Our friend and shearer Liz Willis came bye to give us three new Romney sheep – Constance and Merricat, the lambs,  and Lorie, the mother. She’s parking down her flock.

Maria loves having sheep, and she is delighted to have Romneys, who produce some of the loveliest wool for yarn. I got the sheep in the first place to do herding work with dogs, but when Red died, I decided to step back and let Maria develop her yarn work.

She loves working with sheep, and this is a significant part of her life and her future work. She has a special way with sheep – I didn’t really – I saw them through the eyes of the border collies.

She’s also become quite knowledgeable about wool and the yarn she sells just flies out of here. I love the idea of Bedlam Farm as an organic and evolving place. Change keeps us engaged and excited.

I know I’ll never have another dog like Red, so this is a good time for me to back off and concentrate on my writing and photography (and politics too now, I guess.)

It’s a special feeling to bring new animals to the farm, they are lucky sheep to be in Maria’s care, and I am very happy to look out of any window and see sheep grazing.

Without a herding dog, I’m getting to know them better.

This is a major reason why both of us are here and love to be here.