Sheep & Sheepdogs, Litter in the Countryside

This morning we brought the sheep in to inspect the lambs and dag the ewes. Dagging is the technical term for the cleaning up of sheep's dirty bottoms by removing the heavy clumps of mucky wool that occur! Moving ewes and lambs is always somewhat fraught even with the help of two very good collies. The lambs don't understand what going on, the ewes are anxious to keep their lambs with them and not allow the dogs too close and all in all it can get very chaotic. However, once the dogs, the people and the sheep all decide they have the same agenda it suddenly becomes straightforward and the sheep are funnelled into the yard through a series of gates and all is well.

The greatest asset to anyone keeping sheep, or cattle for that matter, is a good sheepdog and we are very fortunate to have our old lady Molly and her trainee Judy. Molly, a black & white collie is 11 years old and knows the ropes but Judy, a lovely red & white collie, is only 2 and still learning. She is keen and sharp and devoted to the Farmer and is coming on well but needs to learn a bit more yet before Molly can retire into graceful old age sleeping in the sun all day, after all she does run the farm!

Recently there has been some coverage in the press about litter and fly-tipping in the countryside. On the farm we are fortunate in that we don't suffer from fly-tipping as we are not on a road-side but we do get a lot of litter along our drive and on the main road. Every time I walk up the drive I pick up empty crisp packets, sweet wrappings, plastic bottle & those horrible triangular sandwich boxes. I know that none of us from the farm or our neighbours who share the drive would dream of chucking rubbish out of the car windows so I can only conclude that it is delivery van drivers who have a wanton disregard for the countryside. Each year before the main holiday season starts I ring Carmarthenshire County Council to ask that they send litter pickers out to our area as the litter on the verges is like a tidal wave of plastic and gives a very bad impression to visitors to the county. The Council is very good and the litter is picked up within a couple of days of my phone call, but the point is they shouldn't be having to do it. The Keep Britain Tidy campaign is so well established that there is no excuse for not taking one's rubbish home and disposing of it properly.