Ciubana

I have a back up plan if my schemes to go to grad school don't materialize, and that is to buy a herd of sheep, move up to one of the various little shepherd huts in the Carpathians, and observe my flock from the back of a cute Hutul mare with my various large livestock guard dogs. I will also have a cute pack donkey to carry my belongings, and some silly goats. I will be an ex-pat  ciubana (shepherdess) and enjoy a life of gorgeous mountains, smelly sheep and goat cheese, and probably a lot of tuica.

This is some raw wool I got from the shepherd, below. If my camera was better at photographing in minute detail, you could even better appreciate the subtle coloring within the overall grey wool. He has a herd of about a hundred sheep, and they apparently sell all of their wool to a 'patron' who continues to have it refined and made into yarn and then sold wherever, probably at overpriced kitschy yarn shops. My other back up plan is to have a yarn import/export company and export raw Carpathian yarn to crafty yarn ladies. I think my Mutti and I have the connections to make that work.
Here Florin's flock sits outside their house at night, protected by some big, white guard dogs. 
Below is the flock that lives around Petrestii where the horses are. That's the shepherd with the pack donkey and various goats, too. Sheep here are a Wallachian breed that, according to the U of Oklahama livestock breed guide (which I read as enthusiastically as a clearly written, unbiased piece of Romanian historical work!), these sheep are a native breed that is not found anywhere else in the world. Apparently in Germany, there is some research being done to determine the genetic makeup of the sheep. Obviously, the Germans would be the ones to try to verify that, while the Romanian shepherds would never bother registering their sheep. Let's be real, people. 
Below is a shepherd hut in the mountains around Lunca Ilvei. These huts are really cute, usually one or two small rooms with a straw bed. In the summers, shepherds stay up in the mountains nearly the whole season with their flock, making cheese that you can buy if you happen to walk or ride buy (unless the EU bans the practice for not being carried out in a regulated environment. Apparently processed American cheese bricks are better for your than real, cultured fresh sheep's milk cheese)
The Romanians have been shepherds for thousands of year. The Vlachs or Blachs are native people who were recorded in Bulgarian, Hungarian, and papal documents as people living north of the Bulgars, or within Bulgarian domains (depending on the strength of that empire at the time). Vlach is the Slavic version of Wallach, which is the root of the name for the Romanian principality Wallachia. Vlach became synonymous for shepherd, peasant, and sometimes more insulting terms when the Magyars settled in Transylvanian areas and differentiated themselves from the 'schismatic' (Orthodox) peasant/stupid/shepherds living in the the mountains. 

There is a recorded story of a Byzantine heir to the throne who was captured by Vlach shepherds around the 11th century when the heir had been traveling in the northernmost areas of Byzantine influence.