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Opening the back door has become hazardous. You have to catch them by surprise. If you stand talking behind the door, they're already there waiting to bolt in through the smallest gap!
Sarah has been off school as a contact of a covid case. Well, officially, that is. The case is Rachael. Rachael had pains in the abdomen, probably appendicitis, and phoned the health line. She told them it had happened many times before, so they advised her to get someone to take her into hospital to get it checked out. So Bronwyn drives out, picks up Rachael and they go to the hospital. Of course, every patient gets a covid test. And apparently Rachael's was positive, even though they couldn't then find the swab. Or indeed any symptoms. So she gets taken into the covid ward by a nurse in full PPE, and put into a room. Rach is really upset. Then someone coughs outside the door, opens it and looks in, says sorry and closes it again. Rach is now freaking out. So after being in for over three hours, she decides to sign herself out and go home. She's been testing negative since then. The appendicitis has also eased too. And Bronwyn is slowly catching up on sleep!
I'll add a bit more. We had a bit of a miracle this weekend. OK, a notable event. Three weeks ago, we found a sheep on the hillside, upside down. They sometimes get stuck like that, and they can't get up. This one had probably been there for several days. We brought him into the back garden. He couldn't stand, he couldn't even hold his head up. For two weeks we kept putting grass under his nose, which he ate. We tried to keep his head straight, and stop him from just falling over. He'd lie there, eating from the same spot until it was a muddy hole. Then we'd drag him to another spot, and he'd make another hole. Bronwyn tried propping him on a hay bale, and Sarah set up an umbrella to keep the rain off. But we had more or less given up on him.
On Friday, I repaired an old cradle that had been used for similar sheep in the past. It didn't help him stand. But it did force him to hold his head up. On Saturday, he was able to sit with head up, and eat the grass around him. He was also trying to stand up, but his front legs didn't work.
Today, I was going to check on him, and he was standing. By himself. And staggering around a bit. Now he's up at the back gate, eating freely and hanging out with the lambs and the sheep outside.
He reminded me of a sheep I rescued once. It was tangled and twisted in some bramble. I got the secateurs and cut it free, and pulled the bits out of the fleece. It just sat there. Then I rolled it over to get at the other side. It suddenly realised that it was free. It jumped up and bounded off.
Neither sheep had lost the ability. But both had lost the belief that they could.
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