Writing of shepherd

There are less people that want to be shepherd every day and it’s worrying because this profession is disappearing. Last week, I had the luck to talk with the last shepherd of La Cerdanya when my mother and I were walking around our town to relax ourselves. With that man we talked for an hour, more or less, and I learned some new interesting things about his profession. Because of that, I think that it’s interesting to show you part of our conversation, because you can learn more things about a shepherd’s profession:

[…]
- But it’s late to be here waiting your flock, Mr. Bans. What time do you finish your work?
- Well Lizzy, I haven’t got strict working hours… I leave with the sheep early in the morning and I come back home with them in the evening, but not in fixed hour. I spend lots of hours out with my sheep and my fantastic dog; because, as you know, without a good sheepdog the shepherd couldn’t control the flock. It’s essential its work in my profession.
- Yes, I’ve heard something about that from documentaries on TV. And of course, I’ve heard to talk about the famous sheepdog, called Coloma, lots of times.
-Oh, yes! It was incredible… As I was telling you, I spend lots of hours alone every day, but it’s how this job is …, however, I love it. I like to be hours and hours sitting on green meadows’ ground thinking about the life, observing my flock, eating a sandwich, contemplating the landscape and the sky to predict the weather which can do tomorrow, depending on the clouds or the wind.
- Uou! Can you predict the weather?! It’s very interesting; you do as the weather forecast of TV program but without machines, only with the nature. Fantastic!
-It is…, but this job also has hard things and situations: you have to do the same every day: to guide the sheep to the meadows because they can feed themselves with fresh grass, and in the evening return them home; you can’t do trips because you haven’t got holidays… Because all of that I’m telling you, it’s usual that the people who have this job haven’t got wife and child, like me… and most of the people don’t like this kind of life. So every time, there are less people like me who want to be shepherds.
- It’s true; I don’t know anyone who has this job now, only you…
- I’m the last real shepherd of this country because I’m the oldest one and I practice this job traditionally as before. Since many years ago, this profession has had an evolution; it has changed a lot, fortunately. Nowadays, livestock world isn’t harder than before: now, you can feed the animals in farms without having to guide them to graze if you don’t want or you can’t do it. You have seen this kind of farmers, isn’t it, Lizzy?
-Yes, it’s more common that people have the livestock at home in the farm. And also, maybe, it’s easier because you can combine your life with the family and the job, although you either have holidays to do long trips, etc.
- Well, since now you can see that there won’t be anybody like me, because my traditional profession is in his lasts days.
[..]

With this dialogue that I had last week, we can understand that it’s a hard job, but it’s a pity to see how one of the traditional and primitive professions is disappearing from this world, because the shepherd was one of the first jobs that were practiced by the human. We have to appreciate the task of the farmers because they do a very important job in our lives; without them, we wouldn’t eat lots of food that we eat, like meat from the animals and other food that is from them. So, we have to think about this job, how hard it is and value the work of the people who do it.