptive brother and he bullied everybody. So in trying to get her to eat grain, I would bring her in, and leave her with the other bottle-fed lambs, only to see her disappear in search of her not helpful “mom.” Try as she might, there was nearly no milk for her since her brother took the favored side each time. Each time I found and fixed her escape to the non-productive mom, she always pushed through somewhere else. First, it was holes created by the wild piglets, then she learned to push up the unfastened fence and go back. That was bad enough, but the most independent boy who got daily milk rations followed her actions. So both were not getting access to their grain rations.

The post A battle of wills, part 1 appeared first on Shepherd's Muse.

It still amazes me that the bottle-fed lambs never seem to be satisfied. They got fed five times a day with milk, given treats like grain or haole Koa branches I know they love. I keep an eye on their water, their safety, and make sure that they are given enough medication so internal parasites don’t weaken or kill them.

In truth it is not just the bottle lambs that are this ungrateful. The flock in Waimea have it good. Fresh grassland offered up to twice a week. That means I am moving the fences, water, the cameras, the mineral and chasing any errant sheep back inside their selected area.

By no means am I able to keep pace with all their needs, and guilt sets in when I miss preventable health issues or feel so overwhelmed I start taking longer to get things done because I lack hope.

But these weaknesses as an imperfect Shepherd only highlights God’s perfection. He consistently shows compassion. Rescues the wayward one. Makes sure “bread” is available whether it is to satisfy physical needs or spiritual or emotional needs. He is closer than the most wonderful mom, dad or friend. He’s aware of what you are thinking and does not shrink back. He knows perfectly our needs and desires and listens. He SEES us.

God’s shepherding is about seeing, always alert, and having full power. He knows at the end of the current broken chaotic world HE will right all wrongs, bring a home that does not fall into disrepair, our stomachs won’t growl, our emotions healed.

He waited for Israelites to stop chasing after their own ideas and acknowledge true life. He waits for us to do the same. He never leaves or forsakes us and when our minds accept that fact by faith, we trample the enemy’s power over us.

The post A Real Shepherd appeared first on Shepherd's Muse.

Willful and stubborn sheep polluting their land

200 hungry sheep and no sheepdog makes it crazy difficult to push them into their prepared paddock.  To safeguard their health and also from getting out onto the road they have to obey my voice.  But their heads are down, each doing their own thing.  The majority are not heeding my truck horn, the slap of the whip, or my voice.  This occurred after moving the water, the security cameras, unrolling 1000 feet of electric twine, setting up the posts, vaccinating all 80 plus lambs.  I’m so tired.  

I drive my truck across the pasture to herd them, they move only if the truck is about to bump into them, then drop their heads to the grass.  Others decide to trot off in every direction except into their safe enclosure.  I have to jump out of the truck, snap the whip/flag, but they wait until I’m gone and return to the just cleared area of their field.  An hour later the last renegade is inside and I can stop chasing them.

They cannot understand they polluted the pasture grass with their droppings, which holds tiny barberpole eggs. These hatch into larvae which crawl up to the top of their grass in as little as three days later.  At a certain tipping point these larvae will cause a lamb or a ewe to bleed to death if the infestation is too high.

To prevent this the electric fences divide the fields into a just grazed area and an area ready to receive mommas and babies onto grass not grazed for two months. This helps keep just hatched larvae from being ingested.  All to say that keeping their head down in the stolen grass will be their downfall unless the Shepherd persists in making provision for their safety.

The post It can kill them appeared first on Shepherd's Muse.

Yesterday I let the bottle lambs out of their enclosure.  Even though I feed them, make sure they have shade and safety they will run away from me.  But they were the true expression of joy.  They leap and run and play.  After they stop, they might look for me, they might not.  I keep my eye on them to make sure their newfound freedom doesn’t put them in danger.

Later on a grandma pushed a stroller with a quiet and outwardly calm girl to the farm. The three baby lambs came right up to this preschool aged girl, curious to see her and they even touched the stroller. I observed the girl not being quite sure what to do. Grandma took her out of the stroller and still the lambs stayed nearby. 

That evening I stopped by the lamb’s enclosure again to greet another mom with two elementary aged children.  These kids wanted not only to watch them but to hold them.  (Even in that video of the momma being chased in a large field in Waimea, I knew my friends wanted to catch one to enjoy holding a baby lamb.)

So I opened the gate and the three lambs came out in a huddle, nibbling on grass, and also springing into the air just a tiny bit.  They watched the two older kids closely but didn’t approach them.  They young lad was keen to interact but didn’t know how.  He approached them in quick, fast movements, they responded by moving away in the same manner.  It looked just like “catch me if you can.”

He tried harder, they only ran fast enough to keep a safe distance away.  Meanwhile they come over to me occasionally and I could catch them if needed.  I knew if they felt safe, they would approach this young lad like they did earlier that morning to the girl.

What is your takeaway from this story?

The post Catch me if you can appeared first on Shepherd's Muse.