Just imagine that your well-being depended on only a few simple criteria: water to drink, grass to eat all day and a spot to lie down at night, safe from potential packs of wolves. The sheep are in heaven here in the Alps! A fully grown ewe's tail will wag - a sure sign of contentment, much like their lambs when suckling, or like dogs - when they suddenly find themselves in a meadow where there is very good grass. After spending the winter enclosed in a big barn with no contact with the outside world, where freedom of movement is drastically curtailed, fed daily rations of last year's cut and dried grass - to be of a sudden transported to mountain meadows of lush green grass through which to wander and graze at will, or on which to lie down and ruminate while gazing at the surrounding alpine scene must be, for the sheep, akin to arriving in Paradise.
I have looked into the eyes of a sheep and detected very little sheepishness, in the sense 'awareness of having done something wrong.' The adjective sheepish was first attested around 1200 and then meant simply 'meek, modest, docile, simple' before acquiring the connotation of 'awkward and timorous among strangers' by 1690. Sheep have acquired an awareness that they will get what they want - good grazing - if they comply with what the shepherd wants - to direct their grazing. At times (when dealing with well-behaved, i.e. docile sheep) a strident call from the shepherd will be enough for them to interrupt their grazing, turn around and begin grazing again in the other direction. Most often the presence of the shepherd is necessary, standing for a boundary beyond which they know that they may not go. The occasional sheep will stamp her hoof vehemently, frustrated at the thwarting of her desire to graze in a particular place, before doing as she is told.
When approached from a certain direction, sheep will inevitably move off in the other direction. This gives rise to the sometimes subtle and strenuous task - when they are advancing along precipitous ledges - of quickly scrambling either above or below them in order to halt their progress in the undesirable direction, without startling them brusque movements and causing them to fall.
The vast majority of sheep have a herd instinct and like grazing together and following each other when in movement. Among the thousand strong flock of sheep which I am shepherding this summer there is one ewe, always followed by her two lambs, who I grew to recognise by her preference to go off on her own. Fortunately, if she has escaped my attention when bringing the flock together in the evening, she will eventually be seen making her own way back to the night pen. However, during the day she displays the opposite of the herd instinct. If there are a group of sheep grazing together she will be sure to strike off on her own at some point. She often finds the most idyllic spots of the lushest grass, or can be found when the weather is inclement grazing cooly in the shelter of cave far away from the herd. She is heedless to any calls I make for to her to turn around. At first she will studiously ignore my rallying cries, then, if she deigns to meet my eyes, it will be with a look of superb indifference, not dissimilar to that of a camel, while continuing to chew nonchalantly on her grass. If I actively incite her to go in one direction, she will do this for a bit, but as soon as my attention is directed elsewhere, she will have turned around and be heading off on her own again, with her two lambs in tow. She often acts alone, but occasionally acts as a herd influencer, inciting other sheep to follow her wayward ways. Her udders are often full of milk. Her lambs are in good health and fattening well. They follow her wherever she goes and seldom bleat, unlike certain other lambs. She is bringing them up to be free thinkers. My heart is close to hers.
However, my task this summer is to shepherd these sheep, which is often like playing the role of a security guard.
"I am sorry, this area is out of bounds," I will announce to a group of oncoming voracious grazers, "if you would like to move over that way please..."
Or, in the case of insistent overstepping of boundaries, I will adopt a firmer stance, "Right, I've told you lot before, I am not saying it again: you're not going that way. Go on, on your bikes!"
I am told that it is good to talk to one's sheep. It is good to be on familiar terms with them.
At times it is with reluctance that I play this role. On hot, sunny-drenched afternoons I entirely sympathise with their choice to head down into the forbidden woods and there amble through the dappled shadows, munching on the lush grassy undergrowth. But there is an alp to be maintained.
