The wetsuit has been put away as has the snorkel, but only yesterday. What a month April has been. However, the good news is that lambing has finished and it has gone really well. It is the first year since I started lambing that we didn’t loose a ewe or a lamb during the process. Keeping them all alive is now the tricky bit though. The weather has certainly taken its toll and it was a long time before we could turn out any ewes and lambs as the fields were so wet and muddy.
Keeping the stock in has been a costly affair too. The good news for the sheep farmer is that the price of lamb, hogget and cull ewes is superb and looks like it is going to continue for sometime. If these few 
days of sunshine continue we will be able to turn out our cattle. Normally we only house them for a couple of months in the winter but we are already approaching the 4 month mark this year. They are all 
looking over the wall at the grass and wondering whey they can’t go out.
Turning them out is always a wonderful sight as they bound off across the field, tails in the air – so different to sheep who just get their heads down and graze as soon as possible. We have had lovely visits from local families to see the ewes and lambs and it is so good to share this time of year with them, particularly seeing the young children bottle feed the lambs who for one reason or another end up with me as their mum!
I wrote about Ralph in March and said how well he is coming on. He has found dealing with the lambs slightly tricky as a few ewes have given him a very forceful nudge or 2 when he gets too close – he’s learning though and has already sussed out that keeping a distance from a ewe with lambs at foot is the best policy for the time being.
Janet East
