Sheep With A Deathwish

Viki & I were out a run with my brother today in the beautiful sunshine (even if we started too late to get the best of it)...

Headed out to the headland at the Brough O' Birsay (probably my favourite bit of the Orkney Mainland) and, as it was low tide, we could even go across to the Brough. There for a wee while, and came in via the Brough Of Gurness (although we couldn't get to it as it is a Historic Scotland visitor attraction, so you have to pay... and it was shut anyway...

But we had a real laugh on the way out, near Stenness... We were driving along, and there was a car in front of us which had to stop because there was a lamb on the road, and it kept ducking back and fore in front of the car. The driver got out, picked the lamb up, and very kindly deposited it back in a field among a lot of other sheep, standing on a wall astride the barbed wire in order to set it down gently...

... And it turned around and came straight out through the fence again!

So the guy managed to get it again... and tried at the other side of the road. There there was a little grassy field surrounded by a wall about 4 or 5 foot tall, so he put it in there... and the peedie lamb tried desperately to get back out again... it was NOT keen on staying there.

The driver took off, and my brother, Viki & I were watching the lamb as (we presume) the farmer appeared on the scene. He got the lamb and explained that it was a caddy lamb (orphaned or rejected by its mother, and bottle-fed), and that was why it was so tame and had no fear of humans (which at least made it easy to catch). Both Viki & I got to pet it, and it had a suckle of my brother's peedie finger (that would have been a disappointment for it).

Left the farmer cursing for it, and we carried on to Birsay.

But here it is in the second field we tried to leave it in:

We've decided it should be called Houdini.

Then, later on, after we'd been back at my brother's (who lives just a bit around the corner from me, down by the harbour) for a while and had left to come home... accompanied by my brother, he suddenly said "Hey, we've got company". We looked down to the side of us to see...

Leia... looking at us with a very "Oh, hi! Fancy meeting you here!" look on her face! Turns out she had made her way down from the communal area at the back of our house, down across the main road (which we've told her in no uncertain terms that she is NOT meant to go near), and into the oil tanks that are between us and my brother's... which is a bit of a cat hot-spot after hours. So, she'd been out partying!

Let's All Tickle Anxious!

Tickle, Julie... not poke!

I've just discovered something so cute! If you stroke or tickle Anxious, my virtual sheep (hold down your left mouse button and move the cursor back and fore over her), she gives you lots and lots of little love hearts!

Isn't that just the cutest?

*Insert Placename You Wish To Cast Aspersions Against*

...Where men are men, and sheep are Anxious!

If you scroll down at the right, you'll see that poor Gary the tiger has been given the heave-ho in favour of a less dangerous virtual pet for me - So say "Hello" to Anxious the purple sheep!

Look after her, feed her, and some day she'll make a lovely purple gansey for me!







(For people wot don't spaek proper, a gansey is a jumper!).

A Peedie Bit O' Orkney...

The rich, fertile land of Orkney, and the seas surrounding, produce food that's exported all over the world and enjoyed in top restaurants in the UK and much wider afield.

I'll deal with others yet, but start with possibly the oddest - the North Ronaldsay Sheep, which live on the northernmost of Orkney's islands.

"Sheep?" I hear you say, "What can possibly be odd or prized about mutton?"

Well, these sheep are not normal run-of-the-mill, wandering about in fields, sheep... for at least part of the year, they live on the shore around the island, kept there by a 6-foot-high drystane dyke (or wall, for the benefit of those of you who wouldn't know what a drystane dyke was if you tripped over one), and they live on seaweed... which (so I'm told, coz I've never eaten North Ronaldsay lamb or mutton) gives their meat a very distinctive, and much sought after, flavour.

And why do the sheep get shunted on to the shore? Quite simply, North Ronaldsay's not a big island, and good grazing land is at a premium.

The sheep have evolved in several ways to cope with their environment... for instance, instead of eating during the day and ruminating at night, these woolly beasts eat twice a day, at low tide, and digest in between.

Their wool is also highly prized, and lots of products knitted in North Ronaldsay wool are available.