incredibly smart or ubelievably stupid?

For a brief moment I forgot my legs are still killing me and ran like a mad woman around the vegetable patch this morning, because one of the sheep got in. Again.

I'd left the 'gate' open while I picked some lettuce and Blackie headed on in right behind me, chomping frantically in an effort to consume as much as possible with each stolen mouthful. As I turned to scare her back out the 'gate', she panicked and ran further into the garden, diving around tomatoes and jumping over pumpkins, with a quick bite here and there on the way through.

We must have been quite the sight, both ducking and weaving around beneath the bird netting while I yelled 'get out! get out!' repeatedly and she bleated afearedly. Next thing I knew, Blackie was trying to dive through the chicken wire in the far corner of the garden, repeatedly stalling when the wire would give no more. Eventually she realised she would have to go back out the way she came in, so with a quick bite of silverbeet and beetroot on the way past, she ran across the patch and out into the yard.

Clive of course found the whole affair enormously entertaining. He watched Blackie's progress with great interest, seemingly trying to decide if it might be worth him coming in for a bit of a nibble himself.

As I set to repairing the increasingly torn and bedraggled chicken wire I started to wonder, was this a plan? A ploy by the sheep, cooked up overnight while their stomach's rumbled? (We've had almost no rain all month and the ground is little more than a dust bowl under the roving teeth of the sheep)

"OK Blackie... if we want to get into those juicy vegies, we have no option but to create an alternative path into them... so when she comes to get the lettuce in the morning (she always comes to get the lettuce in the morning), sneak in behind her, then run around, creating a bit of havoc before forming another entry into the garden... then we'll be set. She won't be able to keep us out."

"Oh Clive. You're incredible! I would never have thought of that. Of course she won't expect me to be so naughty since you're usually the one who steals from the vegie patch... she won't have a clue until I'm in there and have done the damage. We'll be set!"

Either that or she's one incredibly dumb sheep who was not thinking at all in her mad dash to freedom!

Whichever it is, smart or stupid, they both looked decidedly crestfallen when the vegie patch returned to it's rightful owners.

And incredibly only the tomatoes sustained a broken branch or two! We've also harvested 9 juicy cucumbers to date. Way to go!