{"id":18445,"date":"2026-01-14T11:44:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T11:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/?p=18445"},"modified":"2026-01-14T11:44:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T11:44:16","slug":"poem-fothering-the-sheep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/2026\/01\/14\/poem-fothering-the-sheep\/","title":{"rendered":"Poem: &#8216;Fothering the Sheep&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Fothering the sheep<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Only minus seven this morning<br \/>\nbut the gate latches are frozen solid.<br \/>\n\u2018We\u2019ll need a kettleful to unfreeze them.\u2019<br \/>\nThere\u2019s more snow forecast and a gale warning.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018We need to get hay up to the sheep<br \/>\nbefore it blows in.\u2019 The cart\u2019s struggling.<br \/>\nThe sheep are gathered, waiting. \u2018They\u2019re patient,<br \/>\nI\u2019ll give them that.\u2019 The snow\u2019s firm, packed deep.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Nay, don\u2019t all push at once! You\u2019ll get your share.\u2019<br \/>\nSheep surge forward, eyes fixed on the hay.<br \/>\nThe lads flick it up. It falls in bundles on the snow.<br \/>\nStrewing the hay shows the sheep they care.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Image: Daniele Idini<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fothering the sheep Only minus seven this morning but the gate latches are frozen solid. \u2018We\u2019ll need a kettleful to unfreeze them.\u2019 There\u2019s more snow forecast and a gale warning. \u2018We need to get hay up to the sheep before it blows in.\u2019 The cart\u2019s struggling. The sheep are gathered, waiting. \u2018They\u2019re patient, I\u2019ll give [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18448,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[1373,2336,2341,2342,3417,3418,7320,7341,8335,8922,10035],"class_list":["post-18445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-cassandra-voices-deborah-mason","tag-deborah-mason","tag-deborah-mason-poet","tag-deborah-mason-poetry","tag-fothering","tag-fothering-the-sheep","tag-poem","tag-poetry","tag-sheep","tag-the","tag-what-is-fothering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}