You have to check the sheep at least once a day. In the summer they get along fine by themselves, so it’s mostly a case of checking they’re still alive and that there’s water. There are a few of us on the farm who try to look after the sheep collaboratively. We’ve had various systems for dividing up the duties, people have come and gone, but the sheep have remained. One system was based on us writing down times. “One check on the field, ten minutes.” In hindsight it seems unworkable. It took the charm away a little too. One of the fun things about keeping sheep is that now and then it feels like something other than a job or a duty. Perhaps the feeling can best be summed up by the idea that it’s not I who keep the sheep, but the sheep who keep me.