Side Quest: Meet the Cats

It’s widely accepted that you’re either a Dog Person or a Cat Person. Growing up, I strongly identified as a Dog Person. We only had dogs growing up, and I liked them well enough, so I figured I must be a Dog Person. Plus, I had my own dog—the best dog ever—for a few years, and since she and I were so close, it further confirmed my assertion.

As it turns out…I am not a Dog Person.

Dogs are energetic, peppy, and needy.

Cats are lazy, moody, independent—and only intermittently affectionate.

Purr-fect.

And honestly? They fit our life a whole lot better.

Here are our favorite lazy animals—and the absolute best cuddlers on the property.

Jasper

Jasper is such a good kitty. He also happens to be enormous. We get asked all the time if he’s a Maine Coon (cannot confirm, but I certainly see the resemblance).

Even though he’s fully grown, he still loves to be carried around like a baby. He was one of five kittens born under our youngest’s bed on March 23, 2024, and officially belongs to my middle child.

He loves exploring our property—so much so that he once disappeared for two weeks. We thought he was gone for good. We prayed and prayed, and thankfully, the answer was yes when he finally showed back up…much skinnier than when he’d left.

Sylvie

Sylvie is a feisty little thing and has been a great addition to our homestead.

My youngest begged and begged for her very own kitten. Our oldest had his dog, our middle had Jasper, and she wanted one of her own. I finally got so tired of her guilt trips that I warned my husband, “The first kitten I see, I’m getting.”

Not long after, I came across a litter of kittens needing homes on Facebook. They were nearby, so without telling her where we were going, we drove to meet them.

Honestly, I wondered what on earth I had gotten myself into. They were the most bite-y, scratch-y, feral little kittens I’d ever seen. My poor arms were completely scratched up as I picked up each one, trying to make sure we were actually getting a girl.

I still don’t know how, but she picked the calmest kitten of the bunch—thank goodness.

Sylvie started out as a very pampered indoor cat for the first couple months, but now she’s outside nearly as much as she is inside—climbing trees, attempting to hunt our chickens, and stretching out in the sun for a good catnap.

Edie

Edie is the most beautiful cat I’ve ever seen. She has big, striking blue eyes and looks like a mix between a Siamese and a tabby.

She also has her own backstory—which I hope to tell soon—but she was one of the five kittens born under our daughter’s bed in 2024.

Edie is a quiet cat. We’re used to our animals “talking” to us, but she’s only just starting to talk back to us. She loves curling up in the coziest places—bookshelves being a current favorite—and while she’s incredibly affectionate, she’s also the biggest scaredy-cat.

We’re hoping to introduce her to the outside world soon, but for now, she’s firmly an indoor cat.

Now that you’ve met our crazy crew of cats, stay tuned—next up: Meet the Boys.

Redemption

Without the stress of managing an untrustworthy ram and the burden of two escape-artist ewes lifted, came a resurgence of breathing room. And with that margin came clarity, creativity, and solutions. I could now see a myriad of ways we might have addressed the challenges we faced without selling the girls. I stand by selling Vlad—having an unsafe animal on the property was a risk I wasn’t willing to take.

But the girls had found a wonderful new home with our friends. The question that remained was: how did I move forward? What would having sheep again look like?

With two big family vacations planned for April and May, and fences to replace or repair, it was clear that we probably wouldn’t have sheep this year. More likely, we’d be looking at next year’s lambing season—a whole year away. How disappointing.

So, I began to plan. What would it actually take? How much would it cost? What exactly would having sheep demand of us?

I realized I didn’t need to fix the entire five-acre perimeter right away—just the two sides where the girls had been escaping. That was only half the work and half the cost. I also knew we’d need temporary, emergency solutions for unexpected situations: collars and leads for each sheep, so they could be contained on our property if necessary.

Another thought occurred to me: it had taken our first flock almost a year to find the weak spots in our fences. If we got a lamb today, we’d likely have about a year before fences became a problem again. In other words, we could pace ourselves, focusing on the most critical sides and spreading the work—and cost—over time.

