[HN Gopher] Herdwicks: The 'smiley' sheep that shaped the Lake D...
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Herdwicks: The 'smiley' sheep that shaped the Lake District
Author : bananapear
Score : 33 points
Date : 2021-05-16 08:37 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| mellosouls wrote:
| Perhaps the original has changed since, but surely we need
| 'smiley' in the headline? Outrageous editorialising. :)
| frereubu wrote:
| This is the Twitter account for a shepherd on Twitter whose flock
| is made up of Herdwicks: https://twitter.com/herdyshepherd1 Every
| time I visit his timeline I end up in a farming Twitter scroll
| trance.
| nkurz wrote:
| For those looking for a longer form than Twitter, his first
| book is great: The Shepherd's Life: Modern Dispatches from an
| Ancient Landscape (https://www.amazon.com/Shepherds-Life-
| Dispatches-Ancient-Lan...).
|
| Rebanks also has a new one out last year, but I haven't read it
| yet: English Pastoral (https://www.amazon.com/English-
| Pastoral/dp/0241245729). Anyone have opinions?
| railton wrote:
| I've read both and think English Pastoral is marginally
| better.
|
| Less sheep, more general farming stuff and stronger narrative
| of old-school farming with his grandfather to modern
| industrialised then to present where he's doing more
| regenerative agriculture.
|
| You can get a signed copy from his local Lake District
| bookshop btw:
| https://www.samreadbooks.co.uk/product/EnglishPastoral/2244
| publicola1990 wrote:
| At last a somewhat sane headline from BBC. By their usual
| practice in recent times it would be patterned something like:
| 'The unknown mystery animal that shaped the Lake District'.
| rwnspace wrote:
| And yet here I was, going to the comments first (as is
| tradition), wondering whether Herdwicks is an individual sheep
| with the power to terraform, or a breed of some mild historical
| significance.
| bloat wrote:
| Well, I guess 'terraforming' is an overstatement, but hill
| farming in general and the sheep specifically have had a
| profound effect on the landscape. This link is to a polemic,
| but it also contains plenty of references.
| https://www.monbiot.com/2013/05/30/sheepwrecked/
| youngtaff wrote:
| Considering how much damage sheep do to the landscape and
| how unprofitable sheep farming, I think we'd be off paying
| sheep farmers to re-wild the hills
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Yep I've been thinking about adding some little babydoll
| southdown sheep here to my hobby farm -- mostly because
| they're cute but also so I don't have to mow as much and
| to help weed the vineyard and make some manure for the
| garden and to give my border collie something to do --
| and what I've noticed is that almost everyone keeping
| sheep around here is doing it for the same kinds of
| reasons. They're cute. Keeping sheep gives that pastoral
| feel. (As my teen daughter would say ... It's cottage-
| core). It's something their family did. Etc. Almost
| nobody is doing it because it's profitable.
|
| At least around here (southern Ontario) it wouldn't be an
| environmentally problematic thing, but there are
| definitely places in the world where the land _and_
| economics would be much better off without ruminants and
| returned to a natural state.
| bitwize wrote:
| I've heard of goats used for "terraforming". Several U.S.
| states have used them to remove invasive plant species (by
| eating them, because goat).
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| There's the old story about a supply teacher coming in to teach a
| reception class in a Lake District primary school for the
| morning.
|
| The teacher decides to do some literacy work and points to a
| picture of a sheep on the wall. "Now, class, can anyone tell me
| what this is? It begins with 'S'."
|
| Silence from the class.
|
| "Anyone? Maybe you've seen them in the fields?"
|
| Still nothing. She decides to work with one particular kid who
| looks quite exercised by the whole thing.
|
| "Maisie, have you ever seen one of these before?"
|
| Maisie replies exasperatedly: "But miss, Herdwick begins with a
| H!"
| Normal_gaussian wrote:
| This made me laugh. It brings together the absurdities I've
| noticed going back home over the years.
|
| I could seriously see this playing out with Ewe (locally
| pronounced yow) over Herdwick! Particularly with some of the
| valley primaries which are just a handful of farming kids.
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