Road sheep and rams

I am not very good at keeping this blog up to date so don't expect any of the 'yesterday I went to shop and bought a Mars Bar' sort of stuff. And, as for going to the shop with the price of diesel going through the roof I may very well be going on a horse in the near future and the Land Rover will be left to rust.

I suppose that would make an interesting future entry: 'I went to the shops on a horse and bought a Mars Bar. The horse had some oats and it was an altogether more enjoyable experience than forking out £20 on diesel for the 8 mile journey. Also, the horse didn't rust'.

Keep dreaming.

(Image of a ram sheared of its fleece)

There always seem to be stray sheep wandering up and down the Mill road, not ours I may add, touch wood. They come up from the shore having managed to breach dilapidated fencing further down the loch. In fact, for many it is probably considered home range and the odd car or three to avoid is just an everyday hazard.

Once they reach the A87 junction at the top of the road however, where our house is, the situation can be annoying as, if the gate is accidentally left open then the sheep come into the garden and browse the plants. Little wooly devils that they are.

Also many a car and sheep has met its end on the road over the years from this freelance, care not a jot, sheepy attitude to staying behind wire. Road sheep are rogue sheep. Nevertheless, regardless of their renegade status, once a year these road sheep like all the rest of the local sheep, have their little lambs.

A few weeks back looking out the window at a most beautiful Skye evening scene, sun glinting off Loch Snizort, cattle grazing contentedly after a hard winter on hay and cobs, the Romesdal flock all present and correct and happily within the croft boundary, a little lamb was spotted through the fence in our field with its mother distraught on the Mill road. The little darling.

You see, wee lambs can squeeze through the tiniest hole in a quest for...who knows what. Anyway, I grabbed the trusty shepherds' crook, and hot footed it out of the house, down the Mill Road, through the gate and into the field. Jay, of course, was at my side and loving every minute of this unexpected turn of events.

When the lamb saw me it went off like a shot into the furthest corner of the field and bleated like crazy whilst trying to butt its wee head through a very stout wire fence. Bless. As I got closer to the corner the tiny mite of wooliness was off again, this time to the Mill Road corner, by the burn (stream). And so I slowly followed.

Patience paid off in the end and I finally caught the lamb with crook (after a good soaking from running through the burn chasing it) and deposited the beast on the right side of the fence to find its agitated mother.

I was ready for that Mars Bar when I got home to replace the energy expended chasing the lamb, I can tell you.

But I digress because what I meant to relate was how I managed to get our oversized and overweight ram sheared whilst on holiday in London (see image above). Which for me was an unusually clever piece of work as the alternative was to shear the giant ram by hand and the following chain events gave me the opportunity.

I was walking down to the Mill Road to the shore with Jay one day shortly after the incident with the lamb in the field and spotted amongst a gang of road sheep a pair of Kingsburgh Sheepstock Club rams (See 'The Gathering' for more detail on 'sheepstock club'). I knew they were club tups because of the orange paint mark on their rear ends.

Now, being a member of the club I could not very well allow these valuable beasts to wander nilly willy up and down roads until they maybe caused an accident, for which the club would be liable, or vanished into the sunset of an evening. So I called my trusty bitch Jay to heel and directed the rams through our field gate and into the field where we keep our own rams and wedders (see 'Tupping the sheepies' for term explanation.)

On meeting the vet (now retired), who doubles as secretary to the Sheepstock Club one day soon after and informing him of the tups in my field, he asked me to bring them to fank as all the club tups and hogs were going to be sheared on the following Friday. I said, no problem and can do, but I am going to London for a week's R&R and therefore wont be able to help with the shearing and stuff on the appointed day. The vet said, well don't worry about it as 'what can you do'? Which is not a lot, I thought, as I would be on London town.

So the next morning I gathered the rams and wedders into a pen, backed up the old but serviceable livestock trailer and shooed the club tups, along with our own much larger tup, into the back and trundled them down to Kingburgh fank. I informed the vet of this successful operation and said my own tup had accidentally got in with the rest and it would be just as well to shear him also. The vet looked at me knowingly.

On return from London the tup had been sheared, was duly collected and returned to his rightful field.

Nice one.