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Going into this book, I knew nothing about the Lake District, or sheep-herding in general, and I'm not sure what drove me to pick up this Gen Xer shepherd's memoir n years ago, beyond general curiosity.
The book's opening is a stunning piece of nature writing, detailing the annual ritual of "going to the fells"—basically, there's sheep that spend their summer grazing on the scraggly, high, mountainous fells, and when the time's right, all the shepherds in the area go together to round them up and bring them back to their respective farms for autumn.
While the author hikes through the predawn light, as sheepdogs bay all around him, we get the history of this place, and this ritual (one that's been done annually for centuries and centuries), and the nuances of how to identify and train a good sheepdog, and the personalities of the other shepherds with him, and the beauty of the sheep and the hills and... it's all story, thrilling and beautiful. I adored it. I wanted to be on that fell.
The rest of the book never quite reaches that same high, though it's still solid nature/vocation-writing, in the vein of, say, a lesser H is for Hawk (whose author blurbed this enthusiastically, and having finished reading—yeah, that tracks). The memoir-y bits get a little long-winded but certainly not as syrupy or tedious as the median nature book, and the details of farm work remain fascinating throughout.
The economic story behind the scenes is what really piqued my interest, however.
( Read more... )
The book's opening is a stunning piece of nature writing, detailing the annual ritual of "going to the fells"—basically, there's sheep that spend their summer grazing on the scraggly, high, mountainous fells, and when the time's right, all the shepherds in the area go together to round them up and bring them back to their respective farms for autumn.
While the author hikes through the predawn light, as sheepdogs bay all around him, we get the history of this place, and this ritual (one that's been done annually for centuries and centuries), and the nuances of how to identify and train a good sheepdog, and the personalities of the other shepherds with him, and the beauty of the sheep and the hills and... it's all story, thrilling and beautiful. I adored it. I wanted to be on that fell.
The rest of the book never quite reaches that same high, though it's still solid nature/vocation-writing, in the vein of, say, a lesser H is for Hawk (whose author blurbed this enthusiastically, and having finished reading—yeah, that tracks). The memoir-y bits get a little long-winded but certainly not as syrupy or tedious as the median nature book, and the details of farm work remain fascinating throughout.
The economic story behind the scenes is what really piqued my interest, however.
( Read more... )
