farmdoc's blog post number 106

Of the music that stirs my soul, Sheep May Safely Graze by J S Bach is up there with the best. I marvel at how this music sounds serenely rural. Bucolic. Pastoral. Listening to it, I imagine our sheep on the hillside in front of our house, grazing safely. Though Mole Creek sheep have few predators, I’m concerned our sheep do graze safely; and contentedly. I feel responsible for them, because they can’t attend to all their needs without some human intervention. But despite my concern, sometimes things happen. Last week I found a 9-month old ram lamb down and unable to get up. Initially I thought he may be cast, but most cast sheep are big, woolly and pregnant. And my boy was none of these. Anyway I stood him up, held him upright for a minute, then let him go. He trotted off out of sight over the brow of the hill, seeking his mates. The next day he was dead. I don’t know why he died. Eating bracken fern? Or perhaps a nutritional deficiency? But all the other sheep look healthy. I’ll never know. When previously I worried to an old farmer, his aphoristic reply was: ‘You have livestock, you have dead stock’. I know this, but still I wonder if it was me who somehow prevented this lamb grazing safely.