(prompt: 'gather' 29/11/19)

There's this old expression, 'Don't worry about Joe staring off into space. He's just 'wool-gathering'. To the uninitiated, this does NOT mean Joe is a shearer. It means he's deep in thought. But not so for Rastus the ram when he bounced off the equally hard heads of our bulls. The way he looked, picking himself up from his several graceless somersaults and shaking himself off, he was simply gathering himself for the next head-on collision.

Had the sense been knocked out of him on one of the earliest duels? Was he just your basic 'headstrong' teenager, reckless as they come? Had he heard the expression 'head-banger' and misunderstood? In my most heady moments, I considered all of these. But when I was finally forced back to earth by the ever-practical 'Old McLarsen', my partner in crime, farming and Life in general, I was forced to admit the unavoidable truth. With his bull-fighting prowess (and after knocking me clean through a fence in a display of over-enthusiastic affection), Rastus now posed a real threat to our youngest son... a toddler. The time had come to part company with my woolly 'baby' (who was anything but that any more!).

I'd choked up many times when a farm animal I'd loved had needed to be sent to market. Rastus was just another. Wasn't he? Well, yes... and no. He had been my beloved little ram-lamb, and I had unwittingly set him on his single-minded career with our play-fights between my fist and his head. So funny, so cute. Mmm... until he grew up! Responsibility for this sad outcome weighed heavily on me as he was driven away to his unenviable end. Or so I thought and dreaded!

News returned to us within days. Rastus lived on - and would continue far into the foreseeable future!

"Huh?" we said, "But how? Wha-a-a-t?"

Apparently, on arrival at the saleyards, when all the other sheep rushed down the loading ramp, Rastus broke away and sidled up to the nearest stockman, nuzzling against the man's leg. Despite a trusty sheepdog and other stockmen's best efforts, Rastus continued breaking away from the 'aliens' (alias other sheep, Rastus being unsure if he was a human or a bull). Nothing would suffice but to join his 'tribe'.

In short order it was decided Rastus would make a perfect 'Judas' sheep due to his outstanding leadership and control-ability of other woolly characters. The 'Judas' sheep leads others to the beginning of their doom - being herded into pens for sale to...(well, in deference to the faint-hearted and vegans, perhaps we won't go there!). Rastus could be counted on to extricate himself through the thinnest wedge of a slightly opened gate to repeat the performance over and over. The marvellous result was the quiet, obedient way the other sheep followed him... trusting him... ohhh!!

To this day I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at this bizarre result.