Then an idea sparked a flicker of hope. What if Cho or Luna had a boy? My friend was only keeping the girls, and we had agreed that if they ever decided they didn’t want Cho or Luna anymore, we’d have the first option to buy them back. I also requested that if either ewe were pregnant, we could have first choice of any lambs they didn’t want. Suddenly, it clicked: what if I could have one of Luna’s or Cho’s sons? That would create a bridge between our first flock and our next—a tangible fruit of all our hard work from the first year.

I asked my husband and my friend, and both agreed. Now it was just a matter of chance: between the two ewes, would we get a ram lamb? I expected each to have one lamb for their first pregnancy, and we didn’t yet know whether Luna was pregnant, so the odds were about fifty-fifty.

Then, on March 3, I received a text: “Twins!”

I continued reading: “…this little guy…”

A boy! And then I wondered: “…and a ____??”

I couldn’t believe it.

We were about to meet the lambs on their birthday when a text came through: “Both babies are rams!” Once we arrived, my friend smiled and said, “You can have your pick!”

I was in awe. Two boys. One choice.

That morning, as I listened to The Bible Recap while reading Numbers 21–22, I found myself relating strongly to Balaam. God had told him to go with Balak, who wanted him to curse the Israelites. Along the way, his donkey repeatedly refused to move. Each time, Balaam struck her—until, on the third time, God opened the donkey’s mouth to speak: “What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?” The donkey had been protecting him from the Angel of the Lord, who was standing in the way, blocking his path. It was perplexing: God had told Balaam to go, yet He had also blocked his path.

As Tara-Leigh Cobble points out, God may have been less concerned with Balaam’s actions than with his heart. “It’s possible that the offer of more money could have swayed him and led him to curse Israel instead of bless them as God had commanded; this experience was all part of God’s plan to bless Israel.”

Now here’s the kicker, as TLC goes on to say:

“[God] didn’t change the course of the journey…
Balaam just needed rebuking along the way.
He needed his heart to be aligned with God’s mission.”

Oof…as I scribbled in my TBR journal: “Oh Lord, that hits home today. Are you not changing the course of my journey? Do I just need some rebuking along the way?”

That night at church, a teaching on Jonah reinforced this thought.

The key question was: “What if we don’t obey God’s calling?”

The teacher offered several possible outcomes:

God might let us go astray. We might involve others in our sin.
God might use others to correct us. He might let us suffer.
Or… He might redeem us and lead us back to our calling, just as He had with Jonah.

As I sat in church, anticipating the conversation with my husband about which of Cho’s boys we would choose to restart our flock, these thoughts resonated in my heart: What if God wasn’t changing my course? What if He did want me to continue on with Potter’s Sheep? What if, like Balaam, I just needed some rebuking along the way? What if—even though I hadn’t obeyed in waiting for His timing—like Jonah, He was redeeming me and leading me back to my calling?

As Easter approaches, I’m reminded once again that God is in the business of resurrecting what has died, redeeming what has been broken, and restoring what has been lost.

The journey continues with Rebuilding Our Flock.

Side Quest: Meet the Duck Gang

In addition to our nine laying hens from Meet the Ladies, we also have four ducks sheltering in our bird run each night.

We started with six straight-run ducklings in March 2025. As they grew, we confirmed that the two darker ducklings were drakes and the four lighter ducklings were females.

Unfortunately, as seems to be par for the course in the natural world, when their teenage hormones began to hit, duck society revealed its darker side.

One night, the two drakes returned—but with only three ducks trailing behind. Where had the fourth duck gone, we wondered? Another evening soon after, only one drake returned to the bird run with his three ducks in tow.

Now that we understood the proper ratio of drakes to ducks within a flock (1:6 or 1:8), we could only speculate that the other drake—and possibly the missing duck—had been driven off by the remaining drake. With or without the involvement of his harem, who could say? We had witnessed and intervened in numerous murder attempts and hoped it hadn’t actually resulted in any loss of life. I guess we’ll never know. Eesh.

