Tag Archives: sheep

Loners

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In every herd or flock, there is always one.

A loner.

With the sheep, it is Lambie. Of course, it’s Lambie. How could it be anyone else?

Possibly not the brightest star in our firmament and, yes, he stood there in his little dining room/pen for a good hour while the gate was open telling himself he had nothing.  You can almost hear him singing to himself “nobody loves me, everybody hates me, think I’ll go and eat worms”.

I did tell him, repeatedlym…. but nope, nothing.

The lights were on…. yada, yada. Lambie eventually worked it out.

With the old horses and ponies, it is Iacs. He is often found by himself staring into the middle distance looking distinctly vague. He lets out a pathetic neigh of loneliness and Kolka usually draws the short straw and has to go and get him back.  She is kind like that.  Haakon hides and says nothing.

And, lastly, amongst this lot, you can guess who it is and why it is……

Yup, Newt.  Nobody loves Newt.

And we all know why.

(in case you don’t, it is because he is awful to everyone when they’re eating – the bottom whizzes round trying to kick anyone in his way, including me!)

And so Newt is all alone in the world too (despite having great hair this summer).

Busy Day

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We have visitors coming up from south for their holidays tomorrow so I wanted to be prepared, food-wise, and have spent my day chained to the stove, cooking with varying degrees of success.

I made 3 curries, 2 chutneys, a really bad cake (I am quite ashamed of it and will try and pass it off as pudding rather than anything you would eat with a cup of tea), a batch of ice cream, got another one mixed ready to go, and lastly boiled and peeled lots of duck eggs for picnic sandwiches. Obviously I was supervised.

 

Later on, Monster and Pepper had a good battle – it was revenge for when Pepper had ambushed Monster.  He won, of course and she ran downstairs using me as her shield in case he had another go.

I needed a break from the kitchen, all the cooking and so I took everyone outside.  After putting out the haynets for the Shetland ponies, I went into the sheep field and sat down on my coat for some much-needed sheep-watching or maybe it was the other way around?

 

Pepper sat on me and then beside me getting annoyed with the flies.

She was trying to catch them by snapping randomly at the air.

Lambie was far away.

And then suddenly he wasn’t.

My dear little boy. We had a lovely chat.

And he also passed the time of day with Pepper too.

(which I always think is very sweet).

Sitting in the field surrounded by flowers and sheep, listening to the birds, while Pepper snapped randomly at flies made a peaceful break after slaving away in the kitchen all day.

Lost all my sheep

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It was a lovely morning for a dog-walk.  I was looking for the sheep, but came across Haakon instead.

We had a quick chat and I went on with the walk, thinking the sheep were probably at the far end of the field.

Beautiful flowers were everywhere – I am particularly fond of the forget-me-nots.

While I was walking up into the hill part of the field, I saw movement by my feet.

I think this is a Heath humble-bee (Bombus jonellus vogti) – please correct me if I am wrong.

She was very cute (apparently it is the females that collect the pollen, etc and do all the work – of course they do!)

(and she had lovely fat little buff-coloured knickers!)

She seemed very content buzzing around the self-heal plants.

And then onwards and upwards looking for my sheep.  I couldn’t see them anywhere.  I was worried they had all escaped as there is a very rickety gate at the end of the field.

But, having thoroughly searched the 30 acre field, scratched my head and wondered where they all were, I suddenly remembered I had put them in a different field. Duh!

So, after making my afternoon felted sheep, I went and found my sheep where I had originally put them.

‘Bert kindly plonked himself down behind me and I told him he was the most comfortable chair-back I knew.  He really was, nice and solid giving great support but then that’s ‘Bert all over.

I’m glad I found my sheep. I was beginning to worry before I eventually remembered!

 

Shearing Today

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I received a message from my shearer saying he could shear the sheep Wednesday a.m.  The forecast was rain and then more rain the night before so, rattling a packet of Rich Tea biccies, I got the sheep inside yesterday evening so they wouldn’t be soaking wet.

This decision did not make me popular but there it was.

Morgan, my shearer, arrived nice and early and got to work. First up ‘Bert.

And then all the rest.

Maggie was particularly vile to Lambie when he came out all newly sheared and pretended she didn’t know who he was anymore.

They are always like that and Lambie got very upset at being hassled.

I had to go to town to collect  my car, amongst other things and, as the sheep all said they wanted to go into the field (still raining), I let them in.  Next thing they wanted back out again and went back to bed.  Fair enough.

When I got home from town, I found the sheep milling around. I think they are much so better for having their fleeces off.  There was lots of scratching and needing reassurance that I still love them even if they think they look different.

I did learn that no one is too fat (with the exception of Barrel and possibly Gussie) and  I was pleased to see how well the old ones look – Lambie, Bert and Ster. I had been worrying they came out of winter thin.

I think Dahlia looks glorious.

And Lambie, of course.  He’s still very handsome in an only-a-mother-could-love-him sort of way.

Best of news of all was that the world’s fattest sheep, aka Madge, is now deemed as “not as fat as she was and has been much worse”.  So that was encouraging.

So that’s that. Everyone sheared for the year and looking good.

Dull Start but Brightened

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Some of us didn’t even want to get up this morning, let alone go outside…..

…. as it was a dull and rainy start. But I put on my wet-weather gear and went out with the breakfast buckets.

Afterwards I let the wet and soggy horses and ponies out of their field to eat the grass around the house. Bibble just followed me round looking hopeful.

I decided to make my statutory hand-felted sheep this morning and was met by Fivla who I could tell had designs on my little shed where I work.

She reckoned it was just the right size for a small Shetland pony trying to shelter from the rain (and I probably wouldn’t have minded if she had come in as she is very well-behaved and has been in the house before – tell no one!)

Bibble lurked by, of course.

Once finished making sheep, I returned to the house only to find that Monster might have moved downstairs but he certainly hadn’t woken up.

And, being Shetland, the weather changes very quickly and the afternoon turned much brighter. I drove to West Burrafirth with a friend and her dog (on lead) and we went for a walk.

The views were stupendous.  I hadn’t been here before.  Definitely somewhere to remember.

So that was my day, and how was yours?