Sheep in a Stony Pasture

     Today, January 20, 2016, I drove along a Lancaster County, Pennsylvania farmland road and saw a flock of about 16 sheep in a two-acre meadow.  But to me, these were not ordinary sheep or a usual pasture in this county.  The sheep had brown and creamy-white blotched wool, horns and long, woolly tails.  And the meadow was on a steep, stony slope, with sparse grass and a few dead or mostly dead trees.  
      Someone was making the best use of a rugged habitat.  It could not be cultivated and cattle would not do well on that steep hill, but sheep and/or goats, being smaller and adapted to such rocky conditions with short grass on hills, flourish in such environments.  The related sheep and goats have teeth that can nibble much shorter grass than cattle can, allowing them to graze where cattle couldn't.  And the two toes of sheep and goats cling to rocky slopes better than the two toes on cows and their relatives. 
     Those sheep looked wild in a more natural habitat for them, something one doesn't see much in this county of  good soil, for the most part.  To me those sheep in their rough pasture were quite picturesque, as if they really were wild sheep.  This is a scene one doesn't see much in southeastern Pennsylvania with its mostly fertile soil on mostly flat ground. 
     While I was there, a ewe gave birth to a lamb in 25 degree weather.  Undaunted by the temperature, however, the lamb soon wobbled to its feet and took a few steps to its mother's udder to get milk while the attentive and gentle mother continually licked her newborn dry and clean.  Looking around, I saw three other black and white lambs that couldn't be more than a few days old.         Thinking back over the years, I've seen other patches of grass-scarce pastures on rocky slopes that were grazed by sheep or goats.  But these sheep and their rugged setting were particularly interesting to me.