Answer to lnhammer

[tabouli]

lnhammer: Your thoughts on sheep, please?Sheep get a bad rap, culturally. All the stereotypes are about them being stupid creatures who mindlessly follow the flock and have no thoughts more interesting than cud and crud. How does the cheery gambolling lamb image dwindle so fast into witless wool-wearer? Lambs seem to get more credit for having minds of

Comments

[the_antichris]

You might be thinking of Shrek. He managed by hiding in caves to avoid the shearers and presumably the heat, such as it is in the South Island high country. I have a vague memory of a female sheep (named Fiona, obviously) getting away a few years later.

[hnpcc]

Herd mentality makes sense for sheep. They're not as dumb as you'd think, but they are herd animals through and through - animal ethics stipulates that you must have a group of four sheep in order to experiment on them so they're not alone. (I think, that's what I remember from doing the course twice anyway.)

I thought merino was always a much finer wool than, um, non-merino. Maybe it's a finer spinning process combined with a naturally thinner fibre.