Lambing is due to start on Monday – it says so on the
calendar. Of course, the sheep never look at the calendar and
honestly, I don't think any of them can actually read. So when my
other half came in and said Tuppence has lambed, my thoughts were
mostly that Tuppence was early, and that lambing with barely an hour
of daylight left was about par for the course. (Our Soay sheep lamb
outside, and this year we have deliberately had a late lambing.)
Daylight going, a lambing ewe to watch... how long is
that going to take? How long depends on the ewe. Rosie, a first
timer a few years back, was showing signs about lunchtime, then she
disappeared, then she walked out of the barn with lamb in tow.
In contrast, Cilla was making 'gonna lamb now' signs just after
breakfast and kept us waiting most of the day. Not that it mattered –
I had misunderstood. Tuppence wasn't just starting, she was done,
lamb out, suckling, all going well... except for that nagging worry
in the back of my mind: something was wrong. I just couldn't figure
it out, and there was that look on my other half's face, just waiting
for me to get the punchline.
Oh. Yes. That was it. Tuppence was not supposed to be
lambing at all... Now how did that happen? (OK, apart from the
obvious – when a Mummy sheep and a Daddy sheep...)
Back to the calendar... there was the day marked when
the ewes were put in with the ram... and there, a few days
earlier, a note that Tuppence had somehow broken in to the ram field.
It was one of those things that gets forgotten over the space of
five months. At the time, we probably had the conversation: ewe
cycle is seventeen days, only fertile for a couple of days, certainly
less than a one in ten chance that she was actually on heat that
day...
So, how did it happen? Simple. Sheep don't read, don't
check the calendar, and certainly don't have any truck with
probability theory. Of course Tuppence was on heat that day.
There was a field of rams next door, and she wanted some, wanted it
really, really, badly... There was no other reason for her jumping,
burrowing, or otherwise forcing her way next door.
So now we have Tippex – a white ram lamb with a few
bits of black showing through.
Back on the calendar, the real thing starts Monday. Or
Tuesday. Or... Sheep do things when they're ready, not when the
calendar says.
We are in charge. But... There's more of them than
there are of you, they have all day to plan their next move, you
can't watch them every second, and they are driven by those big three
biological imperatives: food, reproduction and sheer bloody-minded
curiosity. And when I say driven, I mean forty-ton, diesel powered,
cargo-truck driven, and the bottom line is us mere humans are the
cargo in this arrangement, not the driver. Being in charge is just a
delusion.
