Once again I’m bragging about the Daily News, New York’s hometown newspaper, because of its gift with puns.
I wish I could get the photos accompanying this article. Let me describe it: a bunch of sheep hanging around, and a man with tattoos carrying a sheep somewhere. So imagine all that while you read this very funny story. And you might want to make a note of the animal sanctuary to which the sheep (they’ve all been named and do pay attention to the names) are going to be living, in case your back yard winds up similarly occupied.
P.S. Notice the lambs were mistakenly delivered to the wrong address. This is why you always want to use the US Postal Service and not some fly-by-corporate-night service like FedEx or UPS.
At B’klyn home, it’s wack of lamb
Eight cute critters mysteriously appear
By Ellen Moynihan AND Thomas Tracy New York Daily News
Where was Mary when these little lambs needed her?
Eight lost lambs baa-ed in a Brooklyn family’s backyard after a botched delivery, cops said Saturday.
Police were called to the Hendrickson St. home in Marine Park about noon Friday when the homeowner’s daughter found the woolly wanderers, cops said.
The homeowner told the Daily News he had no idea how the lambs, who were all under a year old, ended up on his property.
“I come home and to my horror I find eight sheep in my backyard,” said the man, who asked to be called Mr. Charnas. “I said, ‘What happened here?’ Nobody knows.”
After a 911 operator believed Charnas to be a prankster, the man asked his off-duty NYPD neighbor to take a look in his backyard.
“She came across the street and she said, ‘Oh my, I don’t believe this.’ I said, ‘What are we going to feed them? Who did this? What’s going on?’ ”
Charnas’s neighbor called the local precinct and sent photos of the lambs grazing the backyard before police arrived.
“Officers were here the entire time. They were in shock,” said Charnas. “There were some officers here who were 20-year veterans who never saw something like this their entire lives.”
Without a professional sheep herder to guide them out, the NYPD called in their emergency service team, which corralled the animals and put them in an NYPD truck used for horses.
The lost lambs were then handed over to the Skylands Animal Sanctuary and Rescue in Wantage, N.J. with new names based on different dessert flavors: Vanilla Bean, Pistachio, Rocky Road, Candy Cane, Coconut, Tiramisu, Cannoli and Pumpkin, an ACC spokeswoman said.
The sanctuary is a haven for critters saved from slaughterhouses, neglect, abuse and religious ceremonies, according to their website.
In a video posted to the sanctuary’s Instagram account, the newly arrived lambs are seen reluctantly leaving a hay-filled van Friday evening, hopping out one by one at the encouragement of founder Mike Stura.
“They’re doing great,” Stura said Saturday about the new arrivals, whose first stop was a horse barn.
“They can’t mingle with anyone else until the vet gives them the okay,” Stura said.
For now, the fuzzy friends are sequestered and sticking close together while getting acclimated, he said.
“They’re pretty nervous,” he said. “They move as one when they’re nervous.”
Police and ACC members who took part in the recovery speculate the lambs may have been destined for a Greek Orthodox church in anticipation of a Greek Easter celebration on Sunday, but were dropped off on Hendrickson St. by mistake.
“Only in New York!” NYPD Special Ops Chief Harry Wedin wrote on Twitter. “A Brooklyn homeowner called 911 after discovering a flock of sheep in his rear yard. #NYPD ESU safely wrangled them up and with the assistance of the Mounted Unit the 8 uninjured sheep were transported @NYCACC in Brooklyn.”