Lock Down Lambing!

Lock Down Lambing !

Here we are lambing for the last time but in the strangest of circumstances!

No cars hoot on the corner by our gate, no planes or helicopters buzz overhead. No distant whistle of the steam train across the river. No one walks by calling greetings over the hedge, no one drops in with kids to see the lambs, to have a cup of tea or a glass of wine. No friends for supper, no Sunday greetings in church: only isolation and “lock down”.

No one knows how long it will last, when it will end. And it is the same right across the world. Suzu-Chan in Tokyo, an architect student, house bound now with her mother and brother, tells me she is learning to knit!

And yet things on the farm continue unchanged. Lambing simply goes ahead as usual.

The magnificent Hercule has done a wonderful job yet again this year. He will leave us later in the summer when eventually the sheep sales reopen. A gentle fellow, he has had his time with us.  He is by now too closely related to our flock to be able to run with the ladies again next year. So the time has come for him to move on to pastures new to beget yet more beautiful pedigree Whiteface Dartmoor lambs on fields afar.

As ewes graze quietly on the top fields, their lambs playing together in the sun, it’s so difficult to believe we are living in such strange and frightening times. I look across the hills to Dartmoor in the misty distance and the river Dart below; not a person in sight. Just the baaing of sheep across the valley and maybe the sound of a solitary distant tractor way above me on a neighbour’s farm. It is so hard to believe what is happening across the world. But then, once home, I look again at the news and the grim reality hits hard.

Lambing is tiring, full on, relentless; early mornings, late nights. But this year we are so grateful we have our sheep to care for. We have space around us, hard work, long days, short nights. The animals know nothing of this madness. They centre us and keep us, oh, so grounded and busy.

Donkeys sun themselves outside their barn.

Chickens peck through the orchard. The yearlings graze quietly on the top fields and Hercule and the boys relax on their hillside. And down in the yard still more lambs are born. The sun continues to shine and grass is growing at last.

But everything has changed. Now we must print out a form from the NFU if we are to travel to the local farm shop to buy animal feed. We must consider carefully if we really need to leave the house. Should we risk the town or order from the village shop? Do we need to go shopping or can we make do with what we have in garden, fridge and freezer? Can we sign up to get medication delivered or is the service overwhelmed already?

So glad am I that I love gardening !

So many questions, so many challenges to all those things we have taken for granted over the years. We will surly find ourselves in a very different world out there when the lock-down is finally lifted.