Stuck in the mud and shooting for the stars

This week was quite the rollercoaster ride in our shepherding adventures. You know, they say you can learn anything from YouTube, but let me tell you, nothing beats the real-life experience of herding sheep, and we have done ALOT of that this week. On Monday it started with an early start to get the sheep from Hope Garden Meadow over the lane to Lower Close Field.

Getting the sheep across the lane was the hard part, but then we had to get them into the right field. Thank goodness for the much needed help of Ian Richard Fencing crew!

While “herd mentality” usually sounds like a bad idea, these sheep operate like a well-rehearsed dance troupe. Although its infuriating that they have to do everything together, their mirroring and extrovert characteristics are pretty impressive. It's a whole higher level of social interaction and understanding that I am sure we will learn more about and can learn alot from.

However, the true challenge arose on Wednesday morning when a sheep with an infected eye required our vet's attention. This meant that Tristram and I had to rise at dawn to move the sheep pen down to the field. Because of several days of rain the area turned into a total mudbath, and despite the best efforts of our 4 wheel drive and intense shoveling of woodchip under the tires our trailer became well and truly stuck in the mud.

So we carried the hurdles down one by one, and began the task of getting the sheep inside the hurdles, which miraculously we did just in time for Donal our vet. He did not seem that impressed but Tristram and I felt like we had just conquered the world.

Then came the real challenge of the week, to isolate the sheep and give eye drops every morning. If you think that is hard on a toddler, try it on a sheep in a muddy field.

I have named her Dandelion for because this flower symbolizes resilience and transformation - good qualities, and she is also a complete pain but once you get her and put the eye drops in, a complete sense of joy.

This week we also got going our Soil Plan started on Soil Benchmark, the sheep scanned on my Stickreader and their data uploaded to our new Farmworks system and it looks like we hopefully going to get Dandelion's eye back in shape. It's been an eventful, tiring but rewarding 7 days. B for achievement, and A for effort and a very deep heartfelt gratitude to all the generous knowledgeable people who helped us this week - the local farming community is a herd we will gratefully and respectfully follow.

Our flock by night & a moment of calm!