Published: August 21, 2008 09:26 am         

Zombie sheep — beware!

I’d been sprawled on the couch, watching the Olympic swimming, contrasting the athletes’ grace, skill, and stamina with my own splashand- splatter style at the Clark Center. Suddenly I heard the back door slam and Anne’s voice at a shout. “Get out back quick!

You’ve got to move the truck! The sheep are eating it!“ “What?” I presumed to say. She was in the living room now. “The sheep are eating the pickup! Get it out of the field!” Further dialog was pointless. I headed out back at my present version of full speed ahead.

The truck in peril is a 1996 Ford 150. I’d bought it used from Danny Van Dusen; he’s a legend around here for meticulous care of his rolling stock.

For years it has been a great truck for hauling sheep, pigs, turkeys, and hay. I especially enjoyed the yearly round trip to pick up the rent-a-ram and bring him back for a month’s frolic with our ewes.

But, as Ford pickups so often do, around its 10th birthday the truck began to show rust. A lot of it. In fact it began to look really shabby. I was embarrassed to wave at Danny Van Dusen when we passed on the road. And the rust wasn’t limited to the body. The last time I had it at Staffin’s for service, Mike still had it on the lift when I went to pick it up. “Come under here, Jim,” he said, beckoning.

“The old girl’s in sad shape,” he said, pointing out rust on the chassis, stem to stern. By way of dramatizing his statement, Mike reached up and closed his fist on a sleeve sheathing a rod. The sleeve crumbled down his forearm in powder.

“I’d watch out for potholes,” said Mike. “You don’t want to drop the motor in the road.”

The “old girl” still ran just fine; but after Mike’s warning about the potholes, I cut back to only essential use. And I literally put the pickup out to pasture, giving its bay in our garage to our Prius and parking the truck in our west field. It was to that field I was now lumbering, and what I saw there stopped me dead just outside the gate. Three ewes and five lambs had the truck surrounded; and indeed they were eating it, tearing long strips of rusted metal off the fenders. I saw Tess rip herself a serving as I stood there. She stood looking at me, munching meditatively. The effect was chilling. As a lamb, Tess had been cute as an Ewok; but full grown, with black horns curving back like scimitars, she more resembles one of those goat-shaped demons in Bosch’s nightmare paintings. And munching on a mouthful of truck, she was even scarier.

I charged into the field, waving my arms, trying to drive the flock back toward the adjoining field. They’d disperse, baaing, but then circle behind me and attack the truck again. What had happened to my docile flock, satisfied to munch the grass? Overnight, they’d turned into zombie sheep, and I imagined them finishing off the truck, attacking the 10- foot-wide gate, grinding through its tubular steel like so many Saws-Alls, then rushing the hapless Prius. I did get them into the back field and slammed another gate behind them. The sheep gathered behind it, still baaing and staring at the truck. I headed back to the house to study my sheep books. The answer was right there. Sheep require a number of trace elements that are normally drawn from the soil and into the grasses. But Otsego County soil is notably thin on some of those elements, especially selenium.

My sheep had found a replacement for the missing elements. They were supplementing their diet with rusty truck.

Off the Agway I went, and back I came with a 50-pound bag of mixed minerals. I filled a pan with the gritty stuff and put it in their shed. They smelled the mixture as soon as I opened the bag, and all blundered into the shed, shouldering one another to get at that pan.

The truck was forgotten, but I did move it out of the pasture, just for safety’s sake. Who knows? They could turn zombie again, finish off the truck, demolish the steel gate, and then march, wild-eyed, on the garage or even the house.

They’ve shaken me, you see, these seemingly gentle beasts. I’m half expecting nightmares of a staring zombie Tess, fire-eyed and sharp of horn. Holding a chunk of truck between grinning teeth, she’ll be sizing me up for trace elements.

Find out about Jim Atwell’s book, “From Fly Creek — Celebrating Life in Leatherstocking Country,” at www. JimAtwell.com.