This week I am writing about the unconventional flock and specifically our beautiful fifteen month old sheep, Brian; who it turns out should probably be called Brigette.
My Knowledge of sheep is clearly limited and spending an eventful hour with two plucky farming types on Wednesday afternoon confirmed how lucky I am to not be reliant on this strenuous line of work as a significant income stream.
We were to find that technically, Brian is a female sheep - a ewe in fact; specifically a female sheep over 1 year of age, and it seems in a minority in that most ewes a year or older have had at least one lamb, because most sheep are bred around 9 months old to have lambs in the February or March, which is where Brian (Brigette) came along earlier last year prior to us buying him and his mates in August 2023 as a reckless birthday present for somebody….
Anyhow, having owned the flock for ten months, we are always learning and will need to think if we want to call in a neighbouring “rent-a-ram” from another farm to breed the unconventional flock; probably the right thing to do (according to our trusty shearers Steve and Steve; but also a lot of work and heartache potentially for novices like us!)
What a beautiful afternoon of sunshine and learning as we herded the unconventional flock into a corner of their paddock and waited for the proper sheep experts to appear in their trustee pick up with mobile sharing unit to give all six of our sheep a much needed haircut (shearing to those in the know).
So it’s just an upbeat short post this week with my first ever attempt at using video; I think Lynne’s little film says it all really.
Back to the Unconventional Flock and the real meaning of this weeks ramble; as well as shearing our six sheep, a real bonus was watching 15-year-old Victoria, the old lady of the paddock and the seventh member by default, getting her first trim for a very long time; and what a beautiful lady she turned out to be!
Only when Steve and Steve managed to tackle the individual sheep into extremely undignified positions to be shared, did we learn how to identify female versus male in the world of sheep; at which point I realised I had been clearly labouring under the misapprehension that the three sheep with horns where the boys etc.
Clutching various farming books to be memorised, now educated in the finer points of the anatomy of sheep, I am ready for a weekend of binge watching Clarkson’s Farm whilst making felt artefacts from the small portion of Brian that was retrieved on the day; safe in the knowledge that all along, Brian was actually known as Bridgette or Brenda to his old ram lamb mates, Spud and Sprout.
As for fellow ewes, Snowberry, Crocus and Daffodil, not to mention old mother Violet (who, no doubt, has seen it all before), a change of identity or pronoun for Bridgette is of no consequence whatsoever to a happy life in the flock; acceptance and continued joyfulness are the watchwords for this group; as they should be of course for all groups, flocks and followers on earth as in fields.
He becomes she, him becomes her, Brian became Brigette, but of course he was Brigette all along; it was us stupid ones who just didn’t realise.
Baby naming search engines point me towards Brigette as a Swedish and French-inspired form of the Gaelic Brigid, meaning “exalted one.” Derived from the anglicized Bridget, a name popular in Ireland by the Celtic goddess Brigid and the Catholic Saint Bridget, romantic and beautiful, I think its addition suits the flock perfectly; and He/Her/She/it agrees too; cool and graceful in the newly shorn white spangly coat of warm wooly skin, she will happily leap around the paddock, frolicking in the sunshine with her mates for the summer months ahead; as we all should.
Brigette will now be the sheep formally known as Brian and the unconventional flock will prevail; remember, however you identify, you can do anything.
Have a fantastic weekend.