As I mentioned in Flocks of a Feather, murder, suspicion, intrigue—they live it daily. Duck society is not for the faint of heart, y’all.

Now that we’ve openly admitted the dark side of our duck gang, let’s highlight their strengths. Our ducks are all Khaki Campbells. They are excellent foragers and the quietest of ducks—the exact reason I chose them. I didn’t think my sensitive sensory system could handle the near-constant cacophony of quacking found in other breeds.

Our drake is a fearless leader, and a lone duck won’t be alone for long. They stick together much more closely than our flock of chickens.

Our ducks lay one white egg daily, almost never skipping a day—even in the height of winter.

They’ve been a wonderful addition to our little homestead. My family can now regularly enjoy eggs without triggering any of my severe allergy symptoms, which are present with chicken eggs (even the steam from cooking them causes coughing, asthma, nausea, and headaches—yuck!).

We’re even hoping to grow our little flock of ducks by up to five females by incubating several eggs this spring!

It’s safe to say: ducks are here to stay.

Now you’ve met the Duck Gang here at Potter’s Sheep—next, Meet the Cats: equal parts adventure and snuggles.

The Fall

The final straw came in mid-January. The days were short, energy lagging, and patience in short supply.

As we drove down our gravel road, we saw the sheep had gotten out again. My husband said he was over it, and my anxiety spiked. I knew if he was done, so were we. I didn’t have the capacity, knowledge, or funds to fix our fences completely, and we needed an immediate solution.

Ignoring the still, small voice that whispered, “Wait,” I impulsively texted a friend who might be interested in our sheep. Sure enough, they were — and preparations began.

At the end of January, our HOA called. The sheep had made it as far as the main road. I thanked them, reassured them the sheep were being re-homed soon, and we rounded them up. My oldest patched the fence yet again.

By early February, serious interest had emerged for Vlad. That very day, he was safely loaded and traveling to his new home on a nearby ranch. Relief washed over me — my shoulders dropped, my jaw relaxed, I could finally breathe. We were no longer held hostage by an unsafe animal on our property.

But a knot had formed in my stomach.

The girls’ new pen was completed within a day. The following day, Cho and Luna were loaded into the trailer and taken to their new home, also just 20 minutes away. Less than 48 hours, and our flock had gone from three to zero.

𝐽𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑏𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑙𝑜𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑑 𝑢𝑝 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑛𝑒𝑤 ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑒, 𝐿𝑢𝑛𝑎 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐶ℎ𝑜 𝑒𝑛𝑗𝑜𝑦𝑒𝑑 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑚𝑦 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑠𝑡’𝑠 ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑠.

It was the best decision for everyone — for us, for the sheep, for our neighbors, for our friends. I kept repeating it to myself, trying to believe it.

Updates trickled in over the next couple of weeks. The girls were adjusting well — though they escaped their pen within five minutes of arrival! Minor tweaks soon had them safely contained. Then came the news: Cho looked pregnant.

I had hoped to breed her, and the possibility was now real. My heart ached knowing I would miss witnessing lambing season. When I asked if I could visit to observe, my friend graciously agreed.

Two days later, the floodgates opened. I couldn’t stop crying. Fresh waves of grief kept hitting me — I had sold them just before the fruits of our labor were to appear. I was heartbroken.

That same day, I visited. And seeing the sheep in their new environment gave me peace. They clearly belonged together, and I couldn’t shake the impression that this was a God thing — even if I hadn’t waited for His timing.

I went home full of peace, joy, and grief. That chapter had ended — though my heart didn’t like it. I missed their morning baas, grazing on our property, the daily pets.

And slowly, I began to hope again. Perhaps this grief was showing me just how important these silly sheep were to me. Cho and Luna had found a wonderful new home — but that didn’t mean my sheep story was over.

