Going It Alone

I was staying on a North Yorkshire farm last week. On Friday the farmer was attending a funeral further down the valley when he had to leave to deal with a ewe that was lambing. Earlier in the week he had been dealing with another one at 3 a.m.

There is some difference of attitude to what has been going on in the pastures at the top of Blacka Moor. Some weeks ago the grazier took the sheep away presumably to be closer to his farm. Two sheep were left behind to fend for themselves. Whether he knew about them, or never bothers to count, I don't know. If the wildlife trust, who arrange the grazing, saw them they must have realised.



On Sunday morning, when I returned, there were two lambs (one just visible in the picture); either both ewes had lambed or one had had twins. There's something of a history in recent years of sheep being taken up onto this land and just being left to get on with things. A few years ago many sheep were sickly and several dead and dying were to be seen littering the pastures, part of the bequest of Alderman Graves for the enjoyable recreation of the people of Sheffield. Only when a walker complained to the RSPCA did anything get done about it.



Maybe it's a South Yorkshire thing, or just the way some hill farmers go about their work. I've always been surprised at the number of dead sheep seen lying about on local moors. I once complained to SWT about a dead sheep: the response suggested they considered it nothing to do with them. After all they are hardly there and when they are show little idea about what should be done.