Glimpse of earthly paradise, with axes of biodiversity and carbon sequestration.
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.
spring lamb (preview)
all very clean
ready to go
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!”
butchering a lamb
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)
hay / silage
“more bad hay made in a good year”
hay cut too early turns into silage – plastic wrapped but still manages to smell sweet
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
sheep breeds / Suffolks
kenning – knowing – naming sheep: breeds, then individuals
midsummer: what are the sheep grazing on?
drawing in the field 
