A Baaaad Surprise

           We all have wallpaper on the home screens of our phones, right?

          But we can’t always see our carefully selected picture, because of all the icons we add. Some people display family moments, artwork, or their latest crush.

          I picked a painting of Jesus, coming to rescue a lost lamb: 

           I like this because we’re all that lost lamb, and also because it’s the only painting I’ve seen of Jesus actually running. Needless to say, I love it. And, even though some icons block part of it, I can tell what it is, and it lifts my spirits.

          But do you think I could keep it just as it is?  Of course not. St. Bob chose to buy an electric Tesla, which requires you to have an icon for it on your phone. Your phone is your key, by the way.

           We added the icon to the bottom of my home screen list, and
whaddayaknow… it is perfectly positioned to make my poor little lamb look like it has buck teeth. A whole row of them:

           I know, I know: Pretty baaaaad.

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Norwegian Numbers

         We’re baaack. Two glorious weeks in Scandinavia and enough material to last a lifetime. Not that this will become a travel blog. But indulge me a bit.

          First of all, let’s start with Norway. It’s every bit as gorgeous as you can imagine, with thunderous waterfalls, majestic mountains, and amazing fjords.  The chocolate is swoon-worthy, the people are kind and helpful. 

But there’s one area where the fairy tale breaks down, and it’s when locals estimate how long it will take an average American to walk to a given location. As if the entire population has agreed on this figure, any given person in Norway will tell you it’s “just a 15 minute walk” to get anywhere.  Often they will add some comment about how invigorating and delightful this can be.  However, they are not pulling a heavy piece of luggage with a broken wheel. 

Nor are they people who avoid the gym, and who drive if anything is more than a block away. They also don’t realize that they have grossly underestimated said “walk,” and that 15 minutes is actually 45.

Nope, they are walkers and hikers.  They feel a rush of, I don’t know-- fitness?—as they stride briskly through hill and dale. It’s like they’re all training for the Olympics.  (How every destination can be uphill escapes me, but this also seems to be the case. I also think it should be against the laws of physics for a vegan to pull a HAM string, but here we are.) 

There are literally people in Norway who herd hundreds of sheep by hand in the rain and on steep cliffs that look as if you could fall to your death, should you take one wrong step. Like wind-up action figures, they don’t even break a sweat. And those sheep are the real reason I said we’re baaack.

But I miss those sheep and their owners and their waterfalls.  I just wish someone would write a travel guide called No-hike No-way Norway for wimpy travelers who walk three times more slowly than locals.

You can order one of my books to read while you wait for next week’s blog—that one will be about Sweden.

They're Baaaack!

          Be still my heart.  The sheep are back.  Rocklin has a surprising number of wetlands and meadows, the latter of which needs trimming annually.  And the other night St. Bob asked me to hop in the car for “a surprise.”

          Could it be a decadent new dessert café?  A glorious sunset?  How about an incredible garden, a misspelled sign (I love those), or tickets to a brand new movie?

          It was something even better: a giant herd of sheep just one block away, baa-ing and meandering about.  It was evening, so this is the best shot I could get:

They only stay for a day or two before their owners move them to another juicy munching spot, so you have to enjoy them while you can.  Using sheep to trim grass is not a brand new concept: Woodrow Wilson had them trim the White House lawn during World War I.

          I told you here about my attempt at sheep shearing.  But despite that disaster, I love them to pieces, especially the baby lambs.  I grew  up watching ventriloquist Shari Lewis doing the voice for her puppet, Lamb Chop, and have been smitten ever since.

          So today I’m going to share 10 amazing facts about sheep that I’ll bet you didn’t know:

1.   Feta cheese, which we all love, comes from sheep’s milk.

2.   Sheep have gigantic, rectangular eyes that see 300 degrees, so they can see behind themselves without even turning their heads.  And you thought only owls could do that.

3.   About 5 years ago, a farmer in Scotland paid almost half a million dollars for a breeding ram.  I AM IN THE WRONG BUSINESS.

4.   Sheep are like elephants when it comes to memories, and can remember 50 people’s faces, as well as voices, for years.

5.   Sheep are almost as smart as pigs, and will self-medicate, eating the plants they need when they’re sick.

6.   There are 900 breeds of sheep around the world. (I wonder who counted them.)

7.   A pound of wool can make 10 miles of yarn.  Mankind has been spinning it since 3500 BC.

8.   A sheep on its back cannot get up, just like a turtle.  So if you see one on its back, give a helping hand and turn it over.  Talk about doing a good turn!

9.   Sheep don’t have top teeth, only bottom teeth.

10.               Sheep are highly social and even have best friends (see Number 8!)

And now you can share my excitement when you see a flock of sheep.  Especially if it’s lambing season, pull over and enjoy one of the cutest faces in the animal kingdom!

