I’m bogged down in my wintry woe
FEBRUARY is such a hard month – everything is cold, the ground lies dormant and there is not a blade of grass.
The upside is that the yows are hoovering up the fodder beets like there’s no tomorrow.
I even spied the golden oldies munching on some of the smaller chopped pieces, a feat in itself as I don’t think they have a tooth between them.
These two yows way past their sell-by date are the remnants of a flock of six veterans we were bequeathed by a friend five years ago.
They had all been show winners in their prime but you’d never guess it now from their grey faces and worn horns.
I took pity on them when moving the rest of the flock and decided they should retire to a stable for a while.
Edith made it perfect with a straw bed, rack of hay and tub of molasses.
We ushered them inside, then set off on the quad bike to move the rest of the flock into a more sheltered field.
I was watching the sheepdog rather than where I was going, made a dire misjudgement and really bogged the bike.
As it needed a tractor and tow chain to pull it out we temporarily quit on it and walked the sheep to the new pastures instead.
But by the time we arrived back at the yard the two pensioner yows had escaped.
Having evidently forgotten all their arthritic aches and pains, they had taken a gazellelike leap over the stable door and marched off back to the flock.
So my quad bike is bogged in the field and my sheep have bogged off. Just a bog standard day on the farm, really.