Lambing has started again on the farm. As I write this post Storm Dennis is starting to show his cards and it is looking likely that he will make Ciara (from last weekend) look mild. I took a step back from the sheep this year to concentrate on other projects (doing everything is impossible and it got to the stage when I had to take a long hard look and something had to give – difficult as I felt I was letting people down but it had to be done). This said it’s still good to go down to the lambing shed and there’s nothing quite like seeing new life come into the world. We spent a good few hours in the shed last night talking about this and that, looking over the ewes, none of which seemed like they were going to be showing anything that night. There was a difficult lambing yesterday morning, which is never a great experience to go through, but when it’s near the beginning of lambing time it’s even more frustrating. Although we all eat, and most of us still eat meat, I don’t think we appreciate quite how much work and time goes in to producing meat for the table. Whilst it can be the best job in the world, farming can be immensely stressful at times and when the weather is against you this makes it even worse. A lot of arable farmers were unable to drill any crops in the ground last autumn meaning that the options are spring cropping or leaving the land fallow for this year and trying again next year. Then there are the farmers who have been affected by flooding this year or have had buildings damaged by of high winds. Storm Dennis isn’t going to help matters. I just hope that things will get better for people. It certainly seems like the weather is getting more unpredictable. I just hope we can collectively act on climate change mitigation before it gets too much worse.
On another note, I’m excited (I think!) that our farm will be on BBC Countryfile tomorrow night – tune in to BBC1 at 6.10pm. They’re talking about sea buckthorn, farmrunner and where we breached the sea wall.
Take care in the storm everyone.
thinkingcountry.com 