Shining a light on our work in wee small hours
SOMEBODY asked me recently what had happened to all the cute, fluffy, animal stories – and it might just be that big, scary issues like Brexit have dominated the headlines for too long.
However, despite all the angst and uncertainty, farm life goes on during the dark winter days. The cattle still have to be fed and bedded up with fresh straw, the sheep tended to, fences repaired, VAT returns submitted, fields ploughed, drains repaired, ditches dug and forms filled in.
Although we might have turned the corner of the year, with the shortest day now a few weeks behind us, the mornings are still inky black until well after animal feeding time.
This means that the sheep have been getting fed in the dark which, with the lights on the quad bike, is no big deal. But with the breeding ewes up on the hill and the fattening lambs in a field as far as can be in the opposite direction, there’s quite a trip between the two.
And I’ve grown quite friendly with the wildlife I meet travelling across the fields, delivering the sheep’s breakfast.
Chief among these at the moment are the hares – there seems to be at least a couple lolloping about with their big lazy bounds in each field in the dark of the morning. I find myself wondering if they would normally be up at that time or if I’m acting as an early-morning alarm call for them as I drive past with the dogs in tow.
Not so the birds, though. They sometimes perform a marvellously surprised vertical take-off from the fields as the lights waken them with their glare, plucking them from their slumbers and sending them flying up in what I imagine must be the sort of rushed awakening which puts them in a bad mood for the rest of the day.
However, I’m not sure whether the rams – or tups as we call them – are in a bad mood with me at the moment as well. For, earlier in the week, these boys were taken out from amid their lady sheep, their annual stint over for another ten-and-a-half months.
And while they always start the mating season off in November with great enthusiasm, they’re beginning to look a bit worn out by the turn of the year – and they’ve probably lost a bit of weight too.
But, when I mentioned that I felt a bit sorry for them, someone did point out that they were now off for 46 weeks of holiday to prepare for their next six weeks of “work”.