Jonathan >

Counting up the sheep in High Field, I’m one short.  Count again …

Correct  – But best count again, just to be sure …

Two too many?  I must have double-counted (the dratted things rearrange themselves as I count!). And again …

One short.  And again …

One short.  It’s one of last year’s lambs – or hog. Where could she be ?

I’d best go looking for her …

High Field is full of rock outcrops, incised streams, old peat-cuttings. To check at all means to check thoroughly – to make a zig-zag tour of the entire field. That’s hard which is hard going on such terrain, here steep bare rock, then moss all soft and squelchy – and the day heavy with heat and humidity.

A sheep down on the ground – and by that I mean ill or dying, or even a view of its backside as it grazes, so often turns out to be the shadow of a boulder, or a scrape of bare peat on a steep bank …

… or a big clump of heather – which even in early summer wears the drab browns of last year’s foliage. Like so …

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For the past week, the weather has been intensely sunny, warm, still – and uncomfortably humid : very un-Hebridean weather, certainly for late Spring – more like high Summer!  It’s too early yet to shear the ewes – their old fleeces haven’t yet started to lift away, so the poor girls are struggling with the heat.  Tucked down amongst the clumps of heather, their bellies and flanks are pressed into contact with the damp or wet moss, and that helps them to stay cool. The damp moss also keeps at bay the clouds of midges, which just love this close weather.

So, ewe found – safe and sound. I turn and head home for mid-morning coffee and toast.