LITTLE BO PEEP HAS LOST HER SHEEP

Leave them alone

And they will come home

Dragging their tails behind them.




Today I thought of Mary had a little lamb when I saw these goats walking into the schoolyard we were visiting.  They walked right in the gate and went toward the main part of the building as if they had some business to attend to. No one deterred them.  It is a live and let live environment here. As a matter of fact I'm probably the only one that gave them a second thought. 

The other day as we were driving along we passed cows and goats meandering down the dirt road here and there with no one driving them or leading them. They grazed as they went along with no apparent destination in mind.

So, I asked our driver, Khamphee, if the cows were branded so the owners could claim them if they wandered away to some other family's property. First of all he didn't know what branding meant and then seemed quite amused at the thought that anyone would need to do such a thing to claim his own cows.

He laughed and said, "They know them. They know their own cows." We chuckled and said that a lot of cows look alike and we asked what would happen if a cow was claimed by two people. He said, "Ohhh. We just let cow choose. If two people think it is their cow... just turn cow loose and let him go home." 

Then he said that one time after a day of his chickens being loose in the neighborhood  he gathered his chickens to their pens and found one was missing. Later on he saw his chicken in the neighbor's pen. He asked the neighbor for his hen back and the neighbor said it was his own chicken. Khamphee said he suggested he let the chicken go and see where it went. As soon as the chicken was set free he headed off home to Khamphee's house. 

That did not satisfy the neighbor and he held a grudge. No amount of common sense would win him over so Khamphee's wife said, "Ahh, let him have the chicken." It wasn't worth losing a friendship.