Spring?

Clocks have gone forward.  Normally feel like this somersaults us into Spring but the grey, the gloom,  the relentless rain, and now snow up north seems to be dragging us back to winter.  Still there are daffodils, the magnolias are in bud and the other day on the way back from Fay Thomas’ farm we saw chestnuts almost bursting into leaf.

And we have been filming lambing.  On a cold frosty morning in early March on Richard Thomas’ farm I saw my first live real lamb being born (not on film or tv).  All the cliches kick in as you watch in wonder while this little life, wet and steaming, doggedly wobbles onto its legs.  Since then we’ve seen a lot of births.  We’ve watched Richard Mills and his father persuade a ewe to return to her lamb.  She had taken one look at it and run away.  Spent the day with the Fay Thomas’ family where, with 800 ewes to deal with, lambing is definitely a family affair with all hands on deck.

And one of the highlights of March was upon arriving at Graham Richards’ family’s farm, he said he had something to show us.  Mysterious.  He led us into a baled off area in one of the sheds and there were calve triplets!  Two days old.  The cow had them in the night all by herself.  Graham had done some research and the odds are 100,000 to 1 for such an event.  They’ve have 2 sets of twins in the last six months as well.  So there must be something in the air at Abbey farm.  How many triplets this year from their 1200 ewes?

We are waiting for the call to go and film a calving…Richard? Jono?