I usually have a look at the sheep twice a day, just to make sure. Nine times out of ten the sheep are fine, with the lambs, at the sight of me and Jay the dog, bleating and rushing to their mothers for a reassuring suck.
As for Jay, she invariably looks disappointed at not being given the command to gather.
And then that one time happened.
There is a stretch of bog at the bottom of one of the fields which the bullocks had made boggier in their determination to eat the succulent vegetation. I knew this had been going on for some time but failed to spot the danger.
The danger was that though the bullocks had the strength to wade safely through the muck, a sheep with full fleece stood little chance of vacating the bog under its own steam.
Anyway, to cut a short story shorter there was a sheep stuck in the bog and I had to get it out.
A slight digression: Last night there was a man on the television, a 'born survivor', who actually waded into an Irish bog and extracted a dead sheep, skinned the beast and ate the heart raw. He then wrapped himself in the fleece and slept with it in a leaky cave. Nutter.
I didn't do that and anyway my sheep was still alive and I wanted it to stay that way.
What I did do was go for the quad and a length of rope. It was then a case of making a loop in the rope and attempting to get the loop over the sheep's head. Much to my surprise, I did this after only a few throws.
The other end of the rope was tied to the back of the quad and I ever so slowly pulled the sheep from the bog and back onto dry land.
It was a sorry looking beast indeed but after a few faltering stumbles ambled on its way to join the rest of the flock.
An obvious consequence of this event is fencing off the bog so that all beasts are denied access. I should have done this in the first place, of course. The accidental crofter learns another lesson the hard way.
As for Jay, she invariably looks disappointed at not being given the command to gather.
And then that one time happened.
There is a stretch of bog at the bottom of one of the fields which the bullocks had made boggier in their determination to eat the succulent vegetation. I knew this had been going on for some time but failed to spot the danger.
The danger was that though the bullocks had the strength to wade safely through the muck, a sheep with full fleece stood little chance of vacating the bog under its own steam.
Anyway, to cut a short story shorter there was a sheep stuck in the bog and I had to get it out.
A slight digression: Last night there was a man on the television, a 'born survivor', who actually waded into an Irish bog and extracted a dead sheep, skinned the beast and ate the heart raw. He then wrapped himself in the fleece and slept with it in a leaky cave. Nutter.
I didn't do that and anyway my sheep was still alive and I wanted it to stay that way.
What I did do was go for the quad and a length of rope. It was then a case of making a loop in the rope and attempting to get the loop over the sheep's head. Much to my surprise, I did this after only a few throws.
The other end of the rope was tied to the back of the quad and I ever so slowly pulled the sheep from the bog and back onto dry land.
It was a sorry looking beast indeed but after a few faltering stumbles ambled on its way to join the rest of the flock.
An obvious consequence of this event is fencing off the bog so that all beasts are denied access. I should have done this in the first place, of course. The accidental crofter learns another lesson the hard way.
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