Of course I did take the Sheep comment as a joke, unfortunately you wouldn’t have realised how appropriate it was. Or you may well have jinxed me.
Just as we were finishing feeding the sheep this morning, down the farm lane came the next door neighbours Land Rover. I knew exactly what he was going to tell me, and he wasn’t best pleased. The Sheep were in his fields again. It has been happening for the past few weeks. Most of his fields border onto my land, the one down the end of the valley, where the sheep are, is surrounded on three sides. Trouble is that it is very quite up there. It is a very steep sided field on both sides, with a lot old gorse, and ideal spot for Deer, who regularly knock down the electric fencing, that gives the Sheep the opportunity to wonder into my neighbours fields.
Sheep soon get use to it when they learn to break out, and it is very difficult to stop them. It doesn’t matter how much grass there is in the place they are meant to be. Remember the old saying, the grass is always greener on the other side, how true. They would have to be moved. Knowing that my neighbour has a Sheep Dog it was the ideal opportunity to get them back to the farm yard, to be able to get them ready for Market. He agreed to help get them back for me. Bliss and Misty being turned out gave us the opportunity to use their pen to put the Sheep in. It would comfortably hold the twelve Sheep and lambs that we were going to bring back and the free range ones that I would try to catch later.
My neighbour returned to his farm to get his Dog. He would go round the back way to bring the Sheep back, I was to walk up to meet him. Three quarters of the way up I met my neighbour walking towards me. Had the sheep passed me he asked. For although he had got them out of his field earlier, they were not where he had last seen them. We walked back to where they were meant to be and heard a bleat from another of his field.
We eventually got the twelve Sheep with lambs back to the pen, were I wanted them. It took us getting on for an hour and a half, the Sheep were going all over the place, in and out of the woods, with my neighbour and his dog doing most of the getting them out. How he did not loose his patience and walk away, I don’t know. I was doing to much running around, I reckon that I must have lost a good stone in weight. I gave them water and hay and left them in the pen.
Because I had to go out and get on with other work on the farm I did not see the Sheep until this evening. How many Sheep did you bring back, I was asked, twelve and there lambs? because there not all there now. I thought that it was a joke and went to look. There were not twelve and lambs, there were just ten including lambs. I could not believe it. I was fuming. They had got out of a gap in the corner of the pen, the gap was caused because we deep litter the pen because of its size, meaning that we clear out the dung and add new straw on the top of the old, it give a very warm bed with the fermentation. The build up of the bed had pushed a gate away leaving a gap. A couple of the Sheep with their lambs were bleating to get back with the ones in the pen. Every time we tried to get near them to push them on, they had it away. The remainder of them I saw when I moved the Badger camera onto the feeding area. You probably saw them as I.
I had to go around the back way to feed the Badgers, to get the Sheep out of that field. On the way I had to pass near to the pen where the Sheep are. I could hear two lambs calling out. I had to see if there was a problem, there was, they were in the stream close to the pen. I jumped down into the stream to grab them, getting my feet and legs soaked through in the bargain. To stop me getting hold of them the blighters legged it up the other bank, over a small bridge and back into the pen.
Hows that television add go ” I hate fish ” I hate Sheep.
Some of you probably saw the two pair Geese on the lake this morning. Arguing as usual, I wonder, just maybe.
I believe that the Osprey eggs are due to hatch on the 20th. Remember the foaling. I have been wrong before.