From The Department Of...

In what is looking like the summer that will never end, Gladys is not well and I had to take her to the vet last week.  If you are asking yourself how one takes a chicken to the vet, if your chicken is Gladys, you just put a towel down on the front seat and off you go.

"We're going where?!?"

Here is a short video as we headed down the lane.

Once she got used to the movement, she settled down on the edge of the seat and just rode along like she did it every day, looking around the car, out the window, at me, out the window...

Taking Gladys to the vet seems like it should be an entire story all on it's own, but no, there is a whole 'nuther chapter in "This Could Only Happen To Me."  As we were cruising down the bypass, headed home, I spotted a tiny sheep on the side of the road.  Screeeech!

???

After being abandoned on the side of the road since, I'm guessing, the end of July and then picked up and hung on a road side marker, this poor little sheep can only be thinking "What now?", looking up a big chicken who's just been to the vet and had her car ride home interrupted.

The reason I'm guessing she's been out there since late July is the county fair ribbon tied around her arm.

Is this not the saddest little sheep you've ever seen?  

Three or four washes later and she has a whole new lease on life :-).

"Someone loves me and is going to give me a good home :-)"

So what is this little sheep's story?  How did she end up on the side of the road?  Was it purely an accident?  Maybe a toddler tossed her out the window?  A tired parent set it on the roof and forgot it?  Is someone looking for her?  Or is that third place ribbon a clue?  

She looks like she might have been made by a child as a 4-H project.  Was her maker disappointed by a third place ribbon?  Disappointed enough to throw her away?  There is no way to know for sure, but in the off chance that this is what happened, there are a few things I'd like to say to that child.

Well, I'd like to say something about not being a bad sport and would she have been more valued with a blue ribbon and what that might say about a person...but I'm going to leave that be.   

What I am going to say is:  Hey, you made a stuffed sheep toy.  A sheep toy that looked enough like a sheep that I spotted it out of the corner of my eye at 40 miles an hour.  A sheep toy that someone loves and is enjoying playing with.  You made something of value.  Be proud of that!  

"The crazy chicken lady says I'm not the first little sheep she's found and rescued from the side of the road.  I think she's actually a crazy sheep lady!"

Speaking of chickens, Gladys is doing "okay" and while not out of the woods, she did boss around the crowing hen this evening so I'm taking that as a good sign.  I'll keep you posted.