My lovely sheep Bleat has died today. Daft to weep over a sheep I know but she was the first lamb born in our field - and I pulled her out after her mother got into difficulties. She earned the name 'Bleat' because - apart from having lambs - it was what she did best - bleat! Here she is with her last lamb.
She was a good mother and grandmother to her lambs, and although she only ever gave us one lamb at a time, it was always a big strong healthy lamb, and she fed and cared for each and kept the other two or three sheep, and their lambs, in line. She was a stickler for routine, and knew when it was food and watering time.
I loved her because she loved me. She adored having her face and ears rubbed, and watched me carefully as I gardened in case there was the odd titbit coming her way.
We worked out she was 11 years old. She had enjoyed a retirement for the last two years - her only duty was to keep the grass down, but she had been getting a little thin recently and I had been supplementing her feed with pellets.
I knew her time would be coming soon, maybe not this autumn but soon. True to her neat and careful personality, she just quietly lay down in the long grass and didn't wake up.
Dear old Bleat.
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