Category Archives: Sheep

City break

Barbara Turney Wieland, Beginnings, Belonging, Nature, Poetry, self-realisation, Sheep, Sky, The farm, weather

I think the colour of my eyes

has changed. Look at me

Face to face with the open air

They’ve moved from cloudy to blue

They’ve transitioned from woman to girlish

They’ve settled to clear from guarded

Hazel reflected stillness, purpose, simplicity, dotted with lambs and lushness

In the space of just a season on the farm

Under the same sun. My face is open

to the air, which is fair, I think

I’ve changed my vision.

The farmer

Chickens, Cows, Dogs, Haiku, Home, Nature, Poetry, Relationships, Sheep, The farm

Haiku

 

Responsible for

So many lives. Most times for-

gets about his own

 

n.b. There are sheep and lambs and cows and chickens and baby chicks and a dog

that the farmer cares for

There are crows and pheasants and and swallows and swifts and rats and mice and sparrows and robins and a squirrel

that come to steal from the farm table

There is little time for communion with humans; for some R&R, for disconnection, for his partner

The farm is his life

 

Broad daylight or Dead of night

Barbara Turney Wieland, Chickens, heartbreak, micro-story, Nature, Poetry, Sheep, Spring, The farm, truth

On thé farm

 

This week only….

 

Approx tally:

 

Half a spring lamb

One whole sheep

A dozen or so chickens

One fox

 

Causes:

 

Fox attack

Unknown

Heart attacks / Fox attacks

Shot by farmer

 

Results:

 

Shock and horror

Bewilderment plus two orphan lambs to bottle rear from here

Loss of profit

One less fox to worry about

*possibly uncounted cubs crying for mum

Meadow Talk

Cows, Death, micro-story, Nature, Poetry, Response Poem, Sheep, The farm

On thé farm

May 13 2019

 

A thing of beauty and intent

Russet red flash in the verdant grass

Must have been

I wasn’t there

 

Flat bush of a tail, a back, a snout

Snaking low in the lush grass

So sleek, so lovely

I didn’t see it

 

The sheep knew and bleeted

The cows lowed unheeded

I didn’t hear it

 

The flock watched

The ewe saw

She butchered the lamb

Right in front of her in the field

In broad daylight, the vixen

 

There was protest, i’m sure

Not from me, I wasn’t there

 

Half the corpse was dragged, neatly sawn, back to the cubs snuggled in their den, unseen

They rejoiced, I guess

I didn’t witness this

 

I know because the farmer reported his findings in the early evening along with the evidence that he put in the bag for the knacker man later

 

I wasn’t there

I wasn’t there

But I can see it

April May

Barbara Turney Wieland, Haiku, Nature, Poetry, Sheep, Spring

Haiku

 

we Shepard them up

keep them safe from foxes so

that you May eat lamb

 

 

Note from the farm:

everyone wants to eat Spring lamb because it has been marketed that way. Think about it. Lambs are born in Spring. We don’t eat them straight away, do we….

Are we just sheep doing what consumerism wants us to do? Business as usual.