I have to accept that the nature of our sheep management has changed. Life goes on, you have to try, feel your way forward, change. I wander around the little fold by the barn. They look at me for a few seconds before continuing to graze. Even some of the older ewes, who’ve seen me here almost every day of their lives, seem to wonder for a moment if I’m a predator or some other danger. At the beginning of my time with the sheep there was a lot of this—standing and watching and thinking. Now it’s more like a job. It doesn’t seem possible to stop that process. I don’t know what it is, but that simple way of being a shepherd and experiencing the sheep’s way of life sort of lacks force. It’s like the lamb that can’t get food from the ewe, it fades away slowly. At the same time, the actual relationship to the sheep and their unassuming existence is still there. The fence, the grass, the bleating, the rumination. Commercial meat production might take my time and my work, but it won’t take my thoughts.