By luck, not so lucky for a last year Portland Ewe lamb, there are now ten Sheep in the field that I an now putting them in. A few day ago I saw her caught up with a piece of electric fencing wire, tangled around her back foot and a fence post. I was on the quad at the time. As I drove towards her she got up and started to run away breaking, the wire. There was still a very long length attached to her, so I gave chase on the quad. That really is not a good idea. Quads used foolishly are very dangerous, and my chasing the Ewe was foolish. They are so easy to turn over, with the machine finishing on top of you. I purchased the quad new. On the first day of having it, a girl who had her horse stabled on the farm, was using the quad and trailer, after mucking her horse out, she went around a turn to quick, and the quad finished up on top of her. She was lucky, escaping with a couple of scratches, as did my new quad bike. A couple of Christmases back Ozzy Osborne was seriously hurt on one. So you have got to be very careful on them.
When I was chasing the Ewe, I was trying to cut her off from going into the wood, by swinging the quad from side to side, it started to tip as I swung it into the camber of the hill. If I had not cut my speed it would have completely gone over. After slowing down I could not catch her from going into the wood. The quad tyre did go over the trailing wire and broke a fair piece off, but there was still a lot trailing behind her. The next day I saw, what I thought was the remainder of the wire laying in the field. I didn’t bother to check the Ewe to make sure that it had dropped off her.
Yesterday after catching and moving the Texel Ewes and Lambs I heard a Ewe calling out, believing that it was one of the Texel’s that we had left behind, and that she was calling for the Ewes we had moved, I did not bother to much about it. This afternoon I could still hear a Ewe calling from the wood. It was to continuous not to investigate. I soon came across the calling Ewe, it was the last years Portland Ewe Lamb, who had the wire on its foot, caught up on a low tree branch. She had obviously been there for a day or two, going by her messy rear end. After cutting her free and cleaning her up, she was given a drive on the quad, to join the nine sheep that have been move to their new pasture. Only fourteen left to catch.
The Grand National, it would not be my favorite Horse Race. It is not the four and a half miles they run, neither the thirty large jumps they have to negotiate. Horses regularly did both and more when hunting was allowed. National Hunt Racing was born out of Fox and Deer hunting. What I don’t like is the injuries and fatalities that are caused because of it being a race. Being a race the Horses are pushed on hard to win. To hard for most of them, as the low percentage of those Horse that finish the race shows. Today just thirteen of forty starters finished the race, and this was a good year.