A tale of two flocks

– the story of love, sacrifice and redemption set against the backdrop of a lot of rainfall, and very soggy fields.

The main flock in the barn, and the Shetland flock out in the Triangle field, are both getting on with their work, despite the weather, and despite the pitfalls that echo every lambing season. We have had some losses; we have had to call the vet out for two struggling ewes, we have the usual orphan pen that we are bottle feeding. One lamb managed to roll away from its mother and got rather cold, but some time with the aga, and it is once again healthy and back in the field. So, overall, lambing is going very well, and we are around halfway through. We have Lottie, a trainee vet on hand as a help, and once again Boots is hands on to assist Tim, Alice, Brendan and Chris.

For the Shetland flock, a fence was put around the Flow Form, and as you can see, thistle wasn’t quite the help required! (Thistles coat is another story!)

Alice spotted the first Cuckoo Flower and our first swallow earlier this week. The warmth on Easter Saturday turned bare branches green; the air is warm, and the rain is falling – so despite the ground still being saturated, the pasture is growing.

The Open Event for Village Fabrics was a roaring success, and we will share more about this next time. The Business Park is a human geographer’s dream – from primary to tertiary within three decades is very speedy work, and the new community of businesses currently on the park are so different than even pre covid. It is lovely to work alongside them all.

The cattle are either bored of being in the barn or fed up with being in the fields in the rain. The forecasted ten days of dry weather we have ahead of us will be a great help. The sharing of individual stories from farmers across the UK in the press recently has given the spotlight to just how the intense the rainfall and subsequent damage to our farms is – and equally pressing – the wellbeing of our farmers. There is a very real and present danger to food security, food prices, and farmer’s lives. 

There is no disputing that farming is tough right now, so we hope you will enjoy these images of the joy that farming is also able to bring. 

In A Spring Garden by Paul Hamilton Hayne

When Heaven was stormy, Earth was cold,
And sunlight shunned the wold and wave,–
Thought burrowed in the churchyard mould,
And fed on dreams that haunt the grave:–

But now that Heaven is freed from strife,
And Earth’s full heart with rapture swells,
Thought soars the realms of endless life
Above the shining asphodels!

What flower that drinks the south wind’s breath,
What sparkling leaf, what Hebe-Morn,
But flouts the sullen graybeard, Death,
And laughs our Arctic doubts to scorn?

Pale scientist! scant of healthful blood,
Your ghostly tomes, one moment, close;
Pluck freshness with a spring-time bud,
Find wisdom in the opening rose:

From toil which, blindly delving, gropes
When time but plays a juggler’s part,
Ah go! and breathe the dew-lit hopes
That cluster round a violet’s heart:

Mark the white lily whose sweet core
Hath many a wild-bee swarm enticed,
And draw therefrom a honeyed lore
Pure as the tender creed of Christ:

Yea! even the weed which upward holds
Its tiny ear, past bower and lawn,
A lovelier faith than yours enfolds,
Caught from the whispering lips of dawn!

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