At Home on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [34]
“What about the barn?” Noah asked.
Lindsay looked at him. “There’s no barn in the paintings.”
“Right,” he said.
“Oh!” Bridget exclaimed suddenly. “But you can see the barn—or a part of it—in this view of the sheep pasture today!”
“Which means these must have been painted before the barn was built.” Cici turned to Ida Mae, who was wiping down the arched frame of the alcove with a damp cloth. “Ida Mae, do you know when—”
Ida Mae spoke before she could finish. “You’re gonna have to repaint this trim.”
Lindsay said, “The artist might have left it out for aesthetic purposes.”
“I’ll paint it back in for you,” Noah volunteered. “Wouldn’t charge you more than fifty dollars. For each one, of course.”
Cici said quickly, “Thank you, Noah, but I think we’d better leave it the way it is.”
And Lindsay added, “After all, you wouldn’t want someone else to come behind you and add something to one of your paintings, would you?”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind. Especially if I was dead. Twenty-five,” he offered. “Apiece.”
“Thank you, Noah,” Bridget said firmly, “but no. Besides, you were going to finish planting the potato eyes this morning.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself. But if the painting ain’t worth nothing, stands to reason I can’t mess it up.”
“Potatoes?” insisted Bridget.
Hands in pockets, he ambled off.
“And we’ve got sheep to shear,” Lori declared, rubbing her hands together in anticipation. “Today’s the day!”
Lori had determined, from all her reading, that the Ladybug Farm sheep were Irish in origin, and so declared there could be no more appropriate day to begin Project Sheep Shear than St. Patrick’s Day. And even though Bridget was not quite as excited to begin what she suspected would be a dirty and exhausting task, she had to admit that having the patron saint of their flock’s homeland on their side was not a bad idea.
“It’s too early to be shearin’ sheep,” Ida Mae warned dourly. “You might as well go ahead and use the mutton for your Irish stew, if that’s what you’ve a mind on.”
“Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to wait a few weeks.”
“Aunt Bridget,” Lori insisted, barely suppressing an eye roll. “The market.”
“Right,” Bridget said. “Apparently March is a hot market for wool around here,” she explained to the others. “April, not so much.”
“So let’s go!” Lori said, heading for the door.
Cici caught Bridget’s arm as she turned to go, a hint of alarm in her eyes. “You’re not really going to let Lori near those sheep with a pair of shears, are you?”
“Of course not,” she assured her, with a small smile. ”Farley’s coming to help.”
Lori had seen a program on the Discovery Channel in which a sheepdog lined up an entire flock of sheep outside a dipping shed, then herded the queue into the shed, up a ramp, and into an automated harness device, which clamped each sheep between its jaws and dipped it in a vat of insecticide. The sheep then scampered up another ramp and down the other side, out into the freedom of the sunny pasture to dry off.
Bridget assured her that Ladybug Farm was very far removed from the Discovery Channel, and while Rebel was in fact a competent sheepdog who had no trouble moving the sheep from pasture to pasture, he was unlikely to be able to persuade twenty-five sheep to climb single file up a ramp and into a vat of sheep dip.
They had spent a good deal of time discussing the pros and cons of the sheep-dipping process, and finally decided upon a more organic approach. Chemicals were dangerous, and smelly, and would cling to the wool for days, even weeks. They couldn’t sell wool that reeked of pesticides. Besides, what was better for cleaning and disinfecting than good old-fashioned soap and water?
To obtain the optimal softness and fluffiness from the wool, they decided on baby shampoo. Bridget bought a half dozen bottles of it at the Dollar Store.
The plan was simple. They spread out a ten-by-ten tarp on the ground outside the barn door, where each sheep would be shampooed and then turned