Next Up: Redemption

Side Quest: Meet the Ladies

Our bird run is currently dominated by nine laying hens, each with her own personality. These ladies are absolute machines, laying one egg per day—even through the winter. Let’s meet the ladies one by one, starting at the top of the pecking order…

Just to be clear…Head Hencho is front and center…staring me down…

Head Hencho

  • Breed: Isa Brown
  • Plumage: Red and Gold (the lightest of our Isas)
  • Egg Color: Medium Brown
  • Quirks: This lady is 100% Girl Boss material. Her throne has been challenged a few times, but no one’s been able to unseat her yet…her throne being the DIY bird waterer: an upside-down 5-gallon bucket. She occasionally lays extra-large eggs—sometimes even over 100g, while the norm is closer to 80g.
Isa is left and front. Clearly she doesn’t like having her picture taken alone.

Isa

  • Breed: Isa Brown
  • Plumage: Red and Gold
  • Egg Color: Medium Brown
  • Quirks: Often enjoys hanging out with the ducks.

Bella

  • Breed: Isa Brown
  • Plumage: Red and Gold, but with looser feathers than Isa.
  • Egg color: Medium Brown
  • Quirks: She gets…distracted. Each night, when my son calls all the birds back to the run, she frequently stops for one last bug.

Mrs. White (A.K.A. Bianca)

  • Breed: White Leghorn
  • Plumage: White
  • Egg Color: White
  • Quirks: She’s the smallest of all the fully grown hens and the easiest to catch and pick up. Even though she’s always taking dirt baths, she remains the cleanest of our chickens.

Mary (A.K.A. Bloody Mary, A.K.A. Zombie Chicken)

  • Breed: White Leghorn
  • Plumage: White
  • Egg Color: White
  • Quirks: This little lady clawed her way back from the brink of death, earning the nicknames Bloody Mary and Zombie Chicken. She’s not the prettiest chicken in the flock—she’s missing many of her neck feathers from her near-death experience—but she’s a survivor. She’s also second in the pecking order, right behind Head Hencho.

Brownie

  • Breed: Speckled Sussex
  • Plumage: Brown with Flecks of Black and White
  • Egg Color: Light Brown
  • Quirks: All her feathers are soft and silky with her darkest black feathers actually shining bright green in the sunlight. Her ride-or-die is our next lady, Stormwing.
Stormwing, the favorite.

Stormwing

  • Breed: Silver-Laced Wyandotte
  • Plumage: Black and White
  • Egg Color: Light Beige
  • Quirks: Easily the prettiest chicken in our flock, Stormwing is the best at jumping and flying. She loves perching on my middle child’s shoulder and enjoys roosting atop the coop during the day.
Goldie & Hei-Hei, The Dynamic Duo out foraging.

Goldie & Hei-Hei, The Dynamic Duo (A.K.A. We can barely tell them apart…)

  • Breed: Rhode Island Red
  • Plumage: Red
  • Egg Color: Light Brown
  • Quirks: You won’t find one without the other. They always stick together. They like to pretend they’re the head hens, but then they get hen-pecked…

From Girl Boss to Zombie Chicken, each of these ladies brings her own energy—and a fresh egg—to our homestead daily.

The ladies may rule the roost, but they’re only part of our feathered flock. Meet the whole crew in Flocks of a Feather or Meet the Duck Gang next.

P.S. Thanks a million to my middle child—the official caretaker of the birds—for filling me in on the quirky information for a few of the ladies I don’t know as well and for helping identify a few of the harder-to-tell-apart ladies.

The Turn

As the days got shorter, I admit my patience did too.

Vlad was getting harder and harder to handle, becoming pushier by the day. His aggression escalated until one afternoon he finally decided to challenge me.

This once-sweet boy that we brought home at one-week-old and bottle-fed for nearly two months was suddenly charging me—once, twice, three times. I fended him off repeatedly, barely keeping my feet under me.

I’m not gonna lie—I was scared.

He was a big boy now, and I knew he could seriously injure me, especially if he managed to knock me off my feet.

