Hating cold, and very clever sheep dogs

Google search image - to look at, this could be 'Bess'

Why I hate Snow.

It's not just snow, it any cold climate.

You see I grew up ,on the side of a very large hill in the north of England - and this mean exposure to the elements, and especially driving cold winds.
I always hated it. ( I think it's more genetic, than environmental – the rest of my family were blessed with de icer in their veins, and were impervious to the cold.)

While my dad was in shirt sleeves at any temperature above 0c, (or 32f for weirdo's), I was huddled around the fire. NO central heating, ice on the inside of windows, and a genetically predisposed individual that waited for summertime.... You get the picture, I'm sure.

Then the came the night of the freak snowstorm – which was hard work, horrible, and also a little bit amazing...

We had a late flurry of snow (April). This was very unusual. - I had never seen it in my 16 years on the planet. Snow had always finished by early march, at the latest.
One big, gigantic problem with this occurrence...
Lambs.
It wasn’t snowing lambs of course, just your regular snow.

It was falling on the newly born lambs however (no more than 2 week sold).
Approximately 400 of the little buggers.
This could wipe out most of the profits of a years business, and have a knock on effect for many years into the future (less lambs to not send to market, less to keep and breed, increases stock size, etc)

By 7 o’clock that evening, the snow was drifting heavily, and there was no choice. We had to get on our clothes, trudge up the hill, and start clearing snow that had drifted.

Sheep are not the brightest of animals.

While it makes common sense to shelter on the lee side of a wall, protecting yourself from the wind, they are too stupid to stand up when its drifting.
The snow falls and covers them, while they are sat down. They can no longer stand up, with the weight of snow that has landed on them . Durr.

They are well and truly stuck!

This is not normally a massive problem. They can happily stay a couple of days under the snow, and emerge with not too much harm.
When they have lambs sucking on them, it becomes a serious matter. (financial for us, not moral).

This is a google image,- but it could literally be a picture of my dad freeing sheep!

We had to spend the night, walking up several miles of stone wall, shifting snow, freeing the sheep, and their offspring.
Miles of stone wall, with no clue where they were in the drifts.

---

And this is where I saw something truly amazing.

Sheep dogs are very clever animals. Very.

One sheepdog we had at the time, Bess - She was an Einstein, amongst very clever animals.

She had no 'training' for this situation.

She watched what we were doing, for a while (digging sheep free).
She worked out what we doing.

After only 10 minutes of us doing this, she started helping!
(not digging down with her paws, oh no, much cleverer. She had worked out the principal of time and efficiency!)

Using her very sensitive dogggy nose – she went ahead of us, smelling where the sheep were!

She barked out - started diggin just the beginnings of a hole, then moved on, further up the wall, repeating the process.
A real 'lassie' moment.

She saved us countless hours, (pointlessly digging where there was no sheep trapped in the snow.)
And saved us 100's of sheep from suffocating, or dying of hypothermia.

After a few hours of this lovely work, I also went snow blind!
(everything went dark purple, as I remember it)

I have never stayed in a cold country since I started traveling, over 25 years ago.

I did get stuck crossing the Rockies, on a pass between Vegas and San Fran once, and I spent a night on the the top of the Alps, in September -in a camper van.
Both miserable experiences.

I hate cold.