off to market

The sheep were long overdue for market on account of Dave breaking some bones in his back in October last year and then breaking his leg, hip and shoulder this Spring. We had to catch them, check their tags and load them into the horsebox. We were dreading it! We had enlisted the help of my son, Albert to help. We made a make-shift pen with old security fences in a corner of the field and our sheepdog, Meg, rounded them all up into the Corale.

We had one black Shetland Ram with black curly horns called Tony (he was t'only one). He was very feisty. We had about 5 tups in all but Tony's main rival was a white ram with very curly horns, called Brandon. For about the last 2 weeks Tony and Brandon have been fighting - they charged at eachother and launched themselves into the air so that they clashed about 4' from the ground. I was always scared their horns would lock but luckily it never happenned.

The first job the day before was to mark all the tups, check their tags and also mark the few sheep we were keeping. Even squashed in their pen Brandon and Tony were chasing the 'women' and fighting so we decided to do them first. Meg and I guarded the opening and Jack climbed up onto the wall safely out of the way. We checked a few Ewes and Brandon was happy to go back into the field with them but Tony paced and charged the fencing right up until the last sheep was released! He would hit the metal fence at about 4' high and we would all brace ourselves to hold it in place, even with a couple of wooden posts we knocked in as well. I still have the bruise on my knee where he charged at the opening and sent me flying!

He was the first to go into the horsebox the next morning at 6 am! It was minus 3 on the thermometre in the porch and our breath still showed inside the car on the way to the auction mart.