Gathering, Devil’s Beef Tub

On a Gator, forgot sketchbook. The shepherds whistle – the ewes know what this means and go to their own heft, lambs following.

Border Union Show Interbreed Championship, 2010

A Cheviot Gimmer won the day, with a Blackface Ram in second place. There were many contenders.

Shetlands: the sheep come in the same tones as the judge’s jumper.

Small enough you can pick them up. Submission and sleep, rumination.

Zwartbles: have collars and leads.

Blue-faced Leicester: the ram draws attention. “Like a cow! enormous!”

Texels: She is eating grass, lying down, gentle, timid. “They look like a dog!”

shearing

a melée of limbs, wool, onlooking ewes

piled fleeces waiting to be rolled, dirty bits put under the table

shorn and unshorn have a look round the pen during a break (phone rang)

sheep breeds / Jacobs

I take a closer look at Jessie Jacob and her relatives

Using Jacob Sheep Society breeding Standard notes,  I start to see them as a carefully cultivated product. What does ‘upstanding’ mean in a sheep?

“the head should be clear of wool forward of the horns”

“Mottled skin and wool is undesirable”


Well, I think she is lovely …

Finally she comes to have a look at me – and pisses