Four go mad in Lakeland

(After sheep encounter)

We hear the lamb’s plaintive ‘Marr, marr, marr’ and its mum’s answering ‘Baa, baa, baa’ long before we see either of them. We are crossing over the beck at Stonethwaite at on a walk up to Langstrath. The lamb is stuck on the left hand side of a wire fence running uphill away from us and the sheep is on the right, calling and calling for her offspring. Both seem very upset.

The route of our walk turns right and through a wide gate after the stream. Just inside the gate is a family of 3 or 4 looking at the sheep and wondering what to do. As we are closing the gate behind us, this group decides to leave well alone and carry on walking. We start to follow them, hesitate, and collectively decide to Rescue the Lamb!

(Come to Daddy)

Like a well-oiled machine, the Thunderbirds theme silently group-playing in our various heads, our little group swings into action.

Dave was last through the gate, so is first back through it and starts to move up the hill, a safe distance from the distressed lamb.  I selflessly allow him to take point, and possibly conceding the majority of the credit (...well, there may be sheep droppings involved) and follow at some 5m behind. Rosy positions herself at the exit towards the stream, to prevent escape in that direction, and C takes the gate.

Dave succeeds in circling around above the lamb, which I now notice is an exceptionally large animal, not a bit like the cute 2-week-olds on Lambwatch, and starts moving down the fence. As the lamb is shooed down towards the gate, I keep parallel with it to prevent a flight away from where it needs to go.

The strategy seems to be working, the lamb gradually being pushed towards the gate. But it keeps stopping to administer some serious but fruitless head-butting to the fence. Dave closes in.  But unfortunately on the last stretch there is a tree-clad rocky outcrop obscuring the lamb’s route down to the gate, and it clearly does not want to take the next step, instead forcing its head through the wire fence.

(Thanks, Sheila)

“There’s people coming” calls Rosy.

Clearly it is time to act! If the extra walkers spook the lamb even more and it garrottes itself in the fence then we (or more precisely, Dave) will be responsible!

Without an ounce of panic, without even placing his camera safely on the rocks, Dave moves in like a veteran Aussie sheep-sheerer who has just shorn 200 Merinos before breakfast and the next thing we know he’s grabbed the lamb, picked the thing up in his arms and is making his way down the hill towards the gate.

He slips on the rock but just stays on his feet and is soon releasing the lamb into the care of its much relieved mother. Job done! What a guy!

(Out damned spot)

...except that Dave has been marked by the marker dye on the lamb!  It doesn't show on his blue shirt (perhaps he's done this before...) but his trousers are conspicuously blue. It’s as if he’s been trapped by a farmer wanting to find out who has been bothering his ewes! Or has been tupped himself, by a randy ram.

The rest of the walk is very pleasant but not quite so exciting. We are fortunate not to run into any farmers and also that the landlord of the Langstrath Country Inn is either colour-blind or unconcerned about the sheeply habits of his customers.