Last summer I spent a few days with sheep farmer Guillaume in Val d'Illiez cutting down trees that were encroaching onto his alps, piling up the branches and cut up bits of trunk and setting the lot alight. The forest is desperate to reclaim the high meadows that our forefathers deforested centuries ago. I asked Guillaume why - aside from perpetuating the tradition of summer pasturing - was it a priority of the government to maintain well-grazed, unforested alps. Taking cattle and sheep up to graze on the high pastures for the summer would be unprofitable if it were not for the government grants. Great sums of money are dished out to the owners of alps, who must prove that a certain number of beasts have grazed for a certain number of days over a given portion of recognised alpine pasture before getting their grant. Guillaume seemed to have never considered this question before.
"Well grazed alps encourage a great diversity of flowering alpine plants," came his response. "And they are more beautiful. And that brings tourism to the Alps,"
"But wouldn't the Alps be just as beautiful, or even more so, if they were covered in trees again?" I objected.
"If there were trees everywhere you wouldn't get any views."
Not able to see the Alps for the trees? I remain unconvinced by this argument. Although the diversity of alpine plants would be reduced if replaced by forestry, from the perspective of reducing greenhouse gases, (re)covering the Alps with trees wound be an excellent way of storing carbon. This is just what the trees want to do.
Previously, before the return of the wolf in Switzerland around fifteen years ago, the sheep were led to the high pastures then left to their own devices, with little, if any, surveillance. With increasing wolf attacks the government made funding available to employ extra shepherds, with the aim of encouraging/ tolerating the return of the wolf while not harming sheep farming. I caught wind of this and scented a potential summer job opportunity for me. The funding has now dried up, but sheep farmers are now aware of the need to protect their sheep, and there are good job prospects for aspiring shepherds.
The obvious drawbacks to this line of work are the long hours and the low pay, but for me it is a golden opportunity to be paid at all for striding around the alps all summer, living simply in a mountain cabin. I have always enjoyed walking in the hills, but the fact that I am now doing it for the sake of the sheep, does away with a certain recreational/aimless aspect of my wandering, and confers upon my striding an additional sense of purpose. The herd must stay together, each lamb must eat plenty good grass each day and fatten, for the butcher's knife is awaiting them in autumn. It is a game we play; and, more importantly, I am getting paid for it.
Aside from giving my attention all day to sheep, another significant aspect of this summer's shepherding apprenticeship is working with and living in close quarters with local shepherd Stefan. He is 68 years old, but still brimming with good health and physical aptitude. Not in the sense of sprinting or leaping around athletically - all his movements are slow and deliberate - but in the sense of solid, dependable endurance. He is a meticulous man, even to a fault. Each person is a mixed bag of character traits and all good traits should be celebrated where they are to be found. I am tempted to say that I prefer living with an over-meticulous man to an overly sloppy one. A felicitous balance between flexibility and firmness is of course the happy medium. Stefan combines his slightly stifling strictness with a formal but well-intentioned friendliness, which overall makes for a tolerable collaboration and cohabitation.
He says that if there is any possibility that a sheep or a lamb has gone astray, or is endangered in any way, then he will make every effort to bring them back to the flock. He may not be successful, but at least he can go to bed at night knowing he has done all he could.
Most moments Stefan exhibits an attitude of deliberate calm. He showed me this when he showed me how he moves through his flock of sheep while they are grazing: slowly, circling around those who are in his way so as not to disturb their grazing, he intones his mantra-like greeting of peace to his sheep,
"sooooo guete Schafe, ja jaaaaa,"
in his lulling singsong Swiss German dialect (suuuch good sheep, yes yeeees.)
One evening he was out of sorts for some reason, and unjustly ripped into me for allowing the sheep to cross an imaginary line which was to be their sleeping spot. I protested that, when he had clarified my walkie-talkie question by saying, "yes, you can allow them to keep grazing," that my understanding has been that they were permitted to graze over the line. In short, a simple misunderstanding. At this, Stefan threw his shepherd stick hard on the ground, and uttered colourful imprecations in his Swiss German dialect which in their lyrical vehemence sounded somewhat Italian.
