It all started with our late next-door neighbor’s estate sale. Sitting in the front yard was a treadmill. His son said it still worked. It was love at first sight for my wife, Carla. What she saw was a “sheep walker.”

It’s a real thing. People turn old treadmills used for exercising into walking machines for show sheep.

My grandson, Graham, and I raise the sheep. Carla helps Graham show them. That’s her thing. Since she couldn’t hang around the auction, buying the treadmill became my thing. I bid it off at $5, but not before the auctioneer told everyone what I was going to do with it, laughing the whole time.

I took the treadmill to the local vo-ag department, explained what I wanted and turned the students loose. A trio of creative seniors decided to make it sturdy but easy to move. They would build a wooden chute, but not attach it directly to the treadmill. Instead, they made the long rear chute and a short head section, all of wood. Both pieces fit around the treadmill frame and bolted to each other with four long bolts. To move it, I could simply pull the four bolts and remove the wood sections.

We even took two ewes to school to test-drive the walker. One walked fine. The other squirrely ewe did her best dance impression, trying to keep her feet on the stationary sides, off the belt. The boys then installed inside bumpers to keep her in the middle and made other adjustments.

One Saturday in May I brought the sheep walker home and set it up. Graham and Carla brought a couple of sheep, I turned on the belt — and it flew! Whoa, where did that come from? It worked fine at the school. At this speed, I could see a sheep catapulting out the front, right into our antique Co-op E3 tractor!

The belt finally slowed down and the sheep walked. A couple of days later we went through the same routine. Then two days after that, we put a ewe in once it slowed down. This time it ran for a few seconds, jerked, sighed and died — the treadmill, not the ewe. It was DOA; kaput.

Carla was disappointed. I told her she could look for another bargain treadmill. Meanwhile, I moved the sheep walker contraption to the side of the shed to get ready for incoming straw.

Next thing I knew, I was laying the gas-powered weed-cutter on top — perfect fit! Then I put buckets and other stuff inside.

It’s now a storage rack, and a darn good one, too — very sturdy. Until Carla tracks down another treadmill, the sheep walker has a new purpose in life.