...........Here we tell short sheep stories with a little wit and occasional pearls of wisdom. This area will be changed on a fairly regular basis. The pictures are copyrighted, please do not use them.

.........There is a link at the bottom of the page to go back to the previous tales...............This story written Nov., 1997

...#6 Chris

Quick, what is the color of the average sheep's eye?

O.K. give yourself one sheep tale point if you answered..... brown, two sheep tale points if you answered..... yellowish brown.

Christibah (Chris) is a pure blood Navajo-Churro and she has the strangest colored eyes. Most generally they are a pale gray, sometimes they are "cloudy sky, blue", sometimes they look like blue-gray water. But then, Chris is a little strange anyway.

When Chris first lambed, she took her lambs out to the tall grass in the pasture and hid them. She hid them from us, she hid them from the other sheep. Jean watched with amazement as Chris would hide her babies, move away from them to graze, going to them only long enough to nurse them. When evening came, Chris would gather her little ones close to her side, and bring them up to the barn where she would hide them in a corner for the night sometimes covering them with straw. In the morning, while the others were eating at the feeder, Chris would head for the pasture to hide her babies, returning a little later to get her share of the hay.

Jean was dumbfounded when she realized that this sheep was acting just like a wild deer with fawns, hiding them for their protection.

Navajo-Churros will surprise you. Sometimes the basic instinctual survival traits will suddenly surface, and remind you that these were a sheep that were born of hardship and necessity. Jean's "real sheep" (not Churros), when faced with a pasture covered with snow, just stand and look at each other, waiting for someone to come with a snow-blower to uncover it. The Churros get busy and start digging.

As Chris's lambs grew, she finally deemed it safe to be with the other sheep, but would not allow the lambs to play with or even associate with any of the other lambs. How does a mother ewe control little rambunctious lambs? I have no idea, she just does!

There comes a point in every lamb's childhood (lambhood?), both Churro and "real sheep" alike, when the lambs rebel against the parental authority, and they gang together and play. Much to the consternation of the mother, (occasionally much to the relief of the mother), the little one's have developed a mind of their own, and they explode with pent up energy in a frenzy of playing tag, or just running for the sheer joy of running.

When this finally happens to Chris's lambs, she tries for a couple of days to regain control, and finally accepts the fact that they are growing up. From then on, she and they are once again members of the flock.

Chris's strange lambing behavior of hiding her lambs continued the next year, and then she quit hiding her lambs, but even now at the ripe age of 8 still holds her lambs with a control more intense than any of the other ewes.

Navajo-Churros are excellent, fiercely protective mothers. To survive as a species they have had to be.

This is "Chris" with her pale sad eyes

You can click on these numbers to continue, or use the pink buttons at the top of the page, or the *Jump links* that are below, to go somewhere else.

#1."Me-sis" #2. "Gem" #3. Short History #4. Stupid? #5. Rule #1 #6. Chris #7. Leonard #8 Lamb Wave #9. You know...when, #10. "Wimps" #11. "Fidget" #12. Invisible sheep #13. "Fraidy" #14. Words

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