I called loudly for my son, a teenager who is both bigger and stronger than me now and could hold his own with Vlad quite well.

As he came to my defense, Vlad continued charging—the fourth, fifth, and sixth time. My reflexes were slowing while his attacks came faster and faster.

For a split second, I realized I was about to lose this challenge.

Finally, I made the inevitable miscalculation, and he headbutted me. My thumb took the brunt of it.

I cried out in pain, shouting a few choice words and wondering if he had broken it. I was thoroughly shaken.

About that time, my son caught up to us and grabbed Vlad by the collar. He led him off to the Sheep Shed to be safely contained.

In the moment, all I could feel was the adrenaline and the pain in my hand.

Looking back now, I think God was using that encounter to shape me further.

Meanwhile I retreated to the safety of my house fuming. My rage was fueled by fear and pain as I contemplated the best recipes for Shepherd’s Pie. Katahdin sheep are, after all, well-known for their delicious meat.

However, the weather was unseasonably warm for October so it wasn’t exactly the best time to learn how to butcher and process meat. (Besides, I doubt I could have followed through on my threats. I’m not sure I have the stomach for processing meat we’ve raised.)

Instead, we put a few stop-gap safety measures in place and listed Vlad as up for discussion, hoping to re-home him quickly.

But the tension on our land was palpable.

There was some interest—but no serious buyers through October, November, or December.

Cho, Vlad, and Luna grazing near our west fence a few months after their arrival, near where Cho and Luna would begin making their great escapes.

Come January, a new challenge emerged.

The ladies were getting through our fences and wandering onto our neighbor’s property.

At first, it was more annoying than alarming. Our neighbors were gracious about it. They enjoyed seeing the sheep and even appreciated them clearing away some of the overgrowth.

Each time it happened, my son would search for the spot he thought they were slipping through and patch the fence.

But somehow, they kept getting out.

Again and again.

And each time they wandered a little farther from home.

By mid-January, the peace we’d known when the lambs first came home had started to unravel.

Vlad was unpredictable. The fences were failing. And the tension on our land was impossible to ignore.

Something had to give.

Next Up: The Fall

Side Quest: Flocks of a Feather

Murder, zombies, and…feathers? Welcome to our homestead. Our five acres is wild, messy, and completely ours, a far cry from the suburbia we left behind. The air is fresher, the sky wider, the land less tame. We have woods with the towering trees, open meadows of tall grass, and even a shallow pond affectionately nicknamed The Puddle.

Yet the same wildness that drew us to this property also comes with a few… drawbacks. A whole host of evils, really: evil sticker plants (field sandburr stickers, also known as sandspur), evil thorn vines (likely some kind of greenbrier), evil snakes (copperheads), and evil bugs (mosquitos, sand fleas, wasps, and ticks).

So I began to research. What could we do to temper some of the evils we encountered?

Well, for starters—we could get chickens.

I loved the idea of chickens dotting our homestead—after all, what says “homestead” more than a flock of clucking hens?

Ironically, however, I am allergic to chicken eggs. Super allergic.

So in addition to chickens, my family voted to get ducks which could also help with insects and even some small snakes. Our plan was simple: we could sell the chicken eggs while my family enjoyed the duck eggs without jeopardizing my health.

So the very same week we brought home three bottle-fed lambies, we also picked out eight chicks—four Isa Browns and four White Leghorns—as well as six Khaki Campbell ducklings.

And let me tell you… that was its own learning curve separate from the sheep.

Multiple friends had warned us how messy ducklings are.

They were not exaggerating.

Chicks on the left, ducks on the right. Completely separate quarters.
Six ducklings…
…and eight chicks.

At first, the ducklings and chicks shared a brooder. But the poor chicks were endlessly splashed, and duckling poop appeared everywhere—even minutes after we replaced the bedding. Before long, we had to separate everyone just to keep the chicks dry.

They all grew quickly. But the ducks grew twice as fast.

