"Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another."
-John Muir
Start: Lyme-Dorchester Rd
Finish: Etna-Hanove Rd
Today: 13.7 mi
Total: 481.7 mi
Trail magic is always great and the people of NH have been so generous with it. 2 miles into our day, a hiker named Long Stride driving down the road stopped his car next to the trailhead we just passed and called up to us to wait. He ran up the trail just to tell us he thought what we were doing was great and to give each of us a tasty cookie bar. Thank you Long Stride!
A few hours later Heather was our animal tracker (without the Australian accent) as she spotted Moose droppings. It looked like a pile of oversized dark raisinets but smelled more like Moose poop. Doesn't "Moose poop" sound like a Ben and Jerry's ice cream flavor?
Walking along the trail, Heather all of a sudden turned to me and pointed out a Moose she spotted in the distance! I looked up and not only saw Bullwinkle, but spotted Marty, a second Moose! We were both so excited. After a brief celebration, I squinted my eyes towards the distant Moose and told Heather that I actually thought they were sheep. She laughed at me for suggesting two sheep could be in the backwoods of NH. I cited their thick fur and lack of antlers butHeather explained that they must be baby Moose. That thought stopped us in our tracks as mother Moose might be near and I didn't feel like getting plowed over by an 8 foot, 2000 pound animal.
A little while later down the trail we found ourselves convincing ourselves that what we saw must have been Moose. We have seen so many animals and the last one on our wish list was a Moose. Down the trail we heard rustling and stopped to listen. There, 40 feet in front of us, were our two intimidating animals standing tall and proud. "Bahahahah," one called. Darn!
After getting a few pictures of our woolly friends we began walking forwards. Rather than walking into the brush on the left or right of the trail, they were corralled forward in front of us. We walked and walked and walked but the sheep wouldn't leave the trail. We've walked side-by-side along the trail with fellow hikers, dogs, even chipmunks but I never expected to share the trail with sheep! They even crossed a stream and walked along bog bridges in front of us. The Sheep were tagged so they obviously belonged to some farmer so we talked about what we should do to get them back to their farm. We had no cell service so we couldn't call the local police to see if Little Bo Peep, or anyone else, had lost their Sheep.
Finally, after following the Sheep for almost 2 miles we were coming to a road. All of a sudden we saw a lady with her dog walking towards us and we yelled a quick warning to her as we were worried for her dog. A smile erupted on her face and she informed us "those are my sheep!" It seemed that we herded these two-day missing sheep down a mountain right into the hands of their owner! The only problem, we had no tools or even enough hands to catch them.
Becky, one of the owners of them, quickly biked down the street to call her husband. While she called her husband and collected the sheep catching party, I had to move off the trail to corner the sheep and make sure they didn't escape. A half-hour later a bunch of us surrounded and swarmed the Sheep. We tackled, picked up and carried our furry friends (surprisingly light) to a van that carried them back to Becky and Jeff's house. Heather and I rode with them to their house to help with the animals.
For about an hour we talked with Becky, Jeff, they're beautiful baby Olive and wonderful daughter Layla. They even asked us to have dinner with them but we couldn't as we had plans with hiker friends. Becky was so nice and even drove us back to our hotel in Hanover!
There are certain things you never expect you will ever experience. One of them was hiking 2 miles along the Appalachian Trail with a couple of sheep named Annabelle and Chocolate Chip. This summer has been amazing! I have gotten to push my body farther than I thought it could go, I've met great friends, have seen amazing landscapes, breathed fresh air all summer, AND got to help save a couple of sheep from the mouths of mountain lions and coyotes!
~DADDY LONG LEGS
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