Just the one
The beginning of my commute is a long, straight bicycle ride with fields on either side. On my left, an arable field with a crop growing in it. On my right, a flock of sheep. Like a big flock of sheep – the field is nearly a mile long.
In that whole big flock, there is one — 1 — black sheep. I find this inordinately pleasing. I can’t settle until I’ve spotted her and yelled hello in the morning (and the afternoon).
One of these days, somebody I know is going to drive up behind me with the window down and hear me shouting, “HELLO! HEY! Sheepie! WOOWOO! Hello, how are you today?”
So I went to Google Images Search to find a picture I could doctor, entered “flock of sheep”…and you’d be amazed how many pictures I got of a flock of sheep with one black ewe. (The one I used I stole from here). It must be a thing sheep farmers do for some reason, but I can’t find an explanation online.
She seems to get along with the other just fine. I suppose she doesn’t know she looks any different, and the others aren’t sure they aren’t black sheep themselves. Yes, sheep have just about that much brain power.
Posted: January 22nd, 2018 under animals, personal.
Comments: 11
Comments
Comment from Can’t Hark My Cry
Time: January 22, 2018, 9:14 pm
Well, there’s this: https://is.gd/QX4z3h
Sounds a little post hoc ergo propter hoc to me, but it does appear to have been field-collected.
Comment from DurnedYankee
Time: January 22, 2018, 9:32 pm
I think it would be funnier if the farmer got in the ditch and answered you.
Send me his/her address so I can write!
And yes, I can see that now –
“Crazy Yank, thinks I have time to lurk in a ditch waiting for a weasel to ride by on a bike!”
And @hark
I was with all that, until they recommended using a red hot horse shoe to cure bewitchments.
That’s not how it’s done at all. You need to throw three small dwarves across a ditch and then throw them back again, while reciting any random part of King Lear.
Comment from Can’t Hark My Cry
Time: January 22, 2018, 9:52 pm
Well, I wasn’t necessarily endorsing any of it, @durned; just pointing out that it does sort of sideways pertain to the question of “why one black sheep in a flock.”
Comment from Ric Fan
Time: January 22, 2018, 10:06 pm
You sure it is a black sheep?
Comment from Rud
Time: January 23, 2018, 2:36 am
Often a black sheep is a genetic sport, the offspring of white parents. They just show up every so often. This is taken advantage of by using a specific ratio of black sheep to white to give a quick way to estimate if all are present. In the western US a band of sheep (1000 head) will usually have 1 black sheep for every 100 sheep. If you can see 10 black sheep, then the whole group is probably still there.
Comment from Pawan Sharma
Time: January 23, 2018, 8:57 am
Nice post!!
GRS shoes offers Mens shoes in varied designs and colors.
Comment from Can’t Hark My Cry
Time: January 23, 2018, 12:57 pm
Is it just me, or is it quite awhile since you’ve had spam appear in an active thread?
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: January 23, 2018, 6:15 pm
Gosh, look at that, Can’t Hark. You’re quite right. When I notice spam, it’s almost always in some old thread. Very often multiple spams in the same old thread (which is why Ace’s site will auto-ban you if you post in an old thread).
Duly neutered.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: January 23, 2018, 6:16 pm
Thanks for that, Rud. Makes good sense.
Many of our local flocks are pretty purebred, but I don’t suppose that stops the occasional sport.
Comment from Can’t Hark My Cry
Time: January 23, 2018, 7:13 pm
Yes, I’ve wondered sometimes about the tendency of spammers to flock together in old threads–do you suppose it’s some kind of magnetic effect? 🙂
Comment from Steve Skubinna
Time: January 24, 2018, 1:42 am
It’s probably in the Magna Carta somewhere that all flocks must contain one black sheep.
Otherwise it would be not only monotonous, but too obviously a metaphor and we’d have all sorts of tedious people (primarily on the left) lecturing and scolding and hectoring the rest of us about White Sheep Privilege.
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