Sheeps

Back in the fifty's there was hardly a hillside in Garberville that you couldn't find sheep on. I remember the newcomers calling them sheeps. That was one thing that we were right about, it isn't sheeps it's sheep. Mark one up for our side!

I remember that the ranchers talked about the fact that they didn’t have much of a problem with Eagles, but there were depredation problems, and Eagles did carry away some lambs, especially the newborns. The ranchers would shoot any Eagle that they could get a shot at in lambing season. A one-lamb loss was still a one-lamb loss, and a bullet was cheaper than the lamb. When they would shoot a bald Eagle, they would take their hats of and say “God Bless America”. Then they would give it a proper burial, to get rid of the evidence.

This is a true story:

Back in the early sixty’s my dad owned the honky-tonk logger bar in Briceland and one of the local “Old Indians” came in, sat down, and ordered a beer, it was in the fall of the year, and the weather was kinda’ tenuous, and the wind was blustering. My dad said, I'll buy you a beer if you can tell me what the weather is gonna' do". The Old Indian said, “It’s gonna’ rain.” My dad said; “How do you know that?” He said, “The sheep’s all bunched up, and when the animals gather in herds it means it’s gonna” rain.” My Dad being a old country boy himself, agreed that when the animals gather around each other it means it’s gonna’ storm. So he looks out the window to the pasture across the street and there was one sheep standing there. The old Indian was hiding his grin behind his beer mug.