I was walking the land at Aisling when I met Larry,a neighbour-
ing farmer.Over the weekend I had driven down to my estate
in Wicklow to collect some rent and inform the tenants of the
forthcoming increases.Over the years I have tried to keep all
interaction with the peasants to a business level and instead
get all the gossip in the local or directly from Larry.He tells me
whos drinking too much,who is riding who and who has sold
well or badly at Ashford (Mart).
When I asked him how his own Heifers went the previous week
he answered in his usual way of telling me without telling me
anything,
"I didn't get what I wanted,but I got more than I expected."
"Thats great,Good Sales?"
"Not great."Larry would tell you the secret of Fatima but ask
him about his own business and he shuts up like a duck's arse
in a near-frozen pond.It is, of course,the middle of the Lambing
season in that neck of the woods and Larry,along with the rest
of them was up to his tits in Lambs,sickly and healthy,yews
the same,afterbirths and casualties.
As you all know sheep are the most stupid creatures in all
evolution,they're the blondes of the animal Kingdom.They go
out of their way to make life difficult for themselves and the
unfortunate cunt looking after them.They'll wait for the cold-
est,wettest,windiest night before dropping their lamb,twins
or triplets.They will drop one lamb in a corner of the field
before wandering over to another corner to drop her twin,
leaving the first to the elements and to the mercy of grey
crows and foxes.The dozy cunts are able to look after single
lambs themselves but twins and triplets generally have to
be brought inside and kept under infra-red lighting for a few
days till they strenghten up.
The yews themselves often find themselves in difficulty as
well and it is not uncommon for them to displace their womb
during Lambing.Farmers usually carry twine and a darning-
needle to sew up her gee (without anaesthetic) and I have
also seen them using those big pins that you use in Kilts, to
keep everything in.All in all its a busy time for farmers but
fuck them,its about the only time the lazy cunts do any work.
Sheep and farmers deserve each other.So,I was asking Larry
about his lambs,farmers ,in spite of the extra work involved
are only interested in twins and triplets because of the extra
profit at sales time.
"Many triplets ?"
"Not too many."
"Lose many ?"
"Let me tell you something about lambs," he said balefully,
"If you kept the feckin' lambs under the bed,they'd drown
in the piss-pot."
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6 comments:
Sheep are dumb fucks no doubt about it. When we were kids- after a heavy snowfall - my brother and I used to get fifty pence from our neighbour for every sheep we cut free from the briars. The stupid sheep would go into the ditches for shelter, get stuck, struggle, fall over and be tangled fast witht their feet sticking straight up in the the air.
Sometimes I wonder why I even bother living in the city. I think I would be just as happy down the country, wearing jeans, boots, growing oil seed rape and eating apples on the back of a horse with a pleathora of muddy dogs running around me, shooting at poachers with a shot gun loaded with ball bearings. Sigh.
It's salt or lentils you put in the cartriges.
Sheep are the world's worst. What townies don't understand about them is the hatred by which they are viewed by everyone. My friend (who looks like SafeT) had hundreds of them. They would die suddenly, they would go lame, he would separate out the lame ones, have a look at their feet and whatnot, get the vet (dear) they would prance about just as the bastard's range rover came up the road, he fucking hated them. He had 50 -60 stolen! A float pulled up and took away 60 of the bastards. The neighbours saw it all, but didn't think anything was amiss. Bold as brass.
Tasty though.
When I was a wee girl I used to watch my dad and my uncles drenching the lambs on my granny's croft. At the same times they marked them with great dollops of paint so each crofter could tell his own sheep when the were put out to commom grazing on the moor. Our croft's colour was blue and I was very proud that we were providing the blue jumpers for all the island. It only really dawned on me we weren't when I realized I'd never seen a marl sheep. Although, thinking on it now, they may well have just put the brown bits round the tail in to the white wool from time to time.
We have Scottish Blackface sheep in the Hebrides which are still medievally small and sport rastafarian* fleece-dos which is very cool for a sheep but almost totally unsuited for moor'n'bog life. It trails in all sorts, gets filthy dirty, and looks as if it probably has a fair few unknitable split ends too. It takes someone of great vision to look at one and think, 'oooh, a charming cabled throw!'
Other sheep story: when I was learning to drive (Lewis is mostly one track roads with passing places outside Stornoway) my dad and I came across a sheep in the middle of the road. Normally a sheep will move eventually and more quickly for a toot of the horn. This one would not move so, as an experiment, we decided to see how long it would be before we could scare it into the ditch with our threatening engine-revving. It was a quiet road and we had sandwiches (and hey, the pace of life is slow there and we didn't have a cinema at the time). 9 minutes that sheep stared at us for with it's stupid yellow eyes and pupils that weren't even roundISH. 9 minutes of enthusiastic, moor-polluting engine-roaring. My father had to get out and PUSH it before it sauntered off wagging its straggly tail behind it. I kid you not. Morons, sheep.
*Scottish blackfaces have terrible weed habits too and are usually stoned and giggling, which accounts for their wondering off and forgetting they've just given birth.
Yes Sam,mountainy ones are by far the worst and the meat isn't great either,nice memories though.
Tee hee,having voted for Doc. earlier in the week,I managed to vote for Mr.Bananas yesterday as well,so now I can sleep easier as my conscience is clear on that matter at least.
Christ, I've been voting for the poor bastard all week.
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