My parents are brave people. I could cite the obvious, that they raised me. Sure, they withstood my short stint as Stunt Kid, when I experimented with the comparative cranial effects of landing on carpet and heat registers.

The heat register causes a lot more head trauma, I promise. There was the period where mysterious black Crayola marks appeared about 2 feet from the floor, always in the shape of an X.

“Rachel, did you do this?” My mom could double for the CIA.

“No Mom. It was Cowboy X.”

Although never convicted, Cowboy X was the bane of my early childhood. I was always framed in his evil scams, and his signature graffiti around the house was never enough evidence for my mom that I shouldn’t be punished.

When I was in fourth grade, I pushed the envelope once more and forced my parents out of their comfort zone once again. Although I’d given up diving off the table as a source of parental trepidation, our conversation after my first 4-H meeting went something like this.

“I signed up to take sheep to the fair!!” Although I’m sure my parents feigned excitement, they knew the awful truth. They had just been signed up to take sheep to the fair.

To their credit, my parents didn’t flinch. We lived on an acreage, so there were possibilities for quadruped habitation. They had never really been around sheep, so we had to learn basic things like what they eat.

The big flaw in the whole scheme was that we didn’t own any sheep.

At this juncture, I was introduced to the concept of credit. My dad asserts his title is an acronym for Distributor of Assets to Dependents. So good old moneybags and I headed out in the pick-up to get two 60-pound lambs one spring day.

The catch was that my birthday money stash wasn’t enough to fund the ovine acquisition. “No problem,” said Dad. “You’ll pay me back later.”

Initially, owning sheep was pretty fun. I got up early in the morning before school to go out and feed them. I learned quickly that if I didn’t give them enough food they would do this annoying baa routine, which would quickly garner the “Get out there now and feed those lambs, young lady” look from Dad, who was a dairy cow guy in his 4-H days.

Our Biblical concept of sheep is this placid, pastoral herd idea. Gentle Shepard, the whole bit. Obviously the Biblical portrayal of sheep can be construed for the contextual argument, because sheep are not portrayed literally in the bible. Sheep are pretty stupid creatures.

They have some nervous tendencies, phobias about virtually everything and a mind hell-bent on one thing: escape.

I remember one false move on my part cut loose a chain of events that quickly had my 4-H projects on the road to freedom and me in a hopeless dash after them. Chasing and herding are not synonymous. The more I tried to close in on my liberated mutton, the friskier they got.

Soon we were running past the hog house, the corncrib and quickly approaching the pasture. “Baa, baa!!!” Their little black ears flopped happily as they galloped to freedom.

“Stop! Stop!” My brown rubber boots clumped hopelessly behind. Although I eventually cornered the beasts, I was thoroughly frightened about the possibility of escape ever again.

This was especially worrisome at the fair, where my largest fear was that my now 160-pound sheep would bolt from my grip and out of the show ring.

I learned how to wash a sheep. Use Woolite, said my dad. I learned how to card the wool and get them ready for the show.

My first year, I got a red ribbon. The second year I avenged my defeat with a reserve championship and a rate of gain award.

For the sheep, of course.

My parents are brave people. They let me learn about credit, earnings, winning and losing while I was raising sheep.

They also invested their sanity in learning how to operate a micro sheep operation, something I could never repay. We moved off the farm a couple of years later.

Towns have ordinances about this sort of thing, so I continued my 4-H career baking and doing presentations. I can understand the zoning laws about livestock in town.

Besides, the neighbors may not have been too happy about some kid in rubber boots dashing through their back yard after a blur of wool.