Charlie

Besides being lawyers and renting out office and apartment space, the Screnocks have a farm. When Joe was in school he had a sheep for a 4-H project, and he decided he would raise sheep on the side as a retirement hedge or something. He has about 30 ewes. When they lamb, sometimes they have triplets, but the ewes are only equipped to feed two. So they abandon the weakest of the lambs. This means that we wind up with a lamb in our office for a while. Earlier in the year it was Bella, and lately it has been Charlie. Charlie is a pretty dark lamb. Maybe his mom knew he was going to be the black sheep of the family. At any rate, he has grown fast and started jumping out of the large rubber tub they kept him in at the office. Now he is in a sort of baby playpen. He no longer has to be bottle fed, but he b-a-a-a-s whenever anyone walks by because he wants to be held.

People on the telephone keep asking me if we have a baby in here. When I explain that it is a lamb, there is usually a longish pause.

What can I say? It's rural America.