EWE CHOOSING

This view says it all ... this was the sheep pens up on the mountain this morning. Visibility reduced to almost nothing, damp, muddy, wet! Through the mountain clinging fog I could hear the sounds of a quad and a farmer working his dogs. He was gathering them in for sorting out in the pens. Due to the weather being as it was the ewes were further down the mountain, sheltering in amongst the beech trees. The farmer, unable to see them clearly had to rely on his working collies to gather them in for him. I could hear through the white cloudiness, his commands to the dogs and heard the quad get closer.

Out of the white mountain mist they appeared, all bunched up as if uncertain which way to go. But, with the skill of the farmers commands and they were very soon penned in.

All bar one, which defiantly leapt away from the collies into the dense white fields. The three collies went off on a chase and eventually brought the defiant ewe back to the pens.

There's nearly always one stroppy loner to contend with. Notice the depth of the mud, and mud that clung to wellies and quad tyres like glue. But at least it wasn't raining today.

A quick count and the farmer realised a few ewes were still missing, so off he went with quad and dogs to herd in the last of the flock. Once again all I could hear (but not see) was one man and his dogs gathering the last few ewes in for sorting out and treating. Once this has been done the Texel ram will be brought up to these out-bye fields to service 50 ewes.

Meanwhile as I waited, whilst listening to the quad and the farmer commanding his dogs, I was noticing smaller details on some of the structure of posts in the area of the pens. Old wood and rusted chains with a relatively new, shiny shackle. These "pens" are quite complex in design, allowing the farmer to sort out the ewes he wants to put to one side for the Texel tup to serve. Out of just over 200 ewes, he wanted the best 50 to go out with the ram, so they had to go through what is known as a race. Basically a narrow channel that only one ewe can go through at a time.

It is quite a compact area of fenced in pens and gates that allow the farmer to choose which ewes go where, and then the chosen fifty have to be checked over and inoculated before they can be let lose to be serviced by the ram. Today they were mainly pure Welsh Mountain ewes going to a Texal ram, the resulting lambs will be a breed cross. Wel-tex! The Texlel has greater body weight and fleece thickness, This crossing of breed should mean a meatier lamb with a a woollier fleece weight come shearing time. But time has been running short for the rams to be allowed to do their yearly job, so the ewes had to be selected and got ready to be let loose with the carefully chosen ram. 

Having watched all these "sorting out" proceedings, the mad mutt needed a run.

The commons were just threaded with shining, jewel like, moisture laden spiders webs.

I was lucky to get even these few photographs,  because they were close to the ground.

But one look at the nearby forestry shows how low the fog hung on the mountain.

It has been a dank and dreary day, but at the same time an interesting one.