Dearest, Darlingest Sheep:
It's a little difficult to say this. Sometimes words just aren't enough, but for now it will have to do. Dear, beautiful, fluffy sheep... I love you. I do, honestly! I know you might not believe me, because somehow in Scotland they take you all for granted (maybe because there are sheep almost everywhere...), and they don't seem to appreciate you the way you deserve, but this New Yorker sees you in a way the silly locals just don't. I love your fluffy tails, lopped or long or in between, and I love the way your silky black ears swivel at my approach. I love the way your little paws (yes, I know they are technically hooves, but somehow paws is cuter) clip along over the peat, and I love the way your little dark faces half disappear into the long grass when you graze. I love the way your hoarse Baaaahs sound like alarms, mama ewes, when I come too close to your babies, and I love the way tiny droplets of water catch in the thickness of your fuzzy coats when it begins to rain. The way you stare at us, bold and challenging and unafraid, might be attributed to stupidity by lesser people, but I know better, and your curiosity is charming. I wonder what the world looks like through your yellow eyes, and whether you appreciate the aesthetic contrast of your snowy flanks against the green of Scotland's hills. Dearest, loveliest sheep, you are simply too cute for words.
Some people, dear sheep, place the blame for the changes in the highlands in the 18th century at your delicate feet. You see, the small crofts of the common folk were converted into large farms by the landlords who wanted more profit from their property, and that meant that people were kicked out and replaced with your ruminant ancestors, oh fuzzy ones. In fact, 1792 was called the Year of the Sheep because there were so many of your distant kin brought into the Highlands, showing that the land owners really did not regard their tenants well at all, though they did not take you for granted it seems... Not fair for people to blame you though, is it? How on earth anyone could be angry with such adorable personifications of quadrupedal innocence, I cannot imagine. Don't take it too much to heart, dearest sheep - you know that I love you.
Up on the Carloway crags about the Blackhouse village, your sure-footedness was proven as you leapt lightly over bogs that pulled at my boots and rocks slippery with peat mud. I only wish you had been trotting toward us, instead of away. Your fluffy hindquarters with their splashes of identifying paint receding into the distant made my heart ache - I need you in my life, dear sheep! If only you little lambs were trusting enough to let me pet your wooly sides and scratch between your knobby little horns, and feed you more of that emerald clover you seem to like so much... Alas, it was not to be. But though we must be parted now, dear sheep, I hold you in my heart forever, never to be replaced. May your creamy coats grow thick to furnish many a tweed loom, and may the banks and braes of Lewis be forever graced with your presence.
Love,
Carly
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