New mums don’t always know best
What a pleasure it is to be lambing in fine weather, with healthy lambs in every field.
As always though, lambing extensively over a large area does bring with it an element of risk – rabbit holes, cliffs, gutters and rivers.
Most of the yows are attentive mothers and will pick a wise place to lamb and stay with it.
A small number have a more casual approach and are happy to waltz off into the sunset
One such yow opted for a waterbirth in the river and therefore the demise of her lamb.
She got a second shot at motherhood when I skinned her lamb, crafting a rather soggy woolly jacket for
Lamb in a pram one of the orphan lambs. Luckily, she accepted it as her own and was soon heading back up the hill.
We are very tired at the moment, early mornings and late nights take their toll. We are down to survival rations as cooking isn’t high on the agenda.
Raven needed to go to her extra maths class one morning and this meant a 17-mile drive to a bus stop at Reeth.
The bonus was that as I pulled up on the village green, a fruit and veg stall was just setting up.
For us, after countless jacket potatoes, stews and soups, it was like an oasis.
Clemmy and I were like kids in a sweet shop.
Never have fresh salads, strawberries, apples and plums tasted so good – though I ate two bunches of radishes and Clemmy threw up before we got back to Ravenseat.