FARMING NEWS
It’s been flat out on the farm Stuart Luxton describes the joys of lambing Happy spring everyone. As ever I’m writing this long after the submission deadline - once again I feel sorry for the editor! It would be nice to say that it was because I have been busy socially or out bike riding but the truth is that I’ve been busy working. The last three weeks I’ve set my alarm for 4am to get to the lambing shed, from there I’ve been heading up to the shop most days. I have been meaning to write this article on a number of evenings but on every one, it seems as if something has got in the way, a call out to a sick sheep, or a calving, or paying bills. I don’t find writing easy, so when it’s a choice of some sleep or typing there was only one winner. Who would have believed that the one year anniversary of the first lockdown has passed? We have all learnt so much, some good and some bad. I still remember what a friend said to me early on: ‘Locking down is easy, it is unlocking that will be hard.’ Last year our vet student had to dash home before lockdown cut in. This year she emailed me and asked if she could come again and bring a friend who had also had a poor time. To limit contact we found a local holiday cottage for them which was fine as they were key workers. We have also had some help from another vet student whose father is also a vet. It was quite interesting, as he hadn’t seen many lambings where the lambs were presented normally and lambed easily.
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I’m not sure if it was fortunate or unfortunate, but this year I have been allowed back into the lambing shed. Vaccinations have helped, and I don’t mean the vaccinations that we have given to the sheep. The lambing this year has gone very quickly, a slow and, unusually for sheep, a timely start rapidly became flat out. Approximately half of the girls lambed in the second week, but with weather being very kind, it was a busy but successful time. What we need now is some really good growing weather to keep all the mouths fed. In the photo is one of the red hoof gang, Patch. Poppy, Rosie, Jenny and new friends Disco and Diva were being camera shy. Never work with animals or children. Or in this case, children taking photos of me with animals. The café extension at Farmer Luxton’s is starting to come together now. There is no timescale of when it will be open but we know it can’t be before the 17th May. We are watching government guidelines closely but we hope building works will be complete by the end of May. For us that might well be a final signal that things are returning to normal but after all this time we will only believe it once it has happened. Stay safe everyone, roll on summer. Stuart Luxton
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