Sheep on the Silver Screen

I honestly cannot remember the last time I sat in a movie theater to watch a movie.

I’m pretty sure it was before COVID, so at least six years?

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy movies. I enjoy them most when I can watch them on a cozy couch or recliner, snuggled up in comfy clothes with a handy pause button at my fingertips for snack and bathroom breaks, and the glorious luxury of closed captioning at my disposal. Oh, and the rewind button for those “wait, WHAT?” moments.

But a few weeks ago, someone asked me if I’d seen the preview for an upcoming sheep mystery movie.

Heavens to Betsy (and Eliza).

I hadn’t heard a whisper of such a thing, and I was already convinced I needed to get tickets. A mystery movie? With sheep? Sign me up!

Soon afterwards, I saw a preview and I was ready for someone to take my money. It has Emma Thompson in it. She could read a toothpaste advertisement, and I’d pay to hear it.

I don’t know when or where, but this is one I don’t think I’ll be able to wait to hit the streaming services to watch.

The preview of The Sheep Detectives shows Hugh Jackman, playing the sheep’s beloved shepherd, reading a mystery novel to his gathered flock. It’s apparently something he does every evening. He believes they’re following along and understanding every bit of it. The story goes on from there and I’m seriously looking forward to enjoying it at some point.

What already amuses me is the assumption that we should find the premise utterly ridiculous: that this shepherd’s flock would eagerly engage in the plot of a mystery novel.

Of course it’s absurd.

And yet, one of the wonderful things I’m learning from living with animals is that they ARE absurd. And their absurdity is exactly the sort of thing that inspires the imagination to come up with ridiculous stories.

I’ve written in other places about Georgiana, our head ewe. When I come to the paddock or stall, she approaches for a status update. She stands at my hip, I give her her due honors (she likes to be scratched right under the jawbone), and we chat about recent or upcoming developments. It’s a ritual.

Lizzy, one of the merino ewes, is a bit of a cranky bully. She especially dislikes small things darting around her feet. This includes Babydoll sheep. You can see the annoyance build on her face. The weight of outrage and insult to her dignity as her personal space is invaded and she slowly lowers her head closer and closer to the ground.

And then she snaps.

Dust and hay settle back to the ground, and the Babydoll regains her feet and wisely wanders off a few more yards. And Lizzy ponders whether she’s satisfied or needs to have another go.

Then there’s the temporary maternity ward. Pregnant Babydolls are also cranky. And Harriet, the merino lamb who was put with them when she started weaning, is absorbing the brunt of the crankiness. The other day she discovered a method of rising above it all, literally, by escaping on top of an iron bathtub.

Perhaps it’s due to a childhood heavily influenced by E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web and Trumpet of the Swan, or all the talking animals of C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, but I find it natural to imagine thoughts, motivations, and simple storylines in these behaviors. I greatly admire people who build those into full stories that entertain millions. I loved the movie Babe. I’m really looking forward to The Sheep Detectives.

Do you have a favorite animal movie or book?

Greg’s Got Questions

Thank you to those of you who participated in the last poll!

The winning question was:  Do you think a knitting version of Tournament of Champions would work? What could be done in 30 minutes? And what would the Randomizer categories be?

No. In the show’s time frame and format, absolutely not. And that’s because precisely nothing can be accomplished in 30 minutes. For Pete’s sake, it takes at least that long to pick out the right yarn for a project, assuming the project is chosen for you. If a contestant had to determine a pattern AND the choice of yarn? Forget about it.

And don’t get me started on gauge swatches.

Now, if you want to change the format so that the contestants have 2-3 weeks between each round, then I can see something like this working. And it could be fun.

Rather than Randomizer categories like Protein, Produce, Equipment, Style, and Wildcard, the Knitting Edition could have Garment (hat, mitten, sweater), Fiber (wool, cotton, acrylic), Weight (lace, fingering, worsted), Style (colorwork, lace, cables), and Wildcard (bobbles, beads, reversible), just as an example.

They could get really gnarly in late rounds, including things like steeking, entrelac, and double knitting. (Yes, the double knit sheep scarf is on my “to knit” list.”

Greg’s Questions for Next Week

(As a matter of procedure, the poll function takes you to another page to submit your vote, so if that happens to you, you’re on the right track!)

These cover last week’s newsletter as well as this week’s:

Question 1: I know you’re not an expert on this, but do you think the sheep and the animals are somehow “communicating”? I’m thinking about how we watch the teenage chickens that are by Mr. Bingley’s pen interact with him and it seriously makes me wonder what’s the relationship between them is.

Question 2: Of all the things you’ve learned since we started our Pemberley Woolworks business adventure, what have you been surprised that you’ve enjoyed learning? In other words, what’s something that you would have never expected to be interested in but now find fascinating to learn about?

Question 3: What action items did Georgiana give you from the meeting?

Happy knitting,

Kiersten J