hm. i dont know if there is anyone here who has ever washed a sheep. if so, you can commiserate. in preparation for tomorrow's sheep festival, isa enlisted nicole, claudio, angela and myself to complete this task. she gave us our instructions (vague: "lavate le pecore"), added a bit-too-sweet salutation ("bon divertimente!"), and scampered off. so. we constructed a fence out of crates, got the hose and some brushes, and asked as nicely as we could for the first candidate to please step up. it was the look on that first, maybe-actually-not-as-stupid-as-we-thought little sheep that sealed the knowledge of our fate. the look seemed to say "yeah fuckin' right, dudes", and the games began. sheep wrestling should be a sport, by god. those buggers are strong! the combination of their strength, size, the mud, the faulty fence, and our naivete and good-will-toward-all-of gods-creatures approach to coaxing them into the pen just turned the whole event into a massive, dirty, completely insane mess ("un casino", in italiano). ended up grabbing at their legs and literally dragging them, one by one, with that sort of strength that comes only in moments of desperate need, into the pen, where we tried this weird dance of washing-hugging-chasing-cooing-rinsing each and every one. am now bruised and battered, kicked and filthy, covered in the residue of more sheep feces then is in any way hygenic (have showered, of course, but i can still feel it!), exhausted, and at my wits end with the animals today. the others have gone to pascolo. after this mornings festivities, and then the super fun bath-time episode, and the milking right afterwards of 50 completely panicked animals, i'm through. they better win an award for prettiest or i dont know what. also might need a tetnis shot, as one of the sheep rocketed itself at me, causing me to fall directly into a spiky fence, piercing my back. anyway. one day this will be funny.
oh, but angela got some pictures of me milking (yesterday, not today, so i look sweeter), and ill have her post them asap.