Easter Monday and, for the moment at least, the rain has stopped and the sun is shining.
The big news is that both lambing and calving have begun albeit rather slowly as regards the lambing. We now have had two of the eight calves hoped for and in both cases all appears to have gone very well. Both are tagged and both births reported to the Cattle Movement Service. The calf born on Saturday was the ninth we have had from her mother. The calf was a male  as were seven of the previous eight. Looking at our records it is very interesting to see how some cows only seem to have male progeny while others only females – moreover this does seem to be an inherited trait.

Lambing, as always it seems, began badly with only one out of the four first births live. Matters are now looking better even though, fortunately, we are not having a rush of births. A slight problem is that we are still awaiting the arrival of the EID tags. Ordered in good time I hastily add!
Tim and Chris are currently supported by a core team of three since Antje and Katja arrived on Thursday while Tiernan is giving up his school holidays as part of his D of E award programme. This afternoon we are looking forward to Mary joining the team.
We were delighted to hear that after a very long journey Joaquin has made it back to his home in Chile and now has only to adjust to both time climate and culture shock before he starts university classes again on Tuesday.
Our remaining lambs from last year were moved this morning onto fresh grass – they grumbled somewhat but Flash enjoyed the exercise! They are now in the field adjacent to our ‘homestead’
Easter Sunday was very much an extended family day with the weather kindly allowing the traditional Easter egg hunt. Sophie had set things up to make it appropriately challenging and, aside from the fact adults were not allowed to pocket any finds, it was greatly enjoyed by all! We then, all 13 of us, sat down to a veritable feast prepared by Anne, Tab and Chris, before the older ones of the party collapsed into comfortable chairs.
The river, though very high, has not broken its banks and even if it does no stock are at risk and the weather forecast gives us hope.

We hope you have all enjoyed your Easter weekend!

Yours, Farmer Adrian