Despite the Siberian snow
today, DD and I decided to go for a walk up a local hill in the one 30 minute
slot where it wasn’t snowing for the entire day. Reaching the field at the top of the hill, the
snow was almost knee deep in places and DD marked out her sledge route; she
realised that she had no choice but to head towards a flock of sheep that had
congregated at the bottom of the field.
After one complete ‘sledge’
the sheep ran off, but returned soon after to watch her walk back up the hill
with her sledge. One brave ewe followed
her along her sledge tracks, but then stopped and stared at us about 20 feet
away. Puzzled by her interest in us, DD
tried to communicate in ‘sheep’ with her with a series of ‘baas’, but the only
response we got was a Paddington Bear/Taxi Driver hard stare.
We then resorted to a primary school playground game of slowly moving towards the ewe when she wasn’t looking, and standing very still when it turned her head back to look at us, with the intention of only getting to about 5 feet from her so as to not to intimidate her.
Within the short time it
took to take our first few steps, she must have decided ‘’I dinnae wanna play
this stoopid game, I'm off!’ and walked off to join her flock.
With freezing winds and
horizontal snow returning, we waded/sledged/walked back down the hill to an
even snowier home. Sheep are as hard as
****!
 |
Photo © Paula Gilfillan. All Rights Reserved. |
Wonder if the sheep know there is the first ever Red Alert for snow in Scotland. Always surprised how yellow sheep look against a white out.
ReplyDeleteThey are remarkably hardy animals even if they think they are about to be eaten most of the time.
Delete