Doot-doot-doot-doot-doot. My daughter’s first impression of volunteerism was sheep plop. I took her to the humane society for her orientation into the junior volunteer club. It was supposed to be an hour of paperwork followed by a short tour. However, about half of the regular club didn’t make it, so the new members were invited to watch the presentation that the regular club had come to attend.

And seriously, who wouldn’t want to meet sheep? We sat down in the floor of the volunteer office, listening all the while to the mewling of a couple of litters of kittens in need of foster homes. Immediately, a girl in a volunteer shirt took the hat off of the Kleenex box in her lap. A duckling popped its wee yellow head out of the box and struggled loose. The girl’s Mom said, “We found her wandering around by the pond just like the other three.” (I thought at once of Idiosyncratic Eye.)

“We’ll take her home with them,” said another mother (and yes, they decreed the duck a ‘her’, even though it was young and genderless to me).

“Oh good. With all our cats, we’re just not set up for baby birds.”

And that was before Apollo the miniature sheep tramped through the front door. Actually, he was dragged bleating through the door. Being largely unfamiliar with offices, he was naturally wary of the glass swinging thing. And as soon as he got inside, he unloaded a cascade of little brown dots onto the carpet. This was the highlight of the kids’ visit. (I didn’t photograph it. You can surely Google sheep shit.)

We Moms were far more amazed to see that his dick really did come within an inch of the ground. (Unfortunately, there was no real way to photograph that,either.)  Apollo’s wife followed, and Genevieve proved to be even more nervous than her spouse. She refused to be pulled in and had, instead, to be pushed. However, she didn’t poop. Finally, their baby, Hemingway, trotted up after his Mom. He’s only a couple of months old, though quite large. He didn’t care much about the people as long as we didn’t interfere with his milk supply.

After the sheep left, our orientation group was able to do some actual training that we had expected to come back for another day. My daughter got to hold still a trembling puppy as it received its first bath. (Or possibly its second bath;  it was the only puppy in the pre-op area, and I believe puppy washing is a favored youth volunteer activity.)

I’m hoping to get Caroline back in on Monday and establish a weekly summer schedule of some kind, so that she can rotate through the available tasks and figure out where her talents and desires really lie. The program is empowering. Since these kids are all 8 and up, and since they all volunteer with a parent until age 15, we are free to choose our own activities. I will defer to Caroline as much as possible, since I really want her to get a sense of both the importance of volunteering and her own control in her activities. If it all goes well, I’ll update you here in a few months with pictures of Caroline in her volunteer shirt doing adorable volunteer things!

In the meantime, here’s one last picture of a sheep butt. Hemingway was seriously nursing most of the time. And that little tail had this crazy happy wag.