Woollying the Boundaries

Ffion Jones on human/animal relationships on her family farm

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I have a soft spot for Welsh Mountain sheep. I love the way they smell: earthy, grassy and homely. Even their shit smells of home. I love the way they look: their fluffy exterior betrayed by their sharp and knobbly limbs and joints. I love the way they move: a quick stamp of a foreleg and a nose-whistle and they’re off, flocking together like some super-organised mob. I love the way they grieve: constantly licking the lifeless bodies of their lambs, willing the breath back into their lungs. I am a farm girl. Thrown into the thick of wool, hooves and muck from a young age, brought into the world alongside countless other beings during the lambing season of 1985: I feel like a misplaced human in an ovine world.

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