Photo by Tim

I am preoccupied with sheep recently. Sheep and goats. I may end my days goatwalking in the desert.

I’m not the only one. The heroine of Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer is a widowed city girl who saves her Appalachian farm by raising goats for New York Passover. On Marian Finucane’s radio programme last week, we heard from a lovely Dublin woman who had married a Kildare farmer and settled in Athy.
    “I’m a practical sort of person, Marian,” she said, “I had no interest in an engagement ring.”
Instead, her sweetheart led her outside to see her surprise wedding gift. A flock of twenty sheep, whom she lambed single-handedly her first winter down the country. What man wouldn’t count himself lucky to find such a bride?

Women of the world, raise your right middle finger to De Beers’ blood-soaked diamonds, and take a sheep for love and independence. Send it to Bóthar if it won’t fit in your apartment.