Get right back on that horse...

Though our grief at losing Odetta was huge, Goldie's was boundless. For the first time in her life, she was alone. Flockless. Abandoned. Bereft.
She paced and paced, crying endlessly for her lost friend. She blatted until she was hoarse, and kept right on blatting.
Something had to be done, before she lost her mind. Or we lost ours, watching her.
We made some phone calls. "We need a sheep. Any sheep. If you don't have any to sell, could you rent us one?"
The nice lady we bought Goldie from came to our rescue. She had two little wethers, one black and one cream and brown, last spring's lambs, that we could pick one from.
"Is now a good time?" She told us to come on up.
So off we tootled in my little Forrester, to get a sheep to ease some broken hearts.
I thought we would end up with the black one (after all, owning a black Shetland was our heart's desire), but when we went up to the fence to look at them, the little cream and brown guy came running up to us, as if he'd been waiting all his life for us to show up.
It was love at first sight. He was so sweet and so friendly - just the sort of influence we needed for our skittish little Goldie.
Here he is in the back of the Forrester:

But wait. See something in the left side of that last picture?


The nice lady overheard me commenting to Madman that I was definitely happy with the one we'd picked, but it was funny that we weren't ending up with the black one. We got to talking with her, and explained that the whole reason we'd gotten the sheep in the first place was because we'd seen an ad for a black Shetland ewe. She had a black ewe lamb that she hadn't thought about selling - it had come up to the fence to be fussed over, too, while we were petting our little guy. One thing led to another. We somehow went from asking her to please call us if she decided to sell, to loading the little gal into the car.
We went for one sheep, and came home with two.
First here's our new little guy - we named him Merlin.
Who could resist that face? His fleece is all shades of cream and brown, with some gray thrown in just for fun. And though he's only a few months old, the fleece is already 4" long. He's a fluffy fluffy boy castrato.

And he has cute little horns growing!

And here's our new little girl. We're calling her Onyx. Though not as fluffy as Merlin, she's still pretty fuzzy. She's actually 3/4 Shetland and 1/4 Cotswold, though she has the look of the Shetland.
Here's our new flock.


Goldie still occasionally whacks them with her head - "You're not Odetta!!" - but we think they'll settle in together over the next few days.

We'll all continue to miss Odetta - I especially miss her kisses - but the new babies will help our hearts to heal.
At least Goldie has stopped crying. Madman and I are working on it.