What a wild way to end the week. I was in Boston Friday for an appointment with my cardiologist, back in time for dinner with good friends last night. This morning I was headed east again (attending a lovely memorial service for my friend's mom). Having spent two days in the car bouncing back and forth on the Mass. Turnpike, I was looking forward to a little quiet time today. A chance to catch my breath, catch up on correspondence, write holiday cards and maybe bake some cookies. But that all went out the window this afternoon just as I was heading to the barn for chores.

A neighbor gave me a heads up that Crackerjack, our number one guard llama/ lamb nanny, was on the loose, along with a handful of sheep and both goats. It looks like frost was the culprit, causing one of the paddock gate posts to heave. Either the wind blew the gate open, or a certain clever goat discovered the latch was no longer latch-y. Sneaky critters.

Fortunately, our neighbor persuaded the sheep and goats go home. But we still had a llama on the lam. When I arrived Caitlyn (llama number two) was highly concerned to see her camelid counterpart, Crackerjack sauntering through the hayfield to the north. She and the rest of the flock watched the llama round up with keen interest. My neighbors and I positioned our cars – flashers on – to alert motorists. Cracker continued to amble up the field, pretending not to hear me when I called him.

 I'm lucky Cracker: 1. is such a sweet boy and 2. always thinks with his stomach. A grain pan was all it took to coax him back to the paddock. He did look a little sheep-ish about his foray. I spent the rest of the afternoon checking gates and adding safety chains until we can get the posts re-adjusted. 

Pssst. We have a new addition arriving at the farm this week! Stay tuned, and you'll soon know why we now really need to be on our toes about gates . . . 

And thank you everybody for spreading the word about our Sheep Shares CSA 2011 Give-away. You are tremendously kind. There's still time to  enter for a chance to win (drawing on Wednesday) and 2011 Shares available.