Tracking a troublesome fox
There aren’t many full-time professional shepherds in Essex. But one of them lives next door to me. Michael’s a busy chap at the moment, keeping his flock nearby and tending to others too. But he always seems calm and very affable. So when I saw him last week, I was surprised to find him bristling with anger.
“My first ewes are lambing now. I sat up the whole night helping out an old girl with twins. They came eventually and I left her at two in the morning. When I came back before dawn, I cast the torch across the field and saw a fox carrying one off.”
A series of Anglo-Saxon adjectives followed to explain his feelings for the fox. In an effort to calm his nerves, I
