Lambing 2016 - the complete works!

Lambing 2016

Introduction

I attempted writing a ‘blog’ during my time as a shepherd last year and was surprised at the number of people who said they had enjoyed reading it. I hadn’t intended doing so again this year but, having had a number of people ask about it I thought I would give it a try again. If it suddenly stops it is because I will not have had the time (or the energy) to continue with it when things get busy.

Feedback from last year was that some people liked the explanation of what lambing involves, some liked the descriptions I gave of the trials and tribulations of being a seasonal shepherd and some liked the personal reflections. So I intend to try the same formula again, and inevitably that will mean some repeats as little changes from year to year.

Two warnings. This is not intended to be a ‘soundbite’, Facebook-type, set of comments. It is my commentary on my time around and involved in lambing – so I probably go on and on. Treat this as a mini-novel rather than a brief report. It is also told as it is – which for the squeamish might be a bit over the top.

And for the purists - yes, I know that a blog is supposed to be a series of entries in chronological order. So that there is no confusion of dates I plan to edit all the entries together. The fact that there aren't extra posts doesn't mean nothing has been added. Keep checking back to see if you have read the latest news (if you like what you read, of course).

Saturday, 5^th March

Practically every trip I make to north Wales (and I make four or five each year) starts with an evening commitment in south east Essex after which I leave and make a midnight journey to my shepherd’s bothy in the Berwyn Mountains on the edge of the Snowdonia National Park. Today was possibly the most challenging journey as I had been up at 5.30 am collecting equipment for a work party on the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation and ferrying it upstream before taking part in the litterpick. So with a Leigh Orpheus concert in the evening it had already been a long day by the time I leave at 9.40pm.

Having not eaten properly all day I stop at Mr McDonald’s Fine Dining and instantly feel pleased I am heading to the solitude of the mountains as I watch a mother scream at her two children (or “F***ing little bastards” in her terminology) as they run around the ‘restaurant’ in their pyjamas.

Onwards on the M25 and then the M1, but having eaten it is a struggle to stay awake. All techniques are tried in an attempt to stay awake – I Spy sequential letters of the alphabet on the registration plates of vehicles I pass; singing along to the radio; singing pieces the choir had sung earlier in the evening; cold air through the car window; etc. However I stay awake with no need to stop for a rest and make it to my usual stopping point of Corley Services on the M6 where the facilities allow a change from Choir Uniform to farming clothes. And where I know asking at Starbucks for a filter coffee after midnight gives an Americano at the filter coffee price! I try to appear surprised and appreciative as the person serving me explains this!

The cool air in the car park of the services, and the strong coffee, help for the next part of the journey and it seems that I am going round the Shrewsbury bypass sooner than I had expected. The weather is looking like it will stay dry as I unload for the huge amount of food, clothing and tools I take with me. 

Onward still, but now relying on a can of Red Bull as I go round Oswestry. Eventually the ‘miles to travel’ are becoming realistic – 15, 10, 5 – I’m on home territory now and soon it’s time to turn off the road and head up the farm track. 2.20 am; not bad. But it starts snowing. Damn!

Wellington boots on and the first job is to take off the polythene bag that covers the flue from the fire and stops rain coming down the flue. Next, light the fire and try to encourage the smoke to go up the chimney rather than stay in the logburner and smother the fire. The falling snow doesn’t help. Eventually the hot warm air I want to go up the flue beats the cold air and snow inhibiting it, the fire starts burning properly and I can head round the sheep sheds to check for ewes in labour or lambs that have been born. The sheds all seem to be occupied – unusual at the very start of lambing – and very full. I later learn that Rocky The Ram has, rather than wait his turn to go into the field with the ewes, managed to break through early and the resulting lambs are starting to be born early; two have been killed by crows eating their soft stomachs. Nature, eh?!

By 4.30 am I have the unpacking done, the fridge stocked up and the bothy warm. That logburner is such a luxury.

It’s time for bed. I fall asleep easily and hope I don’t get called by Rhian, the owner of the farm, if she has a problem with any births.

Sunday, 6^th March

I don’t have to get up to help with any difficult births, but at 10 am the phone is ringing and Rhian is asking if I have been up long. Well actually I haven’t been up at all, but it seems reasonable for me to get up and start on what I’m here for.

A lazy day really. Triplets have already been born to a ewe from which the scan had indicated twins. Very cute, but small and they will need extra feeding and possibly the adoption of one of them if they are to become strong lambs.

I spend the day trying to get the ewes used to my presence – at some point I am potentially going to need to catch them and get them to trust me sufficiently to help with the birth(s) of their lamb(s).

A trip to Bala where as long as I can park outside Barclay’s Bank I can use the free wifi to upload and download emails.

And as I am on the 2am shift, set the alarms on two phones and with the logburner doing its job so well I turn in for an early night. It will be interesting to see if I can adjust my sleep patterns to accommodate this shift.

Monday, 7^th March

When I wake up to the two alarms at 1.55 am I feel fairly rested and put warm clothes on to do the rounds. However, I am somewhat taken aback when, on opening the door, it is snowing. I hadn’t expected that.

Not fully awake I am hoping that I can get round each of the sheds and back to my warm bed without waking up fully. And tonight it seems I can. I check on all of the girls, none of them looking like they are about to lamb, and am back in my bothy in 25 minutes. Result!

Back to bed and back to sleep. At 5.30 am I am aware of feeding troughs not far away being turned over. But when I was here in January I joked with Lester, who walks the hills early in the morning and comes to help with the feeding, that the clattering of troughs was maybe designed to wake me up. I guess Lester took this on board and, as he helps, is far more subtle.

I get up at 8.30 am and check the sheds. The majority of the ewes are resting, most chewing the cud, still satiated after their morning feed. Back to the bothy for breakfast.

