The sky is a dark luminescent blue, a bright sun shines through the valley. Despite the sharp March wind, flowers are exploding everywhere. This is the first day without rain for months and months.
All around are celebrating the warm glow from above. Birds shout, sheep laze in the fields, donkeys clamor to get out into their paddock. Only my chickens must stay in as I still ponder the strange disappearance of dear old Claude, the cockerel.
We spotted him at the top of the donkey paddock as we drove down from the top fields in yet another wild rain storm, having fed the ewes. “Get him in, in a minute” said Paul “but first let’s tackle the flood in the donkey shed” It was three o’clock in the afternoon. An hour later he had completely disappeared, no shrieks, no feathers, nothing. In came the three feathered ladies without him. I searched for days but no sign of him. He was such a big boy it must have been a mighty fox to vanish him so fast without a shred of evidence! So the girls stay in for now, bored but safe.
Slowly the ground is draining and grass is just beginning to grow. I look at the weather forecast and the week ahead is a little better. So I hope this is not just a tiny welcome respite with another storm secretly waiting in the wings to buffet us again tomorrow.
The muddy girls are down from the top fields now and coming into the yard for tea with last year’s ewe lambs. As lambing approaches we will separate them again and send the little girls to fresh pasture, leaving their mothers to start the cycle all over again.
Except that this year will be our last year of lambing. Hercule has done his time and must move on to a new flock and fresh blood. Instead of replacing him, we have decided to call lambing a day. We will reduce the flock gradually over the next two years to just a few sturdy lawnmowers and plant more trees. It’s both a little sad and, at the same time, exciting after thirty years of breeding Whiteface Dartmoors. But time moves on and we must be realistic.
And realistic is what we are all struggling to be at the moment with the threat of a coronavirous world epidemic swamping news and social media. Strange times indeed; what of stories of the severe flooding across our country, the storm damage, of international news, war zones, draught in Africa, Australia’s recent fires? All I read on tablet or in newspaper is speculation and fear of the spread of this virus both here and across the world. Oh and the rain has returned, sweeping sideways in a huge grey curtain across the valley. I spoke too soon!
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