The Sheep in the Front Row
I brought forty sheep to a community meeting by mistake, and they took every good seat in the Pueblo grange hall before the agenda started.
I have chaired the monthly community meeting at the grange hall near Pueblo for eleven years, and in all that time my greatest fear has been a tie vote on the bake sale. I did not once consider livestock. That was my error.
It was the last week of September and I was moving the flock to the lower pasture, a quarter mile down a county road that runs right past the hall. My border collie, Juniper, was at my side. I was running late. I had an agenda in one pocket and a thermos in the other, and I had decided I could do both jobs at once, which is the kind of decision that makes stories.
The back door of the hall was propped open for the evening heat. I will never know exactly what happened. I only know that when I looked up, forty sheep were walking calmly into a building full of folding chairs. They filed in as if they had been invited. The first ones took the front row. The rest filled the aisles, and a particularly confident ewe named Beatrice climbed onto the stage and stood next to the microphone.
Nobody screamed. In Pueblo County we are accustomed to surprises. Edna, the treasurer, who is eighty-four and sharp as a tack, said, 'Well, that is the best attendance we have had since the potluck.' She asked whether the sheep would be voting. I said I thought they would abstain. The sheep, to their credit, stayed completely quiet during the budget report, which is more than I can say for the humans.
We rearranged the agenda and finished the entire evening with the flock in the room. I have rarely seen a meeting run so smoothly. A few members told me afterward it was the first time they had been truly able to hear one another. Later I filed the whole thing away alongside the rural community stories I keep, and I told it to the crowd at farm.FM, who asked if the minutes were available. They are. Under 'Other Business,' Edna wrote, 'Sheep present.'
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