August 25th 2013, Lebbeke, Flanders East
There are those who keep sheep and goats for a living, and those who do it as a hobby. We have aspirations to belong, within the coming months, to the latter category. Having some spare pasture that is just too much to pass my mowing machine each week, we are looking for an alternative that combines pleasure with utility. And sheep just are the perfect solution. They keep your lawn short, ask very little in return of extra attention and they are fun to watch. But being what we are, we are not satisfied of course with the traditional Flemish sheep. And, thanks again to this wonderful IT technology called Google, we ran into a breed of sheep that very much can be considered as an extra member of the family: the ouessant sheep, only kept for the mere fun of it, but once a source of warmth and food for the people living on the island with the same name at the coast of Bretagne, France. It is said to be the smallest of their kind in the world, and rather rare with a few thousands of them living in their only habitat in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
As by coincidence, last Sunday there was the yearly meeting of the association of Flemish raisers of goats and sheep. Guess where we went last Sunday?
Enjoy with me those adorable creatures. And becore you ask: no, the goats did not smell. We had the definite impression that all animals present to be evaluated on their pure race features had spent a couple of hours under a shower becore they performed.
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