We were given a great excuse to get out the Quad again today (it did not come out to play yesterday at all… shame…) and Muckle here is the reason. On our morning rounds after walking the dogs, we realised that we were a Shetland short and that the plaintive bleatings we could hear, were in fact from Muckle who somehow had managed to get herself between the corridor of stock fencing that separates us from John and Sonya’s land. Contained within this ‘corridor’ is a newly planted beech hedge (planted this spring by the previous owners) and when she wasn’t bleating, Muckle was in fact happily munching away on it!!
We attracted her attention with some food but whilst she was okay to eat from Jack’s hand, she was less okay to then be restrained and picked up. We got there in the end though and having deposited her on the right side of the fence, we then tried to work out where she had escaped from. All we had found was some loose barbed wire which in theory gave access over the top of the stock fencing but we were not sure if that was where she had got out. Nonetheless, it needed fixing. We are not a fan of barbed wire but we could see why it had been placed on top of the stock fencing when there was a very tasty new hedge behind and so for the moment, we will leave it in place!!
Anyway, broken fencing meant having to bring the quad bike down complete with tools and as the broken wire was in the right hand bottom of the field, the quad got the chance to prove its stability on slightly sloping ground!!
As for Muckle, she trotted back to Skerry and Ness and was none the worse for her enforced separation. The nice thing was that her plaintive bleating was all directed towards our fields so at least she knew which side she should be in, (little monkey..).