The Errant Artist

I've been meaning to write this blog entry for a week now, so here it is, better late than never! For those of you who don't know how I came to be a volunteer shepherd, here's the story.

I am surrounded by woodland, forest and farmland where I live, and at least once a week I walk through an area called Alpine Meadow. A few months ago during one of my strolls, I noticed some signs asking for people who regularly walk through this area, to contact the local wildlife trust if they would be interested in checking on the sheep they were hoping to introduce there. I took a photograph of the sign, and thought about it for several hours before finally deciding I should call them.

So, for six weeks, (there are around three remaining now), every Monday and Friday I head off up to Alpine Meadow with a pot of sheep nuts, which are actually pellets and not nuts at all, however they do make the sheep go totally nuts. As soon as they hear the rattle or just see me now, these 14 Shetlands come bounding over, and they can be pretty boisterous! I then check that there are still 14 sheep, that they all look healthy, then once the feeding frenzy is over take a cursory look at the little water trough and just make sure that everything else looks fine.

My next visit is tomorrow, and I need to be more vigilant this time as I was actually injured on Monday! During the feeding frenzy I hadn't noticed that one of the sheep, code named 'the photogenic one' was sporting a massive bramble branch, that protruded right out from the back of her and down over the front. As she passed round my left leg she unfortunately slashed it quite badly three times with her bramble lance. At first I thought it was going to be just a standard bramble scrape, until I looked at my leg!

My leg seems to be healing very well now, thanks to this amazing clear flexible dressing that one of my friends gave me. Never seen them before but it is supposed to prevent scarring, which it seems to be doing. It's called a Hydrocolloid Dressing, which you have to keep on for at least 3 days and no more than 7.

I have several photographs of the sheep, and will upload and place some links to them over the coming weeks. I don't want to display photographs in with my drawings, as it could distract from the main point of my blog, so I've decided that linking to any photos would be best.

This has turned out to be quite a long post, and I haven't even mentioned that I started learning Tai Chi a week ago, so I'll save that until next time :)