Oscar Update Update

Well, Oscar is 10 days old now. He is also part of the family. It turns out my wife is not allergic to him. She is very susceptible to laryngitis, paharyngitis, Bronchitis, and a few other 'itises. So Oscar is staying. I am actually thinking about keeping him. I took him to the Farm School at our local High School today for a checkup. He was a hit. Two HS students asked if they could take him home. The supervisor told me he looks fantastic. We can also enter him in our local agricultural shows, and they would like to use him to breed their ewes that they have at a more rural location than the High School. They also have a shearing facility at the school. They probably will shear him in exchange for the wool. He got his eyes sprayed for conjunctivitis again (so he looks like a blue masked racoon now) and he is starting on baby pellets now. He likes them but he is a bit of a sloppy eater.

I have done some research on Merinos. Originating in Spain, they were so highly valued by the Spanish that taking them out of the country was a capital crime. The first Merinos exported were sent as a gift to the king of England. Closer to home, a single Merino Ram sold for $485,000 in New South Wales. Merinos have some of the finest wool in the world. There was some information about microns and stuff that I didn't really understand. But Oscar is like a living blanket, so I guess that means he has high quality wool.

There is a lot of talk about how sheep are dumb. Not true. Oscar is house trained...almost. He has a few accidents, but if he needs to go, he bleats at us in a certain tone of voice, and we put him into a box with a layer of straw and he does his business. The stereotype of dumb sheep is due to the fact that they have a herd mentality. If one or two sheep panic and run over a cliff, the rest of the herd will follow...a bit unfortunate for the ones caught in the middle looking at each other saying, 'where are we running tooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...." Sorry...that was a bad joke. He also has his hungry voice, his lonely voice, and his "where are you Kirsten?" voice. It has a distinct interrogative inflection to it.

So anyway, Oscar is doing well, and maybe even might pay a visit to the Wagin Woolarama next year. Wagin is a town in south west Western Australia that boasts a statue of the largest sheep in the world. A Merino Ram, by the way....and anatomically correct. This is a picture I took of The Ram with my daughter standing in front of it.