MATTERDALE, England — James Rebanks picked up a newborn lamb by the scruff of its neck and set it on its feet. It stood, shaking and weak. “We’re going to lose that one,” he said. He got back onto the quad bike that he uses to patrol his farm, 300 acres of hilly land near this parish in the Lake District, where his family has farmed for about 600 years. “Sometimes it happens,” he said stoically.
Birth, death and everything in between are Mr. Rebanks’s daily bread as a sheep farmer in this beautiful but inhospitable terrain in the northwestern part of the country. But he is no isolated, anachronistic figure striding into the hills, shepherd’s crook in hand. (Although he certainly has one.) He has a degree from Oxford, a Twitter account with almost 65,000 followers, a best-selling book and a part-time job as an adviser to Unesco.
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