Sheep-hoo-o-o-o-ey!

What a week! It's freezing cold now, though actually with nothing like the snow that the rest of the country has. But the drama as 7 days ago, when one of our sheep was ill - our first livestock crisis. Apple (pale-faced blonde) stopped moving around as much as the others and was right off her food.

It was all rather like the Empress of Blandings refusing to eat because all was not right with the world. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent of the universal hog call, Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey!, for sheep. We needed, first a vet, and then, when between 3 of us we'd been unable to get hold of her, a vet plus a student. Off her food, Apple might have been, but she could still move around.

And even then, when trying to corner the sheep, another of them bolted and leapt over the inner fence, that's meant to protect some hedging we've put down from being munched. That's a 4-foot jump from virtually a standing start. This lot can move.

Once we got hold of Apple, the vet suspected liver fluke, and after some medication was inserted up the backside (very disrespectful!) she was better within a day.

We also get some very good information from the vet about how difficult all sheep farmers are finding it at the moment. The rain in summer fell at all the wrong times, which means the hay is poorer quality than it should be, and remaining grass has been all munched out. It's noticeable, just walking around the area, how waterlogged the fields are.

We're tied to the weather now: at the mercy of whatever it does to us.