There are two or three things on the farm that I would consider dangerous – corralling the donkeys for something they don’t want to do, being in front of the sheep when they panic or stampede, and graining the animals in deep winter. In temperatures like this, the animals get anxious, hungry, even desperate. There is no grass to graze on, and these are grazing animals, they are denied their most basic instincts, and have not seen the ground for months.

Maria has nearly been knocked down and so have I as the sheep and donkeys rush to get to the grain – the sheep much more frenzied than the donkeys. Red’s main afternoon task in the cold is to put himself between the sheep and the donkeys (and Maria or me) and keep them at their own buckets. The first few days were wild brawls, but Red has established order. He gets in the doorway and keeps the sheep out in the Pole Barn, eating their own grain.