I resumed my guard of the imaginary line. By and by Stefan calmed down, came over to me and apologised for his outburst. Exceptionally, he made physical contact with me by putting his arm around my shoulder in a gesture of reconciliation, saying "It is not good to go around with a fist in one's pocket." I agreed smilingly that it would be unpleasant to live with a fist in one's pocket.
"Is it possible to say 'poor sheep'?" I asked Stefan one evening when we had left the sheep out in the pouring rain and returned to our cosy wood stove heated hut.
"No, one cannot say that," he replied after a pause, "they have a thick coat of wool which repels the water. The rain doesn't get to them."
Whether this is so or not - even after an entire night of rain - is hard to tell, due to the phlegmatic countenance with which they regard all that life throws at them. They are verily the embodiment of imperturbability, the masters of stoicism.
I was out one afternoon when a storm began brewing. After days of wall to wall sunshine I felt excited by the drama of the black swirling clouds and the thrilling flashing lightning, followed by the deep booming rumbles of thunder splitting through the sky. When the first drops fell Stefan called me on the walkie talkie and said I should come back to the hut. We hadn't been there for long when a great number of sheep stampeded past the hut, in the direction of the mountain stream. Stefan seemed concerned and began putting on his waterproof gear.
"Are you worried that they will cross the stream?" I asked.
"That is not my main concern," he replied in a quiet voice, "I just want to see where they are going"
I put on my rain gear too and went outside with him. There was no sign of the sheep. Thick hailstones were being driven across the hillside as we strode resolutely to the stream. Still no sign of sheep. Stefan told me to follow the stream downhill and see if I could see them. "Here they are" I reported via walkie-talkie. For a hundred metres or so down the hillside, a broad hundred strong band of sheep were standing motionless at a respectable distance from one another, all of them without exception with their hindquarters facing the hill. "Stay with them, if you are warm enough" said Stefan, "and let me know when they move off."
The heavy hail gave way to a gentler rain. I found a spot to sit near the lowest sheep and contemplated them. Their motionless was impressive. Normally so full of activity - grazing, bleating, always on the move or looking around - suddenly, after their mad stampede down the hill, they had all adopted these strikingly homogeneous positions and collectively entered a trance-like state. It was as if they were observing some ancient sheep ceremony. One could understand that it is sensible to all stay together on a less exposed part of the hill when storms come, but still, their motionlessness was mysterious to me. Some of them from time to time chewed the cud slowly, but most were entirely immobile, eyes fixed blankly in front of them. I was relatively warm with my thick ski jacket and wanted to observe their storm ceremony with them. I closed my eyes and began to replicate their state of complete inner calm, without the slightest thought or of wisp of a desire.
Some time went by.
After a while the rain let up and I heard a few of their bells ringing. One after the other they shook the water off their wool and, very slowly, began looking around and taking an interest in the world around them again. The first few began to wander off. My body temperature had cooled so I got moving too. Their was one sheep, who had been standing closest to me, who remained entirely motionless. I kept looking at her, wondering if I could detect any hint of a thought or a desire in her blank expression.
Nothing.
Her wool was otherwise white, but her eyes were encircled by dark markings which suggested that she possessed the mischievous traits of a patch wearing pirate, or a darkly humoured dressed up jester. Then it seemed that I caught a twinkle in her eye, complicit in her understanding that this was just a game, that she was merely carrying out this role as a sheep. In that moment she seemed able to see beyond the vain strivings and sheepish sufferings inherent in living beings and enjoy the simple fact of being a part of this great cosmic comic drama. I beheld her with greater intensity, wondering if I was just seeing things. She was still standing there as motionless as ever, while all around her most of the other sheep has moved away. Of course she was merely a sheep, relatively unaware and whose chief concern in life was to eat grass.
But the more I looked, the more obviously the rascally twinkle in her eye appeared to me.
I saw just what I wanted to see.
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento