The Shepherd's Life Read Online Free Page B

beaten and they know it. They trot obediently across the moorland and join the flow of sheep heading home. The dog sees that we have them now and turns back down to its master deep below. Joe gives us a distant wave and heads off. A dog like that is worth its weight in gold. My mouth was open slightly in awe when I saw how distant it was on the skyline. I had to shut it to not seem silly. My dogs for all their merits couldn’t have done that. We aren’t easily impressed but there is a kind of respectful hush at what we just saw.

    An old shepherd turns to me and says, “That is a proper fell dog.”
    â€œYes,” I acknowledge, “but don’t tell him . His head will swell.”

 
    8
    At the far end of the fell I wait as I’ve been told. I’m not sure whether it is seconds, minutes, or hours that pass there, because there is no sense of time.
    I watch small trickles of sheep heading home, pushed by the men left behind me. Joe has almost cleared the gill out, and I join up with him to cut across the far end of the fell. We pause to admire a Herdwick tup lamb (ram) that is passing us chased by the dogs.
    â€œLook at that.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œIt is one of yours.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œThe mother just passed without it a minute ago.”
    â€œIt will win shows, that one.”
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€œTime will tell.”
    He cuts behind me and pushes sheep across the heather. And I head round the skyline pushing sheep down to Joe, and clearing out the peat hags. I am at the farthest point from home now. I see my world stretched beneath me, the three kinds of farmland that make up our world: inbye (meadow), intake (the lower slopes of the fells which aren’t common land because they have been enclosed by walls or fences), and fells. The farming year here revolves around the managed movement of the sheep between these three kinds of land.
    A fell farm is at heart a simple thing. It is a way of farming that evolved to take advantage of the summer growth of grass in the mountains to produce things that farmers can consume themselves, in a subsistence model, or sell to earn their keep.
    Nothing makes sense without reference to what went before and what comes afterwards. It is literally a chicken-and-egg thing (or sheep-and-lamb thing, if you prefer). But it might help if I briefly explain the basic structure of our working year. At its simplest it works like this.
    Midsummer we keep the lambs healthy, gather the ewes and lambs down from the fells or intakes for clipping the sheep (we do this even though the wool is largely worthless now, because it is needed for their welfare), and make the hay for the winter.
    Autumn sees us bring the sheep down from the fells or higher ground again for the autumn sales and shows, taking the lambs from their mothers (who can then recover from their efforts), and preparing and selling the surplus ewe lambs and ewes in the harvest of the fells. In these few short weeks we make most of our annual income, from selling surplus breeding females to the lowlands, and a handful of breeding males (tups) that are good enough to be sold to other breeders at a premium.
    Late autumn is about starting the breeding cycle by putting the tups with the ewes, including the newly bought tups from other flocks. It is also when the retained lambs (those required for the future of the flock) are sent away for the winter to lowland farms. Through late autumn (and winter) we also fatten and sell our spare male (wether) lambs to butchers for meat. Our farming is largely about producing breeding sheep for sale to other farmers (who value the daughters of the fell flocks because they are tough and productive on lower ground), and male lambs for meat from the abundance of grass in the mountains between May and October (there is an intermediate trade in these lambs called selling them “store” which has a middleman buy them and fatten them). What