Sheep, Chaos and Eleven Days

It has been a full day at the old police station and I am going to tell you about all of it.

First, the writing update, because some of us are allegedly professional: the monthly blog posts for Tara and K.S. Buckley are done, Bella has a new post in the world, and there are eleven days until Isolated hits the market. Eleven. I am choosing to feel good about this rather than spiral, and I am succeeding approximately sixty percent of the time, which I consider a passing grade under the circumstances.

Now. The weather.

Today’s rain was not yesterday’s rain. Yesterday’s rain had conviction. Yesterday’s rain knew what it was doing and committed to it, offensively and without apology. Today’s rain was something altogether more Tasmanian — that particular coastal mist that means well, genuinely means well, but cannot find it within itself to either stop or be real rain. It is not enough to justify staying inside. It is not enough to require an umbrella. It is exactly enough to ensure that anyone who ventures outdoors comes back damp in that slow, creeping way that takes you a while to notice and longer to fix.

It is also, as I discovered during my outside adventures, exactly enough to render certain shoes entirely decorative.

I spent most of the afternoon feeling like I was on roller skates. Well-lubed roller skates. The kind with no brakes and an opinion about where you’re going regardless of your own preference on the matter. I remained upright for most of it through a combination of core strength and dignity I didn’t know I had. The mud had other ideas on at least one occasion and I will leave it at that.

And then there are the sheep.

We have seven of them at present, using our yard as what I can only describe as a bed and breakfast. Temporary guests. Passing through. Absolutely delighted with the accommodations, or so I assumed right up until this afternoon when they let themselves through one of the gates — by themselves, without assistance, apparently having worked out the latch through a combination of curiosity and structural disrespect — and went on an adventure of their own devising.

We chased them around for a bit. On the aforementioned well-lubed roller skates. I will not go into further detail. What matters is that order has been restored and the gate situation has been reconsidered.

The poultry watched the entire event with what I can only describe as tremendous satisfaction. They have been cooped up and fenced in and generally managed for weeks and watching someone else get chased around the property for a change clearly brought them great joy. I have no notes. I would have done the same.

And then there is braincell number two.

Big. Floofy. Ginger. Magnificently, implausibly fluffy in the way that suggests he may be approximately forty percent more cat than is strictly necessary. He has discovered the sheep and is processing this information in real time — oscillating between complete fascination and barely contained terror with the frequency of someone who cannot commit to either response but refuses to leave the situation. He cannot look away. He also cannot go any closer. He is simply there, enormous and fluffy and vibrating with conflicting feelings about hoofed things.

And then one of the sheep bleated.

I want to be precise about what happened next because it deserves accurate documentation. He did not simply startle. He did not flinch or skitter or perform the standard surprised cat retreat. What he did was something that can only be described as an almost-backflip — a full-body reversal of opinion executed at considerable speed, all four limbs briefly expressing different views about which direction to go, his magnificent floof temporarily achieving a volume I did not know was possible. He was, for one glorious moment, a ginger explosion of secondhand thoughts about sheep.

He recovered his dignity. Eventually. He would like you to know he was never frightened. He was simply reassessing.

The sheep were unbothered.

I find all of this extremely relatable.

Eleven days.

🖤 🏒