Photos by Sue Weaver
Meet Othello , the fresh memberof the kinsperson .
Yesterday was my Mom ’s 63rd natal day . Boy , is she old ! Dad thinks so too , so to make her feel better , he got her an supererogatory - particular present this year .
See , a long , long time ago in 1973 , Mom ’s British penpal send her a book calledBritish Sheep Breeds ; Their Wool and its exercise . It ’s what you call a coffee table record book with lashings of bragging , pretty pictures of beautiful sheep . Mom called it her “ Wish Book , ” but several breeds stick out out among the quietus .
Her pet was a breed of sheep call Scottish Blackface , also called “ Blackies ” by people who enhance them .
They have long , flowing , white fleece coiffe off by grownup horns and black faces and legs splotched with white . When Mom tell her English admirer ( who evoke sheep ) that it was her favorite and she wanted some , her ally sound out , “ They ’re waste and derail like stags ! Get something quiet like Southdowns or Hampshires . ”
But you sleep together my mom , she had Blackies on her judgment . Even when she discovered there are n’t many in North America and she got Classic Cheviots instead , she hold on on wanting those splotch - face sheep .
Then when she wroteHobby Farms Sheep ; Small - musical scale Sheep Keeping for Pleasure and Profit , she in reality get to fill some Scottish Blackface sheep . And when she read “ Three Bags Full ; a Sheep Detective Story , ” she love she want a ewe just like Zora ( read my blog entrance about“Mom ’s Favorite Book”to read about Zora , the sheep of the abyss ) .
So , a few month ago she say to Dad , “ I really want a Scottish Blackface ewe before I die . ” That ’s when Dad saw his chance to make Mom ’s birthday stand out above all the residue . He went online and found Blackie breedersGraham and Margaret Phillipson of Littledale , a sheep farm and English - way bed - and - breakfast in Richland Center , Wis.
Then he address Mom ’s safe friend and babe - in - sheep , Lori Olson of Boscobel , Wis. , and asked if she ’d visit Mom for her birthday and bring along a Elia . She did ! She brought it in an airline carrier in the back of her railcar and when Mom find out the Charles Lamb she intend , “ Now I have my Zora ! ”
But it ’s respectable . Dad buy Mom a random memory dear instead of a ewe . Now they ’re going to breed Scottish Blackface in a very small way .
Mom key out her Elia Othello , after Othello in “ Three Bags Full . ” Now Mom ’s walking around with a great big smiling on her face . She says this was her best birthday EVER !
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