I was never sure what exactly they were eating since it's so dry until I came home the other night and found about 300 of them being herded out of our yard.
Yep, imagine my surprise when I pulled in to the driveway just in time to see a herd running and stampeding their way off our property. Of course, they took the route right through the truffle farm, which they had apparently already grazed. That's right, the herd got through the herder's fencing and onto the truffle farm. In case you were wondering, this is what a two year old hazelnut tree looks like after a few sheep have had their way with it:
No leaves, no tree tube, just a twig sticking out of the ground. Not cool, sheep, not cool.They didn't actually get all the trees. About 30 are MIA completely, and another 81 look like the example above. They also trampled the irrigation lines so each has to be reset, destroyed about half the tubes and stakes, and generally terrorized the place in no particular order:
Seeing as how I was the only witness to the fleeing herd and had just seen CSI: Rural Communities Edition, I spent the next morning assessing damage and collecting evidence. First, I got the hoofprints in the driveway:
And still some more hoofprints showing the path of the exodus toward the homestead:
And then more distinctive prints near a missing tree:
And a few pictures of the rest of my non-truffle crops having been thoughtfully pruned to a height of about four feet. There will be no Christmas jam this year folks:
After completing the investigation I filed what may be the first ever "sheep ate my truffle trees" report in North America with local authorities. I'm not sure the deputy understood the gravity of the situation or the fact that he was making truffle history but at least he took the report and it is now probably on the bulletin board at the local sheriff's office next to the extraordinary report of the man who robbed the Circle K with a machete.I have the phone number of one of the non-English speaking shepherds, the one who was no doubt asleep on the job when said sheep flocked to the estate and trampled it for hours on end. I intend to find the owner and send him a bill for the 111 damages trees, irrigation repair and replacement costs, and damages to my vegetables and fruit around the house. No, they don't know I'm a lawyer. They just think I'm a crazy pregnant woman babbling about expensive mushrooms.
Baaaaad sheep.
2 comments:
Mrs. McQ: You may not love sheep - and in fact may hate them (after this reading, for at *least* one good reason!) - but IIIIIIII looooove them, having raised them for wool, market and breeding stock my whole life until I was 20 or twenty-one. I can tell you this for shore: fresh lamb is yummy yummy yummy like no other red meat.
I may be telling you something you already know (forgive me if I am), but ... If you know any Spanish or Portuguese (or whatever your current herders speak) I would go to them asking who they herd for (or try to read the brand and look it up on the internet ... could be the Tejon Ranch??)then call the rancher with a figure of your monetary loss and request similar value of stock in return. If they give you livestock (insist on LAMBS; not breeding stock, ewes, rams or anything else ... it'll taste like mutton, which is *DISGUSTING*), you'll need to either slaughter the stock yourself (it's easy if you've never done it) or find someone to do it for you and take the carcass to to a butcher (I used to have a lot of local contacts, but the Tehachapi High School FFA advisor could hook you up or I could probably find you someplace in town or in Bakersfield), then deep freeze immediately. Then you, McQ and Baby McQ would be totally pimped-out for a long time. Yummmmm-EEEeeey!!
Could be a good payout for your loss...??
Hmmmm...As tempting as slaughtering lambs and eating them sounds, I think I'll ask for cold, hard cash. Then maybe I'll buy some chianti and fava beans instead...
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