"When Sparks Flew" Memoirs of my Flock.

Static electricity in sheep is one of the least known problems involved in raising the wooly creatures. I will attempt to relate the difficulties it can cause.

Firstly, let me make it clear that sheep do build up a significant amount of electrical charge in their wool coats. When you think back on all the films you have seen this will begin to be evident.

I submit the following to prove my point.

You will notice that sheepdogs never make actual contact with their, shall we say...charges. They know the resultant shock can often be fatal. They will threaten from a few feet away with their wolflike posturing eg. stalking with heads low, tails flat, ears back, lips curled back over canines and such, but they never nip when herding.

Interestingly, the Ancient Greeks coined the romantic description "sparks flew" from mating sheep.

You rarely see them out of the fold at night because the flashes from incidental contact can be seen for miles alerting predators to their location.

You never see a shepherd pick up any large creatures...only the lambs are safe to handle.

They are herded through a 'dip' prior to shearing to neutralize the buildup of static electricty, not to cleanse their wool. The sheep dip timetable is designed to allow the animals to start over, as a full coat can generate enough power to harm others in the flock.

After shearing, the collected outer coats are treated with an anti-static spray as an extra precaution.

In New Zealand, an average 112 deaths per year are reported from restless sleepers on poorly treated woolen blankets.

A properly regulated wool, when knitted into a sweater, can act as a kind of pacemaker for the heart.

Roast leg of lamb was first popularized by accidental contact between the young and the odd fully matured unshorn who managed to escape the shearing process.

To quote my favourite savant...
"And that's all I have to say about that."

Did 'Mr. D' do the right thing?

'Mr. D' refers to Humpty Dumpty, so you can stop reading right now if you are anything like me. I only use 'Mr. D' to entice a more youthful readership.
So, the question is did poor old 'Hump' (as his closest friends called him) do the right thing when he jumped? Let me state clearly that I do not subscribe to the conspiracy spotters proposition that he was pushed, and I do not think any egg smart enough to get up on a wall for a better view would be stupid enough to sit too close to the edge, given his fragile exterior. Ergo...Hump jumped.
Let me also make this point crystal clear. For a long time I didn't care why he jumped. I thought perhaps he was simply seeking attention. Perhaps he felt it was his manifest destiny to end up as a pool of yellow slime. Maybe he wanted to break the time worn family cycle of egg to chicken to egg. He may have been feeling absolutely great about himself...not the least bit fragile. I didn't care. I simply wondered if it was the right thing to do.
Let's take a snapshot of Humps' situation some time after impact, as reported by Aesop or one of his flunky ghostwriters. A bunch of horses tried to help restore him to his original condition. I submit that this was madness. They may have been able to scrape Mr. D into a fairly decent puddle, but reassembly seems like asking a duck to do the crossword from The Times.
That leaves us with the King's men.
No doubt they were authority figures of some sort. Soldiers or tax collectors or even local clergy. (You may have noted that at no point in the story is the King himself actually said to be there) The best they could have managed for our shattered hero would be to place the late Mr. D's debris in a hot pan and unite his components into a crunchy omelette...a far cry from an egg. So in actual fact, Mr. D was toast. Or was he?
We may recall that this is the very kind of situation through which our Lord and Saviour Jesus made his reputation. Talking naked men out of trees, curing the incurable, raising the dead! Does this not seem like ripe pickings for 'Dr. J'? (remember I am appealing to youth here) Well hell yeah!
Now if you will buy that for a few minutes, I want you to suspend disbelief a little bit more and suppose that that Jesus was in fact...wait for it...The King!!!! YES! The King in this tragic fable may well have been our own 'Dr. J'!
Now...if you will accept that, what does the story tell us?
Hump was on top of his game that day. He had the best seat in the house. He had this great fall, and not even the noble horse, that earthly symbal of wealth and status, and not even all the men who represented God Himself could put our Hump together again. Oh my! Is this to be Hump's final resting place? A slimy puddle of egg liquid or a crummy omelette that even I wouldn't eat?
Naw. I don't believe that for a moment. I think one of Jesus' parables got stashed away for centuries and eventually surfaced in a children's book with neither the original ending or proper authorship mentioned. It happens today and it has been happening for a long time. Who else has had so much of his material spun a little and passed on as original thought? Hmmm? And re-spun without all the original content it is a frustratingly stupid tale.
Oh oh oh...before I go back to bed I should answer the question.
Did "Mr. D' do the right thing? You bet.
I don't think it was a fall at all. It was a leap of faith.
'Humpty D' left his reconstruction and rebirth to God, as we all should.