Aloe variegata

My partridge-breasted aloe has two flower stems.

Another ovine problem today. This time it was a lamb. All the time I was preparing and eating my lunch I was aware of a lamb bellowing from the same spot, rather than wandering around searching for its mother. I was not surprised to see it trapped on my side of the fence.

The fence is pretty good, but there is one place where the bank erodes that a determined lamb can shove its way through. They sometimes find their way back on their own. This one was caught between the hedge and the fence. When I went to look I cut off the only retreat route. He (they are always males that do this) panicked and got his head stuck in the sheep netting fence, while his backside was jammed against a gorse stem.

The strip between the hedge and the fence is narrow and treacherous. Years of grazing by cattle and sheep have made the lower branches grotesquely shaped, rigid and spiky. The occasional old gorse bush adds to the tangle. The lamb was gasping in terror and blood was pouring down his face.

There was nobody home at the farmer's house so I decided to go in myself. He was about 10 metres from the entry point. It was a real squeeze for me. I had to wriggle my way around the spiky branches without scraping on the barbed wire. At one point my leg got stuck and it took a couple of minutes to extricate it. Eventually I reached the lamb, but as I tried to pull him out of the fence his little legs were flat out pushing him further into the hole.

I managed to break down the gorse at his back to free him that end and then had bend sideways into the gap to pull him out. His coat was very short and didn't give much to hold onto. I dragged him out carefully to avoid strangling him on the wire, and lifted him awkwardly. He was amazingly heavy. The barbed wire strand was at chest height for me and I had to make sure all his little bits were well above it as I held him aloft. There was no way I could set him down lightly, but I did my best.

With a bellow he dashed to a nearby ewe that was sitting chewing her cud. She sniffed him and went on chewing. He bounced around her bleating and glaring at me.

As for me I realised that this was not a good activity for me to be engaging in straight after a meal.