Be a lamb and order my books, too.  You can find them here.

Springtime for a Few Minutes

            I love Springtime.  I love daffodils, tulips, bird nests, little kids wearing galoshes, ducklings, kites, the whole enchilada primavera.  I love blossoming trees, frolicking lambs, gentle breezes, and weather that stays in the 70s. 

            And that’s a whole lotta love to pack into the 10 days or so of Spring we get in Rocklin.  Rocklin is a suburb of Sacramento, so named because it used to be a gigantic granite quarry.  Why they couldn’t call it Rockland and keep me from having to spell it over the phone so often, is anyone’s guess.  Please don’t say laziness.  I hate laziness.  But don’t say it’s a misspelled version of Rockland because I hate misspelling even more.  Either way, it’s a Fred and Wilma Flintstone kind of place, with streets named Lava, Cobblestone, Pebble Creek, Blackrock, Granite, Onyx, Crystal, and the like.  I could easily learn Wilma’s giggle and wear a leopard-print dress and a necklace of ping pong balls, so I’m okay in a rock-themed town.

            But I digress.  I was talking about Springtime (cue the music), and was just getting to my complaint that it fades all too quickly into summer here in Rocklin.  One day it’s balmy and blissful, and you have this in your front yard: 

which makes you remember singing “Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree” as a kid, and you still sing it every Spring, only now you sing it quickly, because the next day the blossoms fall into what look like piles of soggy shredded wheat on the walkway and the next day summer hits like an open furnace.

            In addition to rocks, Rocklin also has meandering wetlands and meandering hillsides of weeds that will pose a fire hazard soon, so people bring in herds of sheep to munch it down.  (Although, correct me if I’m wrong, does that not also fertilize those same hills and perpetuate the problem?)  No matter—it’s fun to step out on your porch and pretend you’re in Switzerland, as you hear a chorus of baa’s just a block away.  Here’s the latest batch:

            Few things are as adorable as a baby lamb, but let me tell you that few things are as icky as grown sheep.  Okay, pigs are.  They win.  But grown sheep are not part of my Springtime Fantasy and I’ll tell you why:  I have actually sheared one.  I know, I know, this is very un-Joni-like, but it is true, and here’s how it happened.

            When I was in college, living in L.A., I was friends with a newspaper photographer and he asked me to write up a story about what it was like to shear a sheep, probably just to fill space.  So we headed out to a local agricultural college in Woodland Hills, called Pierce College, where he had arranged for me to have this delightful opportunity.  Baby lambs were promised, so of course I consented to go.

            But soon the baby lambs were whisked away and I was inside a barn with an electric shearer, a grown ewe, and no clue what to do with either one.  Turns out you straddle the poor animal, trying to hold it between your legs so it won’t run away, and then you wrestle the shearer, which writhes from a cord resembling a boa constrictor, and try to shave off the wool in large, clean strips.  Contests in Australia, they tell me, yield champions who can do this in two minutes.  I am looking at two hours. 

            At first I am scared (dare I say sheepish?) that I will cut the ewe into bits, so I barely touch the clippers to its wool, and little feathery wisps fall onto the ground.  Over and over I try to do it carefully, and within minutes I am exhausted, if only from trying to hold the animal still.  I finally realize I will be here for the rest of my life if I don’t get brave and just dig in, so I press the shearer against its skin and now the wool is falling off in giant chunks.  It still looks like the worst haircut known to man or sheep, but at least I’m making progress.  

            Until I notice the bleeding.  “Oh, no!” I shout.  “Am I cutting the sheep?” There are flecks of red all over its skin. 

            And now get this:  The person in charge (the shepherd?) says, “Oh, don’t worry about that.  Those are just ticks you’re cutting in half.”

            WHAAAT?  Ticks?  As in the one insect even more disgusting than spiders?  I look closer and sure enough, the sheep is covered with hideous little black pests scurrying about under its wool, and I have been shaving right through them.  I no longer worry about cutting the sheep; my biggest worry now is whether I will faint, throw up, or be covered with ticks myself before I can get out there.  It’s all I can do to finish scalping this poor, flea-bitten creature, and let it scramble out into the sunlight.  I follow her on wobbly legs and stagger to my car.  The things you do just to be a published journalist, right? 

            So now I listen to the sounds of Springtime in Rocklin with a little bit more information, a little speculation about why the sheep baa so much.  You would, too, if you were covered with ticks.  And believe me, I think twice about pulling on a wool sweater now.  Lucky we’re heading into summer.

            Time is TICKING (sorry), so hurry to the box on my website where you can subscribe!  And be sure to order my newest novels at  http://www.amazon.com/Joni-Hilton/e/B001IXU7A6   or in paperback versions at this link:https://www.createspace.com/pub/simplesitesearch.search.do?sitesearch_query=Joni+Hilton&sitesearch_type=STORE