Meri cares

Sheep are very caring and sensitive creatures. I am not being anthropomorphic here, there are scientific studies showing this. A British study found that sheep feel emotion for each other and their shepherd. According to a study done at Cornell University, (quoted here from an article in Nature magazine), "...and with a glance at its face, a sheep can assign another sheep to its place in the family tree and assess its emotional state."
This morning, the sheep decided to wander into the neighbor's cattle pasture. The grass is much nicer there than in our meadow. I went off over the mountain looking for them. They were down in a hollow, happily munching. But they are good sheep and when I called them (and shook the grain bucket that I had been smart enough to carry) they came running.

We strolled back through the field, sheep munching on the way. Marj, Poppy and Meri came up and begged bites of grain, wanting to make sure the treat was real.

Meri is a dear sheep. We call her our "hobbit sheep", in part from her name, but also because of her personality. She believes that she should be fed breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, lunch, dinner, tea, supper and midnight snack. She knows she is cute and has learned to beg treats from humans with a tilt of her head.
She tends to get herself into situations - as a lamb she loved skating on the ice and more than once fell through into the water trough. I was always sure she was going to loose a leg to frost bite, but she never did.

Meri was following right at my side when I set the bucket down on the far side of the barbed wire fence and lifted my leg to climb over the fence. My clog fell off my foot and plopped down on the ground next to Meri. She looked at the shoe, sniffed my foot, and looked at my face with an expression of deep concern. She nudged the shoe and looked back up a me. She was so worried!

I couldn't help but laugh. "Silly Meri, just hand it to me," I said. But of course, she doesn't understand English. As soon as she saw I was ok, and that it wasn't a terrible tragedy that my foot had fallen off - she ducked under the fence and stuck her nose in the grain bucket. I recovered my shoe and we all drifted back to the barn.