Because sheep have lambs. Because sheep are soft and fuzzy and can't kill you with a kick or a butt. Because sheep are easy companions who require little beyond understanding. Because the wool sheep produce so copiously can be used for everything from sweaters to comforters to felt slippers to home insulation. Because waking to the gentle sound of sheep mowing the grass under your window will improve your opinion of lawn mowing. Because a flock of sheep will convert your scraggly "back 40" into a lovely greensward.

Because a leg of lamb stuffed with garlic and rosemary and slowly roasted in your kitchen on a winter's afternoon will bring you to the apex of culinary achievement. And because, finally, as you sit in the hay on a spring morning with a warm, dry lamb sleeping in your arms and a watchful ewe breathing in your ear and knickering in the back of her throat to comfort her little fellow, you'll realize that you've grown unwilling to live without sheep.

With its gorgeous, full-color photographs and information on everything from feeding to raising lambs to gathering wool, Living With Sheep is the ultimate guide to sheep.

In the above photograph, a Dorset Finn Southdown ewe rests with her 2 1/2-week-old lambs -- a ram at left and a ewe -- in the warm barn at Fat Rooster Farm in Royalton, Vt.