Those ducks were SO big.
Perching on top of their makeshift roof—a window screen.
Proof that the poor chicks couldn’t be expected to share quarters—this was only for a few minutes while we cleaned out the brooders!

Within weeks we were able to move everyone outside into our makeshift bird enclosure, using some kind of metal contraption we found on our property.

Don’t worry, it got a proper, secure roof and they stayed perfectly safe and warm.

Each morning we let them out to free range across our five acres, and each evening we coaxed them back with feed and secured them safely for the night to protect them from the numerous nighttime predators.

Since then, we’ve lost three chickens and two ducks… gained seven more chickens… and then lost another three chickens.

Along the way, we’ve learned a few things:

Chickens are simultaneously dumber than you can imagine, smarter than you’d expect—and yes, surprisingly dinosaur-like.

A pile of feathers? Never a good sign.

And just when you think it’s over, chickens can sometimes claw their way back from the brink of death, earning themselves the nickname “Zombie Chicken” in the process.

And ducks? Well…duck society is not for the faint of heart. Murder, suspicion, intrigue—they live it daily. They will quite literally try to murder each other. (In unrelated news…we may have discovered that the proper ratio of drakes to ducks is roughly 1:6 or 1:8—very different from the two drakes and four ducks we ended up with from our straight-run batch. Whoops.)

We’ve watched chickens take luxurious dirt baths while the ducks splash happily in their kiddie pool.

We’ve even witnessed a duck slurp up a snake like a noodle.

And somewhere along the way, we realized something unexpected:

We genuinely love having chickens and ducks roaming and foraging across our property each day.

And just like that, our little homestead had two very different flocks—one feathered and one hoofed.

Now that you’ve gotten a glimpse at our feathered flock, you can follow the rest of our story here or Meet the Ladies.

In the Beginning

With the arrival of our three little lambs, came a complete upheaval of our routines. Suddenly, we were bottle-feeding three lambs three times a day. I quickly learned to throw my overalls on over whatever I was wearing, shove a washcloth in my pocket, and slip on my muck boots as I headed out the back door with three dollar-store baby bottles—filled with milk replacer—in hand.

I would tromp across the narrow strip of land between our house and our detached garage, circle around the carport, and head for the door of our little Sheep Shed. As soon as those three babies heard me coming, they would clumsily scramble to their feet and the baa-ing would begin.

To say they loved their milk is an understatement.

The moment I opened the door, they would come gleefully sprinting out, immediately bumping the bottles with their noses. As soon as I flipped a bottle upside down, they would bump it several times before finally latching on and going to town, chugging the 9oz as fast as they could. Milk foamed around their mouths, which they would promptly wipe on you if given the chance–thus the overalls and the pocket washcloth.

Admittedly, there was a bit of a learning curve to feeding three bottles to three lambs all at the same time with only two hands. Somehow I managed it—though I was often grateful for extra helping hands–until they grew bigger and their boisterous bumping made it impossible to hold on to all three bottles at once. At that point, those extra helping hands became a necessity!

We learned to check their poop for signs of parasites and their eyelids for signs of anemia. They learned, very quickly, to stick together and to follow my family and me all around our property. They made circles around the house, their baa-ing drifting through the open windows. They were curious about our ducks and chickens and cats. The cats, for their part, were equally curious about the lambs.

Our three lambs grew so fast.

Soon, Cho and Luna were reluctantly weaned from their bottles, and a few weeks after that, Vlad joined them. Mornings were their most energetic time. They would run in wild loops around the yard, leaping as they went.

We slowly settled into new rhythms. Each morning, one or more of us would make the rounds—letting the lambs and our birds out of their respective pens to free range, filling waterers, and checking feed levels as needed. Each evening we made the rounds again, putting everyone up for the night, ensuring water, hay, and feed were available, and securing all latches.

As summer turned to fall, we began preparing for winter. We made sure heat lamps and extension cords were ready in case of cold weather. We stocked up on hay for additional feed as the grass dried up and straw for warmer bedding. We continued to clean out and refill waterers again and again, the ritual both calming and exhausting.

As they continued to grow and their teenage hormones hit, Vlad began pushing us with his head. At first it was playful, harmless. But soon he pushed harder and we realized we couldn’t let our youngest be outside alone anymore when the sheep were out.

As the months passed, life with Vlad, Cho, and Luna settled into a rhythm—but the challenges grew right along with them. We learned quickly and sometimes stumbled awkwardly through our first year with them, thinking we were starting to figure things out. We would soon discover that greater challenges lay ahead.

Next Up: The Turn.

Meet the OG Flock

Vlad, Cho, and Luna enjoying the lush spring grass six weeks after arriving home.

Only 2 days after John 21:15-19 began settling deep into my heart, we finished replacing that section of our north fence and got our little “Sheep Shed” all set up for its very first residents.

Then we drove an hour and a half to the farm where three bottle-fed lambs had been born over the previous three weeks and finally got to meet them face-to-face.

They were unbelievably precious.

It was honestly difficult to come home with only three.

Vlad, Cho, and Luna all packed up and ready for the drive home.

I decided to start small: one ram and two ewes. My hope was that when they reached maturity we could breed them and—Lord-willing—welcome our very first lambing season in the spring of 2026.

Luna, Cho, and Vlad relaxing in the Sheep Shed after the long drive to their new home.

And so, the first members of Potter’s Sheep arrived.

Luna, Cho, Vlad grazing on our property soon after arriving home.

Luna
Hair Color: Solid white
Named for Luna Lovegood of Ravenclaw, of course—loyal friend to Harry, member of the D.A., and certainly the most whimsical character of them all. She has always been one of my absolute favorites.

Cho, curious and always in motion — which explains the blur.

Cho
Hair Color: Solid black
Named for: Cho Chang of Ravenclaw—Harry’s first girlfriend, member of the D.A, and a talented Quidditch player.

Vladdie Boy, actually posing for his picture.

Vlad
Hair Color: Patchy red & white
This is where the theme went a bit off the rails. My children and I argued over which name would suit him best, and somehow the name Vlad stuck. A.K.A. Vladdie Boy. So I’ve chosen to imagine that Vlad is Vladimir Krum, Viktor Krum’s lesser-known brother.

And just like that, with three tiny lambs and a lot to learn, the journey had begun, as life with Vlad, Cho, and Luna continued to unfold. The story continues with In the Beginning.

Why “Potter’s Sheep?”

The name Potter’s Sheep actually carries two meanings.

The first layer is the heartbeat of our homestead.

Isaiah 64:8
“But now, O Lord,
You are our Father;
We are the clay, and You our potter;
And all we are the work of Your hand.”

Growing up in church—way back in the 1900s—we sang a song that echoes in my heart today:

🎶 You are the Potter
I am the clay
Mold me and make me
This is what I pray
🎶

We are mere clay that God our Father, the Potter, shapes and forms according to His will—refining us and crafting us into something truly beautiful. These silly sheep have already been just one of the many tools He uses to mold me into His likeness.

But, to be honest, if that were the only meaning behind the name, it might feel a little too stiff for me. After all, what’s life without a little whimsy?

So there’s a second meaning, too.

As a teenager, I was introduced to the wonderful world of Harry Potter—and I was instantly hooked. (Books > movies, of course.) I love a good theme, and when it came time to name the three sheep we were bringing home, the Harry Potter universe offered endless possibilities.

And suddenly I realized something.

The name worked in both directions.

Potter’s Sheep.


Sheep belonging to the Potter
…and sheep named after Potter characters.


Perfection.

I may joke about our “Potter sheep,” but the truth is that they serve as a daily, tangible reminder that I, too, am one of The Potter’s sheep—still being shaped by His hands, still learning to trust, and still learning to follow my Good Shepherd.

And now that you know the story behind the name, let me introduce you to the sheep who started it all…

Meet the OG Flock

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