STORY BY KAREN BOSSICK

PHOTOS BY KATE DALY AND BONNIE HOVENCAMP

Bonnie Hovencamp was not prepared for company when she heard what sounded like a thumping at the door of her home along East Fork Canyon a couple miles south of Ketchum.

She answered and found herself looking at a wooly white ewe, its nose pressed opposite of hers on the glass door of the patio.

“I’m looking at her and she’s looking at me,” Hovencamp recounted.

Hovencamp figured the ewe had strayed from the bands that have been making their way down the nearby bike path from summer pastures in the mountains.

Even as Hovencamp tried to figure out what to do, a neighborhood dog appeared on the scene spooking the ewe and prompting it to run into the foundation of a nearby home under construction. It was trapped, unable to figure out how to get out.

“She was safe but couldn’t get out of it,” Hovencamp said.

Hovencamp called the Blaine County Sheriff’s office. A sheriff’s deputy came to the scene and referred  her to Idaho Fish and Game officers. They, in turn, gave her a couple numbers of sheep ranchers to call.

Phoebe Bean, daughter of Brian and Kathleen Bean who own Lava Lake Land & Livestock near Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve, promised she would put her sleuthing skills to work figuring out who the ewe belonged to.

“In the meantime, I gave the sheep a little water, a little bit of food. And she and I had a lovely conversation. ‘Baa, baa, baa,’ ” Hovencamp said.

The next day at 1 p.m. Bean showed up in her white sheep Jeep. She had called around and figured out where the lost lamb’s flock was. Construction workers, meanwhile, had found a metal staircase that they positioned leading from the bottom of the concrete floor to the ground surrounding the building under construction.

Bean lassoed the sheep and took it to the ladder. Then she and two construction workers helped the 100-pound ewe up the ladder and out of the foundation, and Bean led it to the back of her Jeep.

Hours later Bean texted Hovencamp a video of the sheep’s reunion with her flock.

“The white Pyrenees dogs recognized her immediately, running to greet her. But she appeared a little nervous about getting out of the car,” Hovencamp said. “Phoebe petted her for a few minutes saying, ‘It’s okay.’ Then, all of a sudden, the ewe seemed to recognize her fellow sheep. She said, ‘That’s my herd!’ and jumped out of the car and ran down to greet them.”

Hovencamp was full of gratitude for all those who offered assistance: “It was so wonderful knowing that this ewe who had been looking at me, her nose on my window, was safe and back in the flock.”

REMEMBER WHEN?

Remember when a couple sheep found their way into a home through a window well of a home in the Big Wood area of Ketchum on Christmas Eve? A local sheep rancher scrambled to get them but not before they had tracked mud all over the homeowner’s new white carpet!