The local crop is hillbred crossbred lambs, which are sold each autumn to lowland farmers for fattening. The ewes are hardy blackfaced mountain sheep - swaledales I think, and they have the look of goodtime girls slightly past their best - narrow sweet sootyblack faces, framed by curly horns like hoop earrings, shaggy white coats, and black stockings. They are up for a good time after a summer as single mums, herding together to eat and natter, buck and fight.
The tups are nowhere near as pretty or as bright. Dumb bone-headed roman-nosed Leicester lummoxes, in short sheepskin jackets. All they need are little porkpie hats at an angle to complete the look.
Two rams to a field, and they never stop doing what rams do. I've been out at midnight, in 3 degrees of frost, the air cracking with moonlit ice, and have found them stretching their huge snouts into the air to sniff out the ladies.
2 comments:
Itis beginning to sound fun ! You should write a weekly column for a local or even a national paper. You may have to invent a bit of drama occasionally. Too much Nature and Peaceful Pleasure makes us envious.
Alas, all the juicy gossip drama I know off involves people I am related to and/or pay rent to, so those stories may have to wait...
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