Almost offed by a gaggle of piglets!

[young Ed]

get the occasional sheep round here, have dropped the bike on the verge and helped herd some sheep from one field to another with a farmer.... in rigid spd shoes . i have a fair bit of experience in this in any case herding my own and both of my bosses sheep on and off road.
really top farmer, drives about those lanes every day in his old bashed up land rover defender and gives me a big grin and wave every time we meet. even stopped for a chat once
but on a serious note for a minute, any one on here that does come across sheep either on the bike, in the car, whilst out walking with dog or with out (if with dog please put it on the lead!) any sheep come across until at least start of may please be extra careful as not to make them run/scare them so no loud noises, sudden movements etc. this is because they are likely to be in lamb (pregnant) at this time and if shocked/panicked there is a pretty high chance they abort their lambs and then the farmer has all sorts of problems both financially and logistically with still births and helping with the birth and having lambless sheep trying to adopt other sheeps lambs etc etc

sorry to go on but it is a very real problem for us country people and shepherds so we would say if you just keep this in mind!

any ways sorry to go off topic a bit


have had the occasional smaller animal such as rabbit, squirrel etc that i have almost hit but not any actually gone crunch yet
Cheers Ed

 

[slowmotion]

Riding in the dark round Richmond Park a while ago, I nearly got offed by a very large badger. I could see him rumbling along at right angles to the road a few tens of yards ahead but he didn't pause at all as we closed. He must have missed my front wheel by a yard....and continued rumbling into the darkness without breaking step. I guess he didn't give a stuff about all the bloody cyclists who invaded his patch.