You can't herd one sheep

We have a farm[let], so we're farrrrmers? That's true, I s'pose, for some definitions of farmer.  The current regime at Caisleán Fáinne-chloch is that we have a minimum number [N=15] of sheep to a) stop ecological succession turning our trad hay meadows into old growth oak forest b) attract a modest subsidy from Bruxelles. Although, we are growing a micro oak+ forest next door. The Dept.Ag. requires that we vacate the 4½ ha. of meadow of sheep (and scythe) from mid-Apr to end-Jun; which is peak growth, flowering and seed-set season. The sheep have ~1 ha. of reg'lar fields on which to vacation during the vacate.

I was tidying up the boundary of that field at the end of March: cutting back the bushes makes it easier to count the sheep - no place to hide. Years ago, before our time, when that boundary separated two active farmsteads, that ditch was cleaned up and topped off with iron stakes, a run of sheep-wire and a single strand of robust barbed wire. There followed ~50 years of neglect: brambles, bushes, and full-on trees have filled out the defenses. Several years ago, a small sceagh Crataegus monogyna gave up under the local weight of wire and sagged over to our side of the boundary. The fence, at a 45° angle, was leaning out over a bit of a drop and the combo seemed to be sheep-proof.

But last Tuesday, I heard an unusual hullabaloo loud enough to penetrate by sofa-sacked 'mind'. Such noises often presage sheep-head-in-wire or similar events: 'tis almost as if it's a cry for help. I put on my boots, seized my shepherd's pliers, and strode purposefully across the lane. Most of the noise came from a lamb on the neighbour's side of the ditch; but the beast gambolled away at my approach and all the adult sheep were grazing unsnagged in the middle of the field. From force of habit I counted them and found 15 . . . +1. We had an extra black-faced ewe who had cleared the fence to see if the grass really was greener on the other side but her lamb at foot had baulked at the jump. I called up m'neighbour to say I had one of his. But we agreed that as the lamb was big enough to eat a bit of grass between milky bars, there was no urgency about repatriating the ewe.

I heaved a big put-upon sigh <harrrrumph> and went back home to assemble the rest of my fence-repair kit: 3 stakes, a handful of staples, chainsaw,  hatchet, iron bar, sledge-hammer. I'd cleared the site and was ready to re-erect the fence when I paused to reflect. It would be the divil-and-all to separate one ewe from her new pals and drive her out the gate, down the lane, along the county road and up the neighbour's drive to home. It might be easier for the two of us (and a good dog, hopefully) to catch the sheep and bundle her all willing over the saggy fence. 

A few hours later, evening-time, I went to look the field the final time and counted 15! Herself had gotten bored with the company and fecked off home under her own steam. At first light, I went back alone to fix the fence:

. . . for some definitions of fixed. That fence had been leaning to our side for many years and disappeared into an unkempt jungle in parts so it required some effort to get the sheep-wire more-or-less upright and supported by the new stakes. The rusty barbed wire wasn't coming vertical to match. But <thinks> if I stand on neighbour's side of the ditch I .might. be able to .lever. the wire over the top of the middle post to tighten the whole MacGyver up. I was an inch from achieving this goal when the wire broke and I pitched back off the ditch onto my arse in the neighbour's field. No amount of PPE can protect from that sort of seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time accident. No, I'm fine, thanks for asking.