SHEEP
On Lundy, you have the domestic sheep and the wild soay sheep. Here, the sheep are a combination of the two. They are domestic, in that they are farmed and herded occasionally, from valley to valley, but they are also wild, as the sheep can roam freely most of the time. The first thing our neighbours said to us was to keep our garden gate closed!
The sheep on Kefalonia are mostly 2 breeds. The multi coloured Awassi sheep breed, a fat-tailed type, white with brown heads and legs, sometimes, brown allover, with floppy long ears, and the Chios breed, which are mostly kept for milk production. They are a semi fat-tailed type with dark spots on the face, belly, and legs. The sheep are kept for meat, wool, and milk.
It is usually the wise old ewes that have bells attached to their necks. They know the best routes through the mountains and valleys, and you can see long processions snaking over the landscape. The bells are there to help the herder find his flock. The tinkling of the bells, if you ignore the chainsaws, is the predominant sound in our valley. There are so many sheep that the bells sound like water, trickling down a stream.
