I have just spent two hours trying to herd five nervous Balwen sheep from our lake... I mean field into a dry field.
Our smallholding has 2 one acre fields, either side of a beck. One is high up and stays dry, the other is low down and has a natural spring feeding the water bucket. Guess which field the sheep were in
We tried digging our ditch out a little more, in the dark, whilst it was raining. This resulted in me flat on my face in the mud.
We had already dug out the drainage ditch in our low field yesterday, hoping for less rain (vain hope it was), but have now realized that our neighbors field (which was bought to build houses on) is so flooded the water is flowing through the hedge into ours! We realized that having only a small area un-flooded, moving the sheep was a priority.As this was our first time moving them, we tried sorting out a fence to herd them round. That didn't work as the bloody thing wouldn't stay up Whilst I was doing that, the sheep decided to wander out of the gate, but as soon as we moved anything, they legged it back in
. So we laid a trail of feed in buckets. Eventually,
sheep were in the high field and
still in the lake! This meant one of us had to stay in the top field to prevent the ram running back (and the other 3 ewes following him) and the other trying to chase the sheep out of the lake up our drive to the top field. With much wetness later, we finally managed to close the gate and come in for a cuppa!
Fed up with the