I hate it when I am right about Mooshoo, and I usually am.  The reason I hate being right is because it means any number of sketchy things have happened, up to and including Mooshoo supplying the paving blocks needed to pave the highway to hell!  She is that sketchy!

Remember I mentioned to you the ram was inducted into the family of dogs?  He was one of the crew, and wherever the dogs went, the sheep went.  The sheep even accompanied the dogs as they barked at stuff through the fence.  If the dogs followed the groundskeeper to open the gate, so did the sheep.  He was a dog. Mooshoo saw him as a dog!

One busy afternoon, my housekeeper left the back door open as she went about her chores.  Mooshoo was left guarding the door to ensure the other dogs did not enter the house and create mayhem.  But Mooshoo is not to be trusted and I don’t know why my housekeeper trusts her.  The minute she was out of sight, Mooshoo thought long and hard and figured the new “dog” needed a proper welcome into the pack.  So Mooshoo invited the sheep and the Rottweiler (Kronk of the one brain cell fame) into the house.

My house keeper’s spider sense must have gone up as she shortly got back to check how Mooshoo was doing with guard duty, only to find the sheep in the laundry area and Kronk in the living room – with Mooshoo staring at my housekeeper with cross eyed wonder! By the way, her eyes don’t cross to the center of her face – they cross outwards!!  My housekeeper promptly shooed them out of the house, but Kronk did not understand why, the sheep looked offended and Mooshoo looked sheepish as usual!  At this point I decided I did not need a dog that was actually a sheep and I needed to get the sheep some ewes to keep him engaged with his own kind.

I went ahead and found some two lovely ewes from a fellow Kenya Horticultural Society (Ikinda Society) members’ place.  Two lovely girls with tails that swish and swash as they walk.  When we arrived at his place to pick the ewes, we did the customary walk about his garden to learn a thing or two.  He was gracious enough to allow me to come with my 3 groundskeepers, and it was well worth it.  He keeps rabbits for their urine (pure fertilizer) and their meat.  He has chickens that provide meat and eggs, while they help churn his compost into the most fine and fragrant compost I have ever seen.  Yes, compost is fragrant! He keeps earthworms for worm “juice” and worm castings, which is more pure manure.  He has the most vocal geese I have ever met; very opinionated! And then he has the sheep. 

They are kept in fenced paddocks where they rotate their grazing around the paddocks.  I noticed some of the male sheep had what I could only describe as a “skirt” around their waists.  So, I turned to my host and asked him what that was.  Well, grab a cup of tea, because this one caught me off guard. 

Apparently, the rams wearing a “skirt” had already sired ewes in the herd.  To prevent in-breeding a leather flap is made that ties around the ram’s waist and flaps down the front creating a preventive cover, so during mating season, the ram cannot inseminate the females.  I am rarely speechless. I was speechless.  What caught me was how simple the solution was, yet how clever it was.  I asked him where he had seen this.  It seems this is very common among the Maasai community, which made sense because these are accomplished herdsmen who know how to handle their cattle!  After a sumptuous serving of tea and mandazi(similar to beignets), my groundskeepers and I loaded our ewes into the back of my car and went home, still talking about the skirt wearing rams.  What an afternoon of learning.

When we got back home, I was a little apprehensive as to how the ewes would be received by the ram, and by the dogs.  When the ewes got out of the car, the dogs did their usual nose sniff and slight head nod, and I knew these too had been baptized into the fraternity of dogs! Then the ewes looked around and noticed the ram.  He just stood there staring at them, then suddenly, the younger ewe skipped off in what I can only describe as a giddy dance at the sight of such beauty.  The older female soon followed and the ram took them under his wing.

They now graze together under his careful watch and guidance.  Yesterday they broke into my garden and nibbled a few vegetables, but generally, they are doing their job of being Peanut’s lawn mowing assistants!