Icelandic Sheep

Way back in 1988, after spending several months in France (where I was a migrant worker, picking strawberries and apricots — a unique experience and story for another time) and several weeks in England, I spent two days and nights in Iceland when my flight out of London was delayed because a bus load of Icelanders had been held up in traffic. This caused me to miss my connecting flight back to the states and allowed me to spend a couple of days in Iceland. Iceland Air — a great, low cost airline and the only airline flying to and from Iceland — was kind enough to house and feed me (lots of fish!) in a nice Reykjavik hotel until the next flight was bound for America. This is when I became enamored of Icelandic sheep.

They were everywhere outside the city, roaming freely about the landscape that looked like the moon with scant, scrubby vegetation. I called them “rasta sheep” because of their long wool that resembled dreadlocks. They were unlike any sheep I’d seen before: multi-colored, plump bodies on spindly legs, nothing like the off-white American sheep my grandparents raised or one normally sees in pictures of sheep.

So now, years later, having moved to a 13 acre place in the country with about 5 acres of pasture and roughly 7 acres of woods, I have a few of these calm, curious, hardy creatures.

Published by joesmithreally

Slipped away from increasingly stressful, disordered, random, and violent urban life after 3 decades to live in peace and attempt to start and steward a small farm.

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