A rat has moved into the potting shed. I believe it to be on methamphetamine. It certainly throws wild parties in there. It knocks pots off the shelves, some of which are my lovely old terracotta ones, and smashes them. It has a particular liking for knocking over tubs of bamboo stakes. Perhaps it invites its P-head rat mates over for wild limbo dancing parties. Who knows what rats get up to at night? Pooping everywhere for one thing.
Rats are bastards. We have previously not had this problem. The potting shed used to be the home of the wild kittens. Wild kittens see off P-head rats. Somebody – without consultation, according to Greg – invited the wild kittens to move out of the potting shed and into the accommodation at Lush Places, which, at least compared to the potting shed, is five-star.
They have three hotel rooms to choose from: first-, second- and third-best bedrooms. When our mate Geoff came for Christmas for the second time, I had to inform him he had been demoted from second-best bedroom to third-best because the cats had taken over his previous accommodation. The third-best bedroom is at best two-star accommodation. He was very good about this downgrade. He is a very good house guest. But honestly, the people who don’t know who to hang up a towel correctly never cease to amaze me.
I am easily amazed. Farming never ceases to amaze me. All I do, really, is make sure, by observing over the fences, while putting on what I hope is a wise old farmer’s face, that none of the flock is looking a bit wonky. You do this by crinkling your eyes while observing, as if you know what you’re looking for.
Wearing a bucket hat, preferably a brown or khaki one, helps. I do know now when a sheep has pneumonia. I have no idea why they sometimes go round and round in lunatic circles.
The vet did explain to me why Xanthe has enormous growths that resemble barnacles. Greg, who raised her, says the Titanic would be proud of such barnacles. But I have forgotten the explanation. It doesn’t bother her, which is what matters.
Xanthe also has a distorted jaw – a condition that happens to only one in 10,000 sheep, said the vet, and will eventually mean she will be unable to eat. Today, she ate five unripe pears. She doesn’t look a bit shaky.
My job, I reckon, is to report to Miles the sheep farmer any sheep that may be looking shaky. Mavis had been looking shaky for a while. But Miles did not need my wise old farmer’s impersonation to know that. One day last week I said, “Goodbye, dear Mavis. You have been a lovely friend.”
She was going, on the back of Miles’s trailer to be put to sleep at the home farm, where she grew up and had lovely lambs and gave good milk for lovely cheese in the milking shed. She was a lovable sheep. Miles and I both had a soft spot for her. She had a sweet nature and loved a pat and a biscuit. She looked, now, like a tragedy. She was elderly and her wool looked as though the moths had been at it. Her ears were ragged. She had a bad case of spots on her face.
She came to live with us in her last months, with our pet sheep in the Apple Tree paddock, and so became one of our mob. Miles gave her all sorts of expensive medical treatments and I gave her all sorts of treats: sheep pellets and fruit and leaves. But we couldn’t get her to thrive. She was just old.
I was sad, and glad, that her happy life was over. I did cry. You can get awfully attached to an old, manky-looking sheep with a bad case of spots who came running towards you every time you entered the Apple Tree paddock, keen for a pat and a biscuit. She was always pleased to see me and I was always glad to see her. That might be the definition of a friendship. I am not going to make friends with that bloody rat.
