S.O.S Tuesday and f**king snow! (30/11/10)

A phone call from the shepherd out bye last night saw me mount the quad this morning and head away out there. For all his sheep are in fields there are some which are inaccesible. The quad will no longer travel with only the tractor to use on some ground which is totally unsuitable for a tractor it was deemed necessary to get sheep closer to home, or at least closer to access.

How many shepherds do you know who know the length of their leg up to the knee?? Well this one does! He measured his leg yesterday in an attempt to ascertain how deep the snow was. Level snow is 22 inches away out bye apparently (although I doubt after the snowfall today and tonight that is history and he will have to measure to a different part of his anatomy now!)

The farmer in the Rede was still optomistic that I may get over there, I wasn't and to be fair this was a far more important task. The man in the Rede had all his sheep accesible, this man didn't. So onto the quad and off I went, the shepherd ploughed hs farm road out for me to gain access as the snow is too deep for the bike now.

It seems like no time at all since I took a similar photograph, same man, same place, same year, different month. http://blog.tarset.co.uk/2010/01/snow-bound-sheep.html We walked out cutting a track with our feet as we went, a track we hoped the sheep would follow back.

I would be lying if I said we had the sheep gathered up in no time. It took a good while to get walked out there, barely a single footstep sank in below knee level and one or two sank in to the nether regions. We did get out there though, these are the self same sheep we rescued in January, this time though they couldn't get into the planting, the fence had been patched and they could not escape, we had them, all we had to do was turn them for home and they'd follow the track we'd made as we walked out to them

Grand weather? Don't be fooled, we'd battled through blizzards on the way out, we'd soon be battling again.

This felt like the daddy of them all. The direction we wanted the sheep to head into meant they were going to have to face the blizzard - there is no way sheep will head into weather like that. We all stopped, turned our backs to the weather and waited patiently.

Even Moss waited patiently, I eventually called him into me and let him snuggle infront of me in the hope he'd gain some shelter from my body. Fortunately he was the only dog I had out. The day was going to be too heavy for Glen and Kale would have been an absolute hinderance.

Finally the weather blew over for the time being and the journey resumed. Unfortunately the track we had so laboriously cut out with our feet on the way to the sheep had completely blown in. The shepherd headed out in front to cut yet another track whilst I waffled about with the camera! I did actually head out and help him, leaving Moss back with the sheep although they weren't likely to be going anywhere.

The weather picked up once again and we were back in business, sheep on track and heading away in, shepherd still away out in front cutting a track through but we were getting there, albeit slowly.

Finally and on darkening we reached our destination. It had been a hard slog and I was grateful of the chocolate bar (x2) which I had had sense to drop into my pocket. Both the shepherd and I 'took five' and tried to break our teeth on rock hard chocolate but it hit the spot and fired us up again. The journey down the road back to the farm was in total darkness, other than the headlights cutting through yet another blizzard!

What about tomorrow? D'y know, I really don't know! A phone call tonight to ask for assistance to find, count and feed some sheep which a farmer can't access from where he lives but which I ought to be able to. The forecast is absolutely atrocious and I feel like I'll hardly dare open my eyes in the morning and look out of the window. The two of us desperately need to get into town. This visa does need applying for or else a great deal of money may well have been wasted. Will we get there? Dunno. Mebbes I'll be able to tell you in the next posting.