Sunday 11th December: Well, the fun is over for another year … I put the rams back with their long-term wether (fine-wether?) friends and left the ewes in peace. This was less traumatic than I feared (sometimes there is resistance!) but having a few wethers around confuses rams usefully, and anyway there was food in buckets.
Then I swept the yard and generally tidied up for an hour or so, to the accompaniment of a sound similar to someone hammering in a fence post, but actually it is the sound of two ram foreheads meeting at speed. Result: slightly swollen and bruised foreheads but nothing to worry about …
Monday 12th December: Buckets of food were sufficient to distract Sonny and Jupiter the next day but Jonathan was patrolling the fence by the ewes, optimistically sweet-talking them through the wire and almost not interested in food.
Tuesday 13th December: food first even for Jonathan, though this might be because of the horrible cold and bleak weather with driven sleet nestling in every muddy crevice along the field edges and a general trudge through the mud to get into the field. I wore my hat and gloves!
Things will get interesting on Thursday when David returns from visiting ewes in Devon, so they will all have to re-establish order again …