Wales #1 -- Sheeps!
Jul. 5th, 2004 10:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quietannSo, there are many things to write about my vacation to England and Wales, but the most obvious one is sheep. As in, Wales is full of sheep, especially central and northern Wales where we traveled. There were sheep in fields, sheep on unbelievably steep mountains, sheep by the side of the Snowdon Mountain railway, occasionally even sheep in the road (and at least, alas, two dead sheep who'd been struck by cars), and even sheep in suburban backyards. Any photo of the sweeping landscapes of Wales that does not include sheep is a fake. We ate (at least) 2 meals of lamb. (Lamburgers are very tasty, BTW!) Ben probably tired of me exclaiming "sheeps!" again and again as we drove through the countryside.
The lambs are about 3 months old now, so they are past the "cute" stage. A lot of sheep shearing was going on, so there were denuded sheep about. Their ownership is marked using spray paint, so make that denuded sheep with big green or blue or red blotches on their flanks. The lambs are not shorn, but they are marked to match their mothers. At the Center for Alternative Technology, we learned that sheeps wool is a very good insulator for houses and other things. Of course, Wales is also known for its woolen goods... not surprisingly, with all those sheep about.
Wales has several types of sheep. Most are pure white. There are some of the standard white with black faces, especially in the lowlands. Near Aberystwyth, white sheep with black dapples are popular. There are a *few* black sheep, but not many. Most interesting to me are the Welsh mountain sheep, who are closer to wild than any of the others. They are more skittish, and their wool hangs in strings. Most did not seem to have been sheared; their fleece sort of hangs off and eventually gets dragged off by bushes and rocks. They were completely unaffected by 35 degree temperatures and 40 mph winds on Mt. Snowdon, although apparently they are rounded up and brought down from the highest reaches in the winters.
Now of course, though Wales is known for its sheep, the sheep are a big problem. They are very bad for the land; they eat grass down to the roots, unlike goats or cows, and they eat brush and tree saplings. Wales used to be mostly oak forest and pine forest, but people chopped down the trees, and sheep ate the saplings so the forest never came back. The EU has pressured Britain to change its agricultural subsidy programs so more sustainable agriculture is supported, and the Welsh farmers are up in arms about this, because it means they really have to cut back on their sheep. These people have raised sheep for hundreds if not thousands of years, so it's a huge adjustment to do things like remove sheep from some of the land and allow the forest to come back (even though oak wood is, in the long term, a better money-maker than sheep).
hm, the (for me at least) world's most important economic issue, illustrated by... sheep.
The lambs are about 3 months old now, so they are past the "cute" stage. A lot of sheep shearing was going on, so there were denuded sheep about. Their ownership is marked using spray paint, so make that denuded sheep with big green or blue or red blotches on their flanks. The lambs are not shorn, but they are marked to match their mothers. At the Center for Alternative Technology, we learned that sheeps wool is a very good insulator for houses and other things. Of course, Wales is also known for its woolen goods... not surprisingly, with all those sheep about.
Wales has several types of sheep. Most are pure white. There are some of the standard white with black faces, especially in the lowlands. Near Aberystwyth, white sheep with black dapples are popular. There are a *few* black sheep, but not many. Most interesting to me are the Welsh mountain sheep, who are closer to wild than any of the others. They are more skittish, and their wool hangs in strings. Most did not seem to have been sheared; their fleece sort of hangs off and eventually gets dragged off by bushes and rocks. They were completely unaffected by 35 degree temperatures and 40 mph winds on Mt. Snowdon, although apparently they are rounded up and brought down from the highest reaches in the winters.
Now of course, though Wales is known for its sheep, the sheep are a big problem. They are very bad for the land; they eat grass down to the roots, unlike goats or cows, and they eat brush and tree saplings. Wales used to be mostly oak forest and pine forest, but people chopped down the trees, and sheep ate the saplings so the forest never came back. The EU has pressured Britain to change its agricultural subsidy programs so more sustainable agriculture is supported, and the Welsh farmers are up in arms about this, because it means they really have to cut back on their sheep. These people have raised sheep for hundreds if not thousands of years, so it's a huge adjustment to do things like remove sheep from some of the land and allow the forest to come back (even though oak wood is, in the long term, a better money-maker than sheep).
hm, the (for me at least) world's most important economic issue, illustrated by... sheep.
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no subject
Date: 2004-07-05 07:32 pm (UTC)And, since it's a conditioned response in me by now: "mmmm, lamb!"
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Date: 2004-07-05 08:15 pm (UTC)And, since it's a conditioned response in me by now: "mmmm, lamb!"
I'll second both of those comments. :)
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Date: 2004-07-05 09:08 pm (UTC)Yeah, he was probably thinking, "Oh, sheep, not again!"
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Date: 2004-07-06 06:22 am (UTC)From your posting I imagine the sheep are definitely Euroskeptics.
One interesting difference between sheep farming in Britain and New Zealand is that New Zealanders seem to be more diligent in fencing in their sheep. In Britain we'd occasionally round a bend and come upon an entire herd of sheep in the road--which may be how those sadly dead sheep got that way--but in New Zealand they were usually safely behind fences, sometimes sharing a field with llamas.
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Date: 2004-07-06 08:52 am (UTC)However, the fence quality wasn't always great, and we saw many places where the sheep had broken through a fence. Unlike our last visit, though, at least we didn't see a panic stricken lamb who'd gotten through a fence and couldn't figure out how to get back to its mama.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-06 06:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-07 11:14 am (UTC)the Welsh farmers are up in arms about this
I suspect that the number of Welsh farmers would plummet if it shifted away from sheep herding, and that's what they're worried about.
hm, the (for me at least) world's most important economic issue, illustrated by... sheep.
Have you ever been to Iowa?