Dont Fence Me In: The Comforts of a Sheep Video – The New York Times

Relax with Sheep is actually a single, shorter documentary that loops around six times. The original video was shot in March and edited by Tim Kennedy, a filmmaker who is often commissioned by Napa Valley wineries, breweries and restaurants. Mr. Kennedy handed in his edit at a relatively taut one hour and change. Turning that into an epic longer than Matthew Barneys River of Fundament was the idea of Douglas Shafer, the vineyards proprietor. Mr. Shafer said the goal was to create something like those never-ending yule-log videos, but with sheep.

When the longer version was complete, he asked Andy Demsky, who handles public relations for the winery, to put it on YouTube to share the pastoral beauty with viewers during the upheaval and uncertainty in the world right now, as the introductory text puts it. Uploading the file took three days.

Credit for wrangling the hundred or so sheep goes to a local firm called Wooly Weeders, which drove them to the 50-acre hillside property, packed inside a multilevel trailer, then set them loose to control the unwanted vegetation that grows in early spring, before the dry season sets in and Napas hills turn brown.

Youd usually go in with tractors and mow, Mr. Shafer said. With the sheep we have to do that a lot less, so its less gas. On the hillsides weve got these terraces thats always a challenge. You have to use a machete or that type of thing, its tough. But the sheep can stand on any incline at all and munch away.

Its true. Nothing gets between the sheep and their grass. Ive never given much thought to the mental capacity of sheep. I suppose if I had, I would have said they were not among the leading intellectual lights of the animal kingdom.

After watching Relax with Sheep, though, I am in awe of their attention spans. In awe, and a little jealous. The truth is I havent made any headway on Fassbinder or Proust or any of the other stuff because I cant seem to concentrate lately. I spend my days talking to restaurant people who dont have restaurants to go to. Its been a month since theyve seen a paycheck.

At night, when I could be reading a fat novel, I have the attention span of one of the bumblebees that you can hear on the soundtrack of Relax with Sheep, the pitch of their buzz Doppler-shifting down the way the ambulance sirens outside my windows do every few minutes.

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Dont Fence Me In: The Comforts of a Sheep Video - The New York Times