Surefooted Sheep
My grandfather always insisted that a mountain sheep had a better flavour because it fed on the finer herbs and grasses that grow in inaccessible places. The sweet herbs made sweet meat. I thought of this while I watched a ewe and her lamb on the mountain. They were of the small Welsh breed, and seemed to stumble rather than walk along the very face of a cliff above an old quarry. There was nothing unsure or insecure in the way they put their feet down, however. Had there been, they would have been feeding the crows long ago. The ewe looked down at me, and waited for her lamb to negotiate a particularly dangerous ledge. In her place I dared not have looked below for .fear of becoming dizzy, but she looked into the quarry and gave a reassuring bleat to her lamb as it came up behind and nuzzled her side.
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