Hennessy the Shepherdess

Hennessy the Shepherdess- Preface

Hennessy stared at her computer screen and bit her lip as she pondered the first assignment of her freshman English class. A personal essay. She had written many such papers through Middle School and High School, but now that she was in college she knew the stakes were higher. She had breezed through English at her small high school, receiving praise from her teachers on her writing abilities, but she no longer felt special. How could she write something that stood out among all of the amazing students around her?

Sighing, she moved from chewing on her lip to chewing on a strand of her curly auburn hair. Then, realizing what she was doing, she sighed again and stared out of the floor to ceiling windows of the campus library. Students were walking by looking oh so confident. Hennessy wished she could have just a little bit of their confidence. College was hard, and her first few weeks had reinforced her feelings of home sickness. She wished she was home, with Talia her border collie licking her face, surrounded by what she now termed as the welcoming sounds of sheep bleating. She laughed at that thought. She would never have guessed she would miss the sound of sheep persistently complaining about their hunger or other woes. She thought after eighteen years she would be relieved to have peace and quiet. Not to mention being free of the stench of sheep manure. But as she gazed out the window, she realized she even missed the muck and mud of early spring and the melting snow. A tear slid slowly down her cheek. She missed home.

Sniffing she willed herself to stop crying. She was a college freshman with a deadline. She needed to have a rough draft of her paper written in time for her English class tomorrow morning at nine. It was now five p.m. She was not a procrastinator, but she had been experiencing severe writer's block and could not come up with a topic to save her life. It was now crunch time, and she needed to think and decide on a topic. Blinking back her tears, she remembered the words of her seventh grade teacher, Mr. Kim, "Write what you know. Write what you love. Write what you are passionate about and what makes you unique."

Well, in this metropolitan university campus, growing up on a farm definitely made you unique. Farmers were few and far in between. "Okay," Hennessy thought to herself, "I'll write about being a farm girl. That will help me stand out, but which experience do I write about?"

Taking a deep breath, Hennessy started to type.

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The Real Joy

There was an air of tenseness in the show ring. The judge had narrowed the finalists to six. I held my lamb with a vise-like grip; she was prone to jump, and I did not want to lose her at this critical point. I stared intensely at the judge, too nervous to smile and barely managing to keep a look of total and complete terror off my face. I knew my lamb was good, one of the best I had ever raised, but I did not know if the judge would agree. Finally he stood back, and the livestock committee handed him a belt buckle and a pink and purple rosette. This was the moment of truth. I think I managed a weak smile in a last ditch effort to impress the grandfatherly man. He started to walk towards me; I was getting excited. Then my mind started to psych me out. What if he was going to shake Abigail's or Tiffany's hand, or perhaps Kristy's? This was perhaps the most nerve-wracking event in my fifteen-year-old life. The judge smiled and shook my hand. I burst out in a blinding smile, and the crowd roared. One of the biggest goals in my life had just been achieved: my lamb was named Grand Champion Lamb of the County Fair.

I bought my first sheep, Cleo, when I was ten. I didn't know it then, but my life was about to change in unexpected ways, for I have gained more than pretty ribbons and flashy belt buckles from my livestock experience.