I’ll need to be strategic in the way I eat the food I have brought with me. I leave a growing larder of non-perishable food in the bothy, stocking up with things running low each time I come. Unfortunately my shopping list, created last time I left, was on the phone that died a few days ago and I have had to guess the shopping I need – and I have got it significantly wrong! Running low on coffee; enough breakfast cereal to last 6 months; far too few biscuits – my little luxuries when things get tough; so much tuna that I’m feeling guilty that it might have to go on the endangered species list.

One of my significant inputs here is the maintenance. I have to admit I enjoy much of it as I am sometimes repairing or replacing things that were installed by craftsmen over 100 years ago. On the other hand, I am also sometimes repairing things that have previously been made or repaired more recently using the tried and tested method used by so many farmers, whatever the job – roofing nails. For example, my use of drilled pilot holes and screws, rather than nails bent over if the wood splits, is characterised as something those southern English unnecessarily do. Removing water troughs, gate hinges, taps, etc is far more difficult if they have been secured with roofing nails – which they often have been (well, unless they have been installed on one of those days when 6” nails have been available!).

We need to get ahead of the game as it looks like when the girls start giving birth it will be fast and furious – and all systems need to be working efficiently by then. Today’s maintenance tasks involve the usual wide range. Firstly, part of the floor of two of the pens we use for ewes and lambs needing extra attention has collapsed into the stream below, leaving a 6’ drop where there should be a stone boulder floor. We can’t be losing lambs like that. Rebuilding the support wall from the stream upwards will take far too long so a quicker method is needed. Another feature of repairs is that, rather than access the best materials, repairs are done on a ‘make do with what we already have’ basis. So the onsite repair company Bodge, Bodge and Bodger set to with some 6” nails, fence posts, and a huge chunk of an old oak tree trunk which has been sitting in mud for a number of years (which just proves it doesn’t rot!). Between us Rhian and I bodge everything together, and infill gaps with ‘stones from the river’. (Note: ‘stones from the river’ can mean anything from loose gravel to stabilise muddy areas, to giant boulders to repair dry stone walls). A covering of last year’s matted straw and on top of that some fresh straw, and in my opinion it seems to be secure enough for a year or two. Rhian is more optimistic – she thinks the repair will see us both out. I hope both aren’t connected and correct!

A check round the sheds at lunchtime and, with no advance warning signs at all, a ewe has given birth to twins. She’s done it all by herself – just like nature intended. I doctor them (meaning a 0.5ml injection of antibiotic, a squirt of anti-scour down their throats and a generous covering of iodine on the umbilical cord. She might be a good mum at self-delivery, but she hasn’t come into milk yet. Need to keep an eye on her and the lambs as, if she doesn’t start producing milk soon those twins will need extra milk (which means extra time).

More maintenance needed after lunch. A gate hinge has come lose, meaning the gate won’t close properly. A simple job boring a hole in the gatepost to put the hinge in a different place and changing its position on the gate. Next a more challenging repair. A 6’ x 6’ door to the feed store is showing serious signs of wear. Originally two 6’ x 3’ sheets of zinc nailed onto a wooden frame, it has come apart in places as a result of it crashing back and forth in the wind and the wood has rotted in places. We raid the wood store of a couple who have a weekend barn nearby, with the best catch being a long piece of oak which will do the job perfectly (screws, not nails) but is a bit out of keeping with the rest of the materials used in the gate’s construction. Half an hour’s hammering the gate back into shape and a few straps to hold the rotting joints together and it will be more secure than it was.

Dafydd arrives and we start feeding the sheds together. That leads to a fairly early (5.30 pm) end to the afternoon’s work and a bit of time to catch up on reports and documents before heading to Bala for the email catch-up.

Back at the bothy for my evening meal (fast food tonight – egg and chips thanks to the freezer compartment of the fridge and the excellent halogen oven). Then into bed in order to sleep before the 2 am shift.

Tuesday, 8^th March

2am comes far too soon, but it is neither snowing nor raining and, joy of joys, there are no births taking place or about to (as far as I can see). It turns out that I have been lucky – Rhian has been up until 1 am dealing with an extended birth of twins where the second twin took a long time coming forward so has checked before she went back to bed.

I wake with the alarms at 7.30 am regretting the fact that I need to get up soon as an hour has passed since the girls were checked.

Nothing happening so back to the bothy for my breakfast, then out to check the state of play and to chat with Rhian. Today’s maintenance tasks are varied – find out why Rhian’s television won’t receive S4C or use BBC1 Wales as the default BBC channel, adjust her calor gas water heater so that it provides hotter water and fix some infra-red lamps that will be needed to keep weak lambs warm. All goes smoothly and all is fixed. After lunch we discover that a water trough (formerly known as a cold water storage tank from someone’s roof) is leaking and a replacement - slightly weaker as it is a cheaper design - needs to be used. Inevitably the fittings are a different size and the tank needs to be adapted. It is eventually fixed, not without problems with the overflow pipe which needs to be re-routed under some pens.

Another early afternoon start feeding the sheep in the sheds which goes very smoothly with Dafydd and myself making a good team. Mums and their lambs are being moved on now, so the amount of feeding increases as they are placed in paddocks and ‘moving on’ pens.

While I am feeding the mums and lambs Rhian and Dafydd bring down some more ewes from the hills as crows have killed another lamb born early. This puts a further task on my list – the field that these sheep are in needs a water supply and having previously dammed the river further up and run a piece of hosepipe to an old sink in the field I am to revive it. I haven’t checked, but suspect that last year’s dam will have been washed away, and in all likelihood the pipe will also have become silted up as the flow has decreased. Hope it isn’t too cold tomorrow as it involves lots of time with my hands in cold water.

Off to Bala for the evening emails and reports, then back for my slow-cooked vegetable casserole which has been cooking all day. I have failed to pre-soak dried peas and beans so it is mainly fresh vegetables with a generous dose of red lentils. One of the reasons I use the slow cooker is that it gives me some relatively healthy food that once cooked lasts a few days and can be heated on the fire if the electricity fails. And it means that if things get busy I don’t have to spend any time cooking. Trouble is, after two days of it I get bored and don’t want any more for a few days.

A text from Rhian suggests that I do the overnight shift at 2.30 am rather than 2.00 am. Suits me – I can sleep for slightly longer before getting up to check the girls and should still have a few hours’ sleep afterwards.

Wednesday, 9^th March

I wake before the alarms. Doze for a few minutes, listening to what sounds like fairly heavy rain on the roof. At least it is rain rather than snow. Dress, including waterproof jacket and out to check the girls. Given the number of times comments have been made about it all kicking off yesterday (Tuesday) I am expecting a few births on my rounds. Can’t make up my mind if I’ll be pleased there are – evens out the flow, or hope there aren’t – get back to bed sooner.

I can see that Rhian has had a ‘single’ in ‘the barrier’. Nothing for me there. 

Onward around the sheds and it seems that there is no action. Just getting to the last shed, feeling relived, when I spot a little black lamb. Several ewes are showing an interest and I’m hoping it is just one that has given birth – simultaneous births of twins where the lambs get mixed can be problematic. This is a very full shed of ewes expecting twins and given that there is the one lamb I can see, there might be a second somewhere and I don’t want a second lamb trampled. Gently does it and I find both the mum and the second lamb. A fine pair of twins which I now need to get out of the shed and into a pen. It works fairly well and when I check her teats the ewe has milk on both sides. On my way round the sheds I have been increasingly aware that one of the jobs we failed to complete yesterday was to put sets of ‘doctoring’ kit in each of the sheds; I’ll need to go in search of the requisite medications. Luckily I find them fairly soon, get the twins doctored, check that they are starting to get to their feet, and leave mum to look after them.

Back to the bothy and it's 3.15am. Not bad. I notice that I have some new emails and stupidly I check them rather than go straight to bed. One has me chuckling – at last the truth that I had suspected for some time is out! Maybe the riddles and the lack of openness can stop now. Not sure if it is the entertainment that has brought, or the fact that the lambing woke me too much, that it takes me a long while to get back to sleep.

Up and out as usual at about 7.40 am. Rain is lashing down. I check round the sheds and unsurprisingly, as it hasn’t been that long since they were checked, there is nothing needing attention. Down to the river to see what has to be done to re-invigorate the water supply. It is at this point that I discover that one wellington boot has a leak. At least I have a spare pair with me. Back to the bothy, first half of breakfast, another check of the girls and with new wellies on down to the river. The overnight rain has increased the fast flow that is normal at this time of year and all signs of last year’s dam have disappeared.

It takes a while for me to gather enough rocks from the river bed to start forming my dam. Hands get very cold. As the river is in quite a torrent I need to use boulders to secure the other rocks. It all works quite well and soon I have the water flowing down the hosepipe and into the sink. The ewes in the field have fresh water!

Further jobs to do after the second half of my breakfast – get those doctoring kits sorted out and fix two latches on two gates. As well as checking the girls regularly.

All is done, and despite enthusiastic checking of the sheds there are no signs of any births. A photographic trip round the sheds....

Rhian, who has been away for a while, returns and it is time for lunch.

Rhian and Dafydd head off on the quad bike to bring some more ewes down from the hills and I continue my regular checks. Over the years I have learned a number of early warning signs that suggest that a ewe has started to give birth. The obvious signs are: ‘a bubble’ meaning a fluid-filled balloon, either clear or pinky-red, four small white ‘dots’ showing out of the rear end (the ends of the, hopefully, front feet); the ewe on her side straining; a certain type of bleating; the ewe on her own, sometimes pawing the ground.

Checking the ‘singles’ in the barrier I think I can see one ewe showing warning signs – possibly two ‘dots’ of a leg. Not too difficult to catch the ewe and turn her on her side. Yes, what I have seen is a leg and giving it a bit of a pull I can tell from the way round it is that it is a front leg. But just the one. A bit of internal investigation and I can feel another leg which I am able to straighten. Good. Two legs which I can extend, but I need to check the lamb’s head is pointing forward with the front legs. It is. Heave ho, here we go. Pull on legs, encourage head forward by sliding fingers into, the, um, rectum. Pulling the legs, encouraging the head forward and knowing from previous experience that it really is possible to get that lamb out through what seems an impossibly small ‘opening’, I draw the front legs and head out. Pause and the pull and twist and out comes a nice-sized lamb. Welcome it to the world as I place it at mum’s head and she immediately starts to lick it. No need to do anything further to get it breathing as it bleats and breathes well and responds to this excellent mum’s vigorous licking and cleaning up.

Not long afterwards I am passing the ’doubles’. Something catches my eye. It’s a lamb! No, it’s two lambs! Good girl, she has given birth all by herself. Not the largest of lambs, and as I doctor the twins and check the ewe’s milk I notice that one half of her udder is hard – potentially mastitis or just not functioning. This is later confirmed by Rhian.

Dafydd and I start the afternoon feeding early and working to a good pattern. Teamwork at its best. Dafydd gets the feed while I load up the barrow with straw. As soon as Dafydd has put the feed in the troughs I open the gate of the shed, out come the ewes (30 – 45 of them depending on the shed), and they go round to the troughs to eat. Dafydd gets hay and places it in the hayracks while I straw down the floor. By this time the ewes have finished eating. Repeat for the next shed. And the next. And… 9 sheds altogether. Then we feed the ewes in individual pens. Only a few at the moment but as time passes feeding the individual pens will become more and more of a task.

Thursday, 10^th March

Again I wake up before the 2.30 am alarm. I’m on my way across to the first shed before the first of my ‘backup’ alarm gives its rather nasty, aggressive, ‘wake t f up’ signal. I’m expecting to be busy. So much talk of the rush beginning to start. But I get round all of the sheds, checking each ewe as I go (I’m sure questions would be asked if anyone unaware of my task saw me shining my torch at each of their rear ends!) and I have nothing to deal with. I feel a bit bad as potentially this will mean Rhian will be busy in a few hours’ time.

But when I meet Rhian finishing her rounds at 7.40 am she has had no lambs either. Rhian goes to bed and I head off to sort out a drinking water system for ‘The Triangle’ and ‘The Garden’. As they are a bit distant it makes more sense to have running water there than us (= me) having to carry water that far for what can be a large number of ewes.

Between doing the rounds I prepare the tools I will need for repairing the flue of my logburner. It has become corroded, potentially as a result of condensation in the flue, and with repair will fall apart.

The sky is clear and blue, a good day for the ewes and their lambs to be out in the fresh air, and sure enough when Dafydd arrives we undertake a major move around, getting as many outside as possible.

I’m lucky to be near a ‘singles’ shed when I am checking a ewe thought to be close to giving birth. Sure enough, she is in distress and no wonder why. She has part of a lamb hanging out – one leg and the head. Not good. So much lamb is out that it won’t be possible to do any re-organising so that both legs come out first. I use my finger to ease out the shoulder of the leg that is still inside and some gentle pressure enables the lamb to pulled out fully. Welcome it to the world and do the doctoring. Mum has plenty of milk.

Dafydd and Rhian both leave, and between rounds of the sheds I repair the flue. It is actually far more corroded than I had originally thought and should really be replaced.

A varied afternoon predominated by the usual feeding. But I find a ewe in the ‘doubles’ shed is licking her newborn lamb. We rearrange the feeding schedule in order to remove the rest of the ewes in the shed by which point another lamb has been born. Very small lambs and we move the twins and mum to ‘the hospital. I go off to get the ‘doctoring’ equipment. By the time I return there is a third little lamb in the pen. Not breathing; very small. I use a range of techniques to try to get the lamb breathing – swinging it by its back legs, straw in its nostrils, palpitate its lungs. I’m about to do the ‘cold water in the ears’ when it splutters into life and start to breathe normally. I welcome it to the world. These triplets are going to be high maintenance. Later, Rhian ‘tubes’ the lambs in order to get some sustenance into their stomachs.

The original triplets have moved outdoors - they are in the paddock outside my bothy - I hope they aren't noisy overnight!

My day finishes with further maintenance – a leak on a water main in the feed store and a hayrack that needs to be secured.

Friday, 11^th March

My Lord What a Morning!

I’m in a deep, comfortable, sleep when I hear Rhian calling me. My first thought is that it is morning, I have overslept, and therefore have missed some births. Next I think that Rhian is possibly calling me as she needs help with a birth that needs two people. But it’s neither of these. Rhian is calling me to tell me that as she is still up at 2 am I need not bother getting up at 2.30 am. YESSSSS! Back to sleep, wondering how busy we will be in the morning if Rhian has been dealing with births that late.

Rhian is now calling me again “Neil, are you awake?” My reply, a mixture of sarcasm and joviality that those who know me will recognise: “I am now Rhian!”. To which the reply is: “I thought you would be.” Rhian gives me a stream of instructions for the morning which I try to assimilate as I wake up fully. The main thing is that it has been a cold night and the water pipes have frozen – meaning that it has been impossible to replenish the buckets in the pens. The ewes in the frost-covered fields need food. Several water pipes are leaking (not as a result of the cold weather) and Rhian’s logburner isn’t working well.

So it’s up and out with a kettle of hot water from the top of the logburner to unfreeze the standpipe. I’ve done this a few times and reckon I’m pretty good at it. Sure enough, some strategically-poured hot water and slowly-increasing stream of water and ice crystals start filling the buckets I have ready. Might be nice on a hot summer’s day; not my drink of choice this morning.

Buckets filled, it’s on to doctoring three sets of twins that Rhian has delivered earlier. Some lovely mums perfectly nurturing their youngsters with much more gentle sounds than I am used to.

The sacks of food have to be carried out to two of the fields where the ewes are clearly keen to eat. The ground is still frozen and the sun is rising, providing some welcome warmth.

Check round the sheds and all seems calm. Time for a quick breakfast. Then moving some ewes and lambs around. It is always good to release them into the big wide world, not the least because the lambs, that are only a few days old and have only ever walked on straw, very quickly learn to walk through mud, hop across rocks and follow mum as she enjoys making her way up the hill and onto some fresh green grass.

Collect a few ‘serious’ tools from the car – stillsons, mole grips and large spanners - to deal with the plumbing issues. Blue waterpipe fittings are great if they seal first time round, but not so good if they are secondhand or clumsily installed. Over my time coming here I have learned where the various stopcocks are located (generally down a hole in a field which Mr Mole has filled with earth). Plenty of isolating supplies, loosening and tightening fittings and I am pleased with my efforts. On to Rhian’s fire which needs a bit of attention and where, despite my best efforts, I can only get the flue brush part-way up the flue. I hope the fire will burn better but suspect the lack of access hatches means that in places the flue is almost blocked and clearing it will continue to be a problem.

Check the sheds and I have a single lamb born to a slightly nervous mother. Pen and doctor them. Mum doesn’t have a lot of milk.

It’s a perfect day, weather-wise. I feel good. A pity it isn’t like this every day!

Just time for a late lunch before some clearing out of wet straw where one of the water-leaks has made the straw sodden. Then the afternoon feed of sheds and pens, interrupted by the birth of twins, the second of which I am pleased to diagnose as being a ‘rear leg’ delivery – but the second lamb survives the unusual birth and, as I try to do at each birth, I welcome it to the world.

A call from Martin, the Chairman of the Leigh Orpheus Male Voice Choir. Without prompting a nearby ewe bleats loudly, reinforcing the image of where I am. I’m sorry to be missing the rehearsal tonight in particular as I would have liked to be present for the presentation of a cheque for £7000 to Prostate Cancer UK, most of it raised through our mass male voice choir concert ‘Singing for Life’.

On with the feeding which takes an increasingly longer time as more ewes and lambs are housed in more pens and more fetching and carrying is needed.

Would it be wrong to hope that Rhian is still up at 2am tomorrow morning?!

It's Friday evening – must be time to get the shower equipment out and wash properly; no one has commented, but I suspect that I must smell pretty ‘sheepy’. My shower in the bothy is a bucket with a shower-hose attached and a round feeding trough as a shower tray. Filled with warm water and hung from the ceiling it does the job (as long as I keep my elbows in).

Saturday, 12^th March

The 2.30 am round is more what I would expect than previous nights have been – two sets of twins in different sheds, both having delivered them themselves. Both are skittish and challenge me getting them into the pens. I doctor them and check the ewes’ udders for milk. The wildest one is determined not to suffer the indignity of being sat on her backside while I ‘milk’ her teats. She hasn’t come into milk yet so I have the opportunity of using my new messaging system to alert Rhian that she needs to check this ewe later. Previous systems have been too subtle and have not been noticed. A white notice with black lettering on it, clamped to the top of the pen, might do it! Time will tell.

Up as usual at 7.30 am and out to check the girls. Rhian is still around and not feeling good. A ewe with one teat, who I had thought had had twins, one of which had been adopted, had in fact only given birth to one of the twins and retained the other which had died inside her. She is in a bad way. Rhian feels responsible. I try the ‘we all make mistakes; it’s easily done’ approach but that doesn’t work.

A bit of ‘fill in’ feeding to be done around what has been done already and on my way back from ’The Triangle’ I collect the trusty ‘Belling Safespin’ (a spin dryer for those who understand such things) from the back of the store. As well as the weekly shower last night I reckon it’s time to do some washing. The feeding trough/shower tray also doubles (trebles?) up as a washing bowl. Hopefully if the drizzle clears I will be able to do some washing.

Rhian alerts me to a ‘single’ giving birth in ‘The Barrier’. It’s a ‘head only’ job. I can ease one front leg out but can’t get the other. A two-person job as two hands are needed at the business end while more hands hold the ewe still. With a bit of encouragement the lamb is successfully delivered. A nice-sized lamb, and mum has plenty of milk. Fresh straw in a pen and I doctor the lamb.

By this stage of lambing my hands are generally getting a bit rough and marked with iodine stains. Soon those stains will be added to by marking spray; the iodine stains fade fairly quickly, the marking spray takes ages. It’s all in the line of duty!

Another slightly challenging birth to a ‘single’ in the ‘Double Gates’. Mum is straining but she is not dilated and a bit of an exploration reveals just a head; the front legs are far back. We leave her for a while but things don’t improve; if anything the head is even more stuck. Between three of us, and plenty of theories about the best way to go about it, the lamb is ‘pulled’ and within a few minutes neither mum nor lamb seem to be affected by the recent trauma. Pen and doctor. And I like to ensure that each ewe that has given birth is given fresh water – in fact I’m known on the farm here as being the one who always gives good post-natal care to the mums!

Talking of water, it always amuses me that some ewes, rather than drinking from the water trough, seem to enjoy letting fresh water from the tap dribble across their faces. They go into a sort of trance!

A couple of maintenance tasks. A bolt on a gate has fallen apart and needs a new part; I fashion one from a piece of metal coat hanger, screw it in, and the arrangement works better than the original!

The weather hasn’t improved enough during the day to make it worth doing my washing. It can wait for another day; I have plenty of spare clothes. I’d better concentrate on other personal maintenance tasks. My beard was supposed to be removed several days ago

Today we seem to get ahead of the game and I’m able to start feeding the ewes in the pens early. A cloud still hangs over us for not diagnosing the unborn lamb. As a result each birth during the day is monitored more closely. And we have a few challenges with breach birth singles and twins.

I perhaps haven’t included sufficient ‘cute lamb’ pictures, so here are a few:

Somehow we manage to finish an hour earlier than usual which enables me to sit in my bothy, looking out at the two bird feeders I keep stocked up while I am here. Chaffinches and blue tits seem to predominate and I think I’ve seen a treecreeper.

Before I head off to Bala I check round the sheds. Having, since I arrived here, ‘spoken’ to the ewes as I go round to check them, and probably more predominantly their association between humans and being fed, they are now much less frisky and frightened than they were. The black ewes were raised with a lot of human contact and are generally friendly. And even some of the welsh ewes which spend much of their life up in the hills approach me and appear friendly. Some will comply fully with being caught when they start lambing; others lead a merry dance and at least twice I have been dragged round a shed clinging onto a strong ewe who is determined not to be caught. Thankfully, so far this has happened in sheds where the straw has been fairly clean!

As I’m biding my time before heading off to Bala to download and send emails, etc I get a call from Rhian who wants to know if I’ve left for Bala yet and what time I’ll be back. She wants some shopping and, if I’m going to be back by about 8pm could I just check the sheds. I agree to both (it would be churlish to do otherwise).

I drive down to Bala, hoping there will be a parking space outside Barclay’s Bank where I can use their excellent free wifi. Just as I am in pole position for such a space I get a call from Rhian. She is having difficulty with a birth and needs a second pair of hands. I turn round and head back to the farm, somewhat regretting my inability to use the excellent parking space. Three quarters of the way back Rhian calls again. She has succeeded in delivering the lamb. I turn around again and head to Bala. The prime parking space has gone!

Oh What a Night (mid March back in two thousand and-sixteen – ok, it doesn’t scan). Getting back to the farm at about 7.45pm I am looking forward to preparing and eating my evening meal before an early night in bed. And I’m anticipating that my check round the sheds will be a quick trip as Rhian will have been round not long ago. WRONG. A set of twins has been delivered by a ewe. Should be an easy task but she’s a difficult mum and doesn’t cooperate. Takes longer than I wanted – lucky I hadn’t started heating my food. On round and there’s another ewe in the ‘doubles’ looking like she’s ready to give birth. I wrestle her to the ground and ‘pull’ a small but healthy lamb. The trouble now is that there is no sign of the twin. I ‘explore’ but she hasn’t brought the next lamb up. So it’s a waiting game. Mum licks the newborn lamb; I sit and wait for nature to take its course. Eventually she’s ready, the next lamb is positioned well, and I ‘pull’ it. Doctor them and at last I’m able to get back to my bothy.

Cook and eat my food and eventually get to bed – with a sense of foreboding of what the night will bring.

Up at 2.30 am and start my round of the sheds. No action from the blind ewes, the singles in The Barrier or the singles behind The Double Gates. This is looking good. Onto some more singles; one is giving every sign of being ready to lamb. She hardly moves as I approach her. There’s a solid ‘plug’ of legs and head. She has been pushing for some time. As much as I can I feel around and know that this is one big lamb. I get both legs out and start to pull although it seems impossible that this big head can ever be pulled through. Earlier in my lambing experience I would now have rushed for help. But I know from experience that as long as I use the various techniques I have learned I can get this lamb out. I pull and pull and encourage the head out and eventually a giant lamb is delivered. But the long birth has taken its toll and there is no life in this lamb. Clear its mouth, shake it by its hind legs (it’s heavy!), straw up its nostril, and smack its side. It chokes and gasps. And stops. Further smacking and swinging and eventually it starts to breathe normally. Put it by mum’s mouth and her licking further encourages it into life. Pen and doctor.

Onward on my rounds. A set of twins has been born in the large shed. Pen and doctor. But turning round there’s another ewe looking like she might be starting. Time to check another shed. Sure enough there’s another ewe starting to lamb her twins there. She’s ahead of the previous one so I deal with her, pen and doctor and return to the first. She’s ready and I pull the first lamb. The second is not far behind and, not sure who mum is, the first lamb tries to nuzzle under my jacket bleeting softly as I’m trying to deliver its twin! Ahhhh!

In order to communicate any issues to Rhian (such as a ewe with little or no milk) I am, this year, using oblong signs which I clamp to the relevant pen. I need to return to my bothy for one and when I get back and put it on the pen I become aware of another ewe starting to give birth. Blast! I ‘pull’ her first lamb. But, despite my deepest exploration, the next lamb is not in reach. There’s nothing for it but to wait. Here is my view at 3.45 am!

It’s a dilemma. I want to get back to bed so want it over soon, if I rush this second delivery I might mess things up. Be patient, Neil. Eventually I can just touch one leg and maybe a second. But this youngster is playing hard to get and each time I get a grip on a tiny foot it manages to pull away. It’s almost paddling backwards. At last I get a grip and pull gently. At last I can get it out. I doctor it and it’s sister, put them in a pen and head to the tap to wash my hands. Then back to my bothy for further handwashing and then to bed. It’s 4.15am. Probably the latest I’ve been on this shift. I hear Rhian starting the morning feed before I fall asleep!

Sunday, 13^th March.

Rhian has gone back to bed when I go out at 7.40 am. I notice that practically every lamb that has been born overnight is one I’ve delivered. Thankfully Rhian has fed them all. So I check round and it’s not long before I have a lamb to deliver. Deal with it and take advantage of a bit of spare time to do my washing. The trusty Belling Safespin is a dream. Suffering from a bit of bodywork deterioration, but having taken it apart to repair it at one point I know it has  fine electric motor of a quality that would not be seen ‘these days’.

A busy day moving the day-olds on to bigger pens and outdoor paddocks and after a fresh bedding of straw the night time’s newborns replacing them. But the fine weather makes a difference and it’s difficult to know where the time has gone.

I allow myself the luxury of a long lunch as a reward for the late night. It means I can update this blog. Sun streams into my bothy through the open door and it’s difficult to stay awake!

The afternoon’s feeding is interrupted regularly by new births and moving ewes around in order to accommodate the ewes in the fields – one has been spotted starting to give birth in the field and a difficult, bloody delivery has taken place. It isn’t clear if this ewe has already given birth to one lamb and this delivery is the second, or if there is another to come. So she is brought in to a pen and her fellow ewes squash into accommodation made available by doubling up in some of the other sheds which have been partly depleted as ewes have been taken out having given birth.

With the feeding over Rhian wants to look at the sick ewe and try to find if she has a further lamb to deliver. I try to give encouragement while Rhian tries to understand what is happening inside. There is a lamb there, but not in the position it should be. After 30 minutes of struggling, and both of us getting very bloodied clothes as a result of the investigations, there is no progress and husband Gwil is called from the ‘home farm’.

After 20 minutes Gwil arrives and gets straight down to business. There are three bodies lying on the straw. Me at the head end, holding the ewe down and preventing her from moving as Gwil pulls. The ewe, who has given up fighting and is just letting Gwil get on with it, and Gwil at the business end, prostrate on the ground so that he can get his arm in as far in as possible. It is declared a complete mess inside and there will be no hope of a live lamb. In fact it seems that, despite the fact that there is a lamb there, it is not coming out. After 30 minutes of struggling (and it is fair to say, compassion for the distress of the ewe) Gwil states that this is the worst case he has ever come across. But he is one to persevere and eventually pulls a dead lamb from the mother. Nature, eh? Interestingly, while all this has been going on, the ewe’s live lamb born in the field has stopped bleating, gone very quiet and almost hidden in the straw.

Plenty of washing of hands and arms and its back to the home farm, and his sheds of lambing ewes, for Gwil.

And time for me to head to Bala where I hope to get a decent enough signal on my phone to speak to me sister Di who has not long returned from Switzerland where she has been visiting her son. In fact I am just finishing this entry when I hear a ewe in distress. Run across the The Barrier to find a ewe just delivering a huge lamb which lies lifeless behind her. Time is of the essence and I climb over the barrier to get to the lamb. All else having failed I take it to the water tank and splash cold water in its ears. That works! Phew!

Did someone say that a quiet month away in the Berwyn Mountains would be something to look forward to?!! The evening sky pleasantly ends a busy day.

Having reviewed what I have written in this blog so far I think I might have appeared to emphasise the amount of work involved in the lambing process. It is true that it is fairly hard, fairly continuous work. But my intention has been to be descriptive rather than to brag about how much work I am involved in. I think the emphasis on hard work stems from the culture here. Everyone is expected to pitch in and play their part. Downtime is just not on the agenda. Breaks are taken on a ‘needs must’ basis – to sleep and to eat. The ‘paned’ (tea break) we have most afternoons is now referred to as a ‘standing up tea break’ as sitting down leads to a break that is too long! These folk work like this all year round – every day! Respect!

Monday, 14^th March

I am expecting my 2.30 am check to be busy, given my experience last night. However, it is fairly light-weight. What is very pleasant is the night sky and the impressive array of stars – little light pollution from street lights or electric hook-up points here! One of the black ewes has already given birth to a cute little lamb. There are no spare pens in The Barrier for ‘singles’ so I will give some thought to how I deal with her on my way round and come back to her. Next, I am surprised to find a lamb with a ewe expecting twins that was brought in with the flock yesterday. She will most likely be wild, and even catching her, let alone pulling a second lamb could be difficult. However, using the lamb as a ‘carrot’ she follows obediently into a pen. In case she has already delivered her second lamb I look round and find a cute little lamb in a corner. Hopefully it is hers. I put it in the pen with her and she licks it and makes appropriate ‘mother-ewe’ noises. It is hers. Doctor them and move on. I subsequently find that actually these aren’t new-born lambs. Rhian had delivered them earlier and they must have broken out. Double-doctoring! These guys should be healthy.

There is nothing more for me to deal with apart from the black sheep. (And at this point I realise that, inspired by the beautiful night sky, my attempt to sing ‘Starry starry night’ is severely impaired by my inability to remember many of the words! Lol!) Plan A to house the black ewes fails – the singles pens in another building I could take her to are already full. Nothing for it than to use a larger pen usually reserved for ewes with twins. Doctor and leave mum to it.

On my way back to my bothy I notice a light moving across the fields on the hills across the valley from here. Probably another shepherd checking the flock. The light stops moving and seems to flash at me. I send a similar series of flashes back. The light across the valley describes a circle. I do similarly (maybe we both know the sub-aqua signal for ‘ok’!) That’s it. We’ve said hello. We are several miles apart, but united in a common task.

I’m starting to lose track of what day it is as each day blends in to the next. The clear sky overnight has led to a ground frost this morning. I undertake some ‘fill in’ feeding, around what Rhian hasn’t done. Taking some ‘rolls’ across to the ewes in The Triangle I enjoy the view from one of my favourite places. What a life. The sun is rising, the ground is white with frost, the sky is blue. Enjoy it, Neil, it won’t last forever.

My waterpipe to a water trough in The Triangle isn’t producing its usual trickle of water. On investigation I find that the intake funnel from a small reservoir overflow has slipped and a simple repositioning soon has ice and water filling the trough again.

A couple of births before breakfast after which it’s on with the morning’s work. Some maintenance is needed in The Train (a series of pens so-called as apparently from the outside it looks to some like a railway carriage). In fact it’s a repair that has been needed since I started coming here and I’m pleased to get this task done. Next, a small ‘shelf’ of land beside the river has sufficient grass on it that it can be used for grazing and a fence is needed. It’s good to have the correct tools available for fencing (especially an excellent sledge hammer) and with a length of mesh and some strong posts it doesn’t take long to create a fence that is fit for purpose.

As I hammer fencing staples into the posts I chuckle at the remark Gwil made to me when we were previously renewing a fence and I was making a useless job hammering the staples in. “I reckon my fingers would be safe holding that staple, Neil!”.

Even more grazing is needed and another as-yet unused area of grass is fenced off. Speed is of the essence as the ewes and lambs are sent my way before I even have this second fence complete.

The day continues with a number of births, none of them challenging, until we get to feeding time. Sometimes this progresses smoothly. Today is not such a day and interruptions abound within the usual flow of refreshing bedding, putting ‘nuts’ into food containers, hay in the hayracks and water into buckets in each pen. A birth; the need for more water containers; help lifting something, some food needed elsewhere and at one point a further maintenance task where a hayrack in one of the sheds is falling apart. A couple of large nails do the trick.

Eventually feeding is over. Later than usual, and I return to my bothy where the fire has gone out. In fact it is now so cold that I can use the opportunity to push the flue brush up the flue, interested to see how much soot or clinker has formed over the last few days. The answer is ‘not much’ thankfully. Less chance of a chimney fire and less chance of the fire smoking into the bothy – which it notoriously does.

Having driven to Bala to upload updates to this blog and ‘do’ a number of emails I saunter (observers would probably say ‘hobble’ – my back is pretty painful at this stage in the day) 100m down the road to the Coop to stock up on essentials and bag any bargains. This Coop has to be one of the worst for ‘Reductions’ (and I consider myself a bit of an expert in this area; on a good day at Tesco Lea Valley I can get a week’s worth of evening meals for less than £5 if I get there at the right time). However, bargains are obviously on the agenda as Geraint scans my shopping at the till. Clearly detecting my pathetic attempt to say “good evening” in Welsh he identifies me as English and with a kindly, but at the same time somewhat reproachful look, he says in English with a charming Welsh lilt “you can get two of these for £2 you know”. Geraint clearly feels that I am not taking advantage of the bargains here, but 8 pints of milk is far more than I need. But he’s not giving up (his attention to detail in his training must have been good). “Have you got a Members’ Card?”. I admit I haven’t and mumble something about it being a bit of a fuss. “I can give you an application form today” says Geraint who is not giving up this easily. I decline. I’ve looked into this before but posting the application form, waiting for it to come back to my home address and so on is too long-winded. I bid Geraint a friendly ‘Nos da’ and head back to the car, feeling slightly disloyal. I recall, as a kid, how taking the ‘Divvy’ card to the Coop round the corner was essential in order to earn enough ‘divvy’ (dividend) for extra goodies for Christmas.

Monday, 15^th March

I’m sluggish for the 2.30 am shift. Using my usual night-time route round the sheds I get to The Train to discover no births or potential births, but also that none of the ewes in the pens have drinking water. I’m never happy when this happens so I spend a while refilling the water-buckets. Onward and I get to a shed of singles where one lady is obviously in distress. No problem catching her and I find why this is. She is trying to deliver a huge lamb, unsuccessfully. Play it cool, Neil, you know you can do it. At least the lamb is in the right position – front legs and head first. With a certain amount of painful bleating from the ewe I get both front legs out. Success so far, but the biggest challenge is yet to come. That is one big head that needs to be brought through. I struggle, the ewe screams, the lamb’s head eventually comes through, but whereas usually the rest of the body follows easily, in this case I have to keep pulling firmly to get the rest of the lamb’s body out. Not much sign of life, so it’s cold water in the ears and hey presto, a few gasps and breathing starts. Pen and doctor and onward.

I’m expecting some twins in the other sheds but nothing doing so off to my bed. Lovely.

Quite a lot of crashing of food troughs at 5am, but I manage to doze through it until it’s time to get up and out. I feed the ewes in The Triangle and again need to make an adjustment to the water supply. My main task of the morning is to ‘watch the sheds’ – meaning that I keep a lookout for new births. It all starts kicking off with twin lambs being born in several sheds and inevitably I miss a pair of twins, thankfully alive and kicking. In between all this Rhian calls me: “Neil, can you cut the legs off this lamb for me?” It’s probably one of the most extreme requests, but made as a completely normal one. It’s followed by “Don’t worry, if you don’t want to skin it I will.” You sure as hell will, Rhian! The dead lamb’s coat is needed for an adoption-attempt.

We’ve been quite lucky with adoptions, convincing ewes expecting just one lamb that the two they miraculously have after the birth are both theirs. It usually involves having the adoptee ready as the birth is about to take place and covering the adoptee with as much goo as possible, rubbing it into the coat. The ewe is then left with the adoptee lamb for a while until it starts to suckle, then the poor soul that hasn’t met its mum yet is introduced.

Some adoptions fail, and some are not even started, giving rise to ‘pet lambs’ which will be bottle fed.

A pleasant walk up to the fields above the farm to put some hay in a hayrack. These mums and their lambs are moving on.

Feeding progresses slowly in the afternoon, and with the logistics sorted a major move-around and consolidation of ewes is completed, allowing even more to be brought in from the fields. It seems to me that some are so tightly packed that it will be difficult to establish that they are ready to lamb, but apparently close observation is the key.

A fairly late finish again, but when I get to Bala at least I can park in pole position outside Barclays Bank

The usual emailing and it’s good to get a call from Martin and chat over a few LOMVC issues.

One of my eyes has been itching during the afternoon and I suspect I have an infection – no surprise given the amount of muck around. Maybe I can get some Optrex in one of the two supermarkets (minimarkets?) in Bala. Wrong. They don’t sell anything like that. Have to wait until tomorrow morning and hope to get to the pharmacy (its early-closing tomorrow so no good going in the afternoon – quaint, or what!?).

Wednesday, 16^th March

A struggle to get up for the 2.30 am shift but it has to be done. I’m not sure what to expect – there are so many ewes in the sheds that it’s likely to be busy. I take my usual route and, getting to a ‘singles’ shed spot a ewe clearly trying to give birth. A bit of a chase round the shed and I catch her and turn her on her side. It is only later that I realise that I am in the shed where the huge lambs have been born. One leg and a head! Oh dear. Can I get to the shoulder of the other leg? NO! I need two hands to deal with the ‘lamb end of things’ and two more to hold the ewe down – kneeling on her gently doesn’t put me in the right position. Pulling just one leg and the head can kill the lamb. There’s only one thing for it. For the first time this year I’m going to have to wake Rhian up. I always regret having to do this as she works so hard and such long hours and needs her sleep. But as ever Rhian tells me not to worry about waking her up – she’d rather I did.

While Rhian gets dressed I go back to catch the ewe again and by the time she arrives I have the ewe positioned and ready. Armed with lubricant Rhian eases her hand in and the lamb out. It’s another large lamb, and not very alive. But the ‘water in the ears’ treatment Rhian favours works and it splutters into life. Welcome big boy! Rhian passes me the doctoring kit and I doctor the lamb.

