They’re gone. Larry and Tony, my two Suffolk neutered-ram sheep, are gone to a new home in Albuquerque’s South Valley. The buyer came Monday evening just before dark. I helped him load the two “guys” into his livestock trailer and said good-bye to my double introduction to the world of sheep.

Larry and Tony were part of my twice-daily feeding routine at Las Golondrinas for more than a year, coming to us as two-month-old lambs back in October, 2008. Grub is good from the Harvill feed bin so the “guys” grew into strapping, hulk sheep, Larry, the larger of the two, weighing close to 150 pounds.

They were weed-eating machines–without fossil fuel fumes or noise–and they spent their days ‘mowing’ my ditch bank and fence line.

They were consummate weed-eaters, but Larry was also an inveterate butt-head. I knew I had a problem with him the first time he surprised me with a head butt. Suffolk sheep are a polled breed (no horns), but that does not mean their butting lacks a whallop! At 150 pounds, Larry turned out to be a mutton linebacker with talent for ‘hitting’ and hitting hard.

A squirt bottle of vinegar was temporarily effective. Larry kept his distance … but so did everyone else down-wind from me after carrying that vinegar bottle in my jacket pocket! Shovel persuasion helped but I think whacking him on the head was merely tackling-machine practice to Larry. His ‘ram’ tactics did not stop.

When he caught me full bore from behind in the corral as I carried bowls of grain to the barn I knew I had to take action to protect myself. He hit me in the back without warning, knocking me down and sending the grain bowls flying. None of the animals got grain that night as I limped back to the house for ice packs on my back.

Larry wasn’t vicious. He just had to butt the rear-end of the hand that fed him! I like eager eaters and dislike picky ones, animal or human, and Larry was my eager eater. So eager, in fact, that for me to delay his feed bowl meant barnyard ‘ram’-ifications.

But more than finicky eaters, I hate situational vulnerability where I’m constantly looking over my shoulder in fear. After getting knocked down from behind and coping with consequent back pain, my feeding routine took on anxiety and defensiveness unknown earlier in my corral rounds. Years ago I had an academic department supervisor that ‘Larry-ed’ me during turf wars on a college campus. I grew to hate him and that situation because he was never frontal and open with his dislikes and grudges but cunning behind my back seeking a “gotcha” maneuver to blind-side the unwary. I suppose Larry had ‘Dr. Ball’ written all over him in his talent for back-side attacks, so my barn yard butt-head inherited some garbage with someone else’s name on it. Anyway, I posted an ad on our local Craigslist and a buyer quickly phoned.

I sold Larry and Tony as a pair because they were always inseparable. Where one went, the other went, too. The only times they ever bleated were rare occasions when Tony thought he was alone. His distress cries brought answer from Larry and the two of them quickly got back together again. Tony, however, was never aggressive in any way; only Larry.

Funny how much you miss a problem child when they’re gone. The kid you worry over, lose sleep over, despair for; the one who is your “black sheep” turns out to be precisely the one whose absence leaves the largest empty space in your heart.

My feeding routines are safe now. So safe and predictable, in fact, they’re almost boring. I’m not looking over my shoulder, it’s true. But I’m also missing my ‘black sheep’ who brought a measure of wildness into my world.

There’s a life parable somewhere in this for me. Humans spend a great deal of planning and effort aspiring to god-like omnipotent control. But, you know what? I’m not so sure divine invulnerability is virtue. What if the true human ideal is not Eden, but Post-Eden? What if getting knocked on our butt at Eden’s gates but then courageously pilgriming on in vulnerability and banishment is the true story of Great Heart? Do you suppose, God, too, missed Lucifer, the primordial ‘butt-head,’ after casting him out of heaven?

I know this. I miss Larry–sore back and all. Maybe an Eden quest for my Las Golondrinas barnyard is a backwards vision. Perhaps the true end of life is not innocence but gaining and transmitting wisdom. But the hard truth is, innocence is not wise and wisdom cannot be innocent. Larrys and Lucifers and butt-heads are necessary to make us leave childhood behind and grow up into wisdom for living.

I’m not sure what God learned after he cast Lucifer out of heaven. I’m learning life sanitized and risk-free and ‘black-sheepless’ isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Joseph Harvill, publisher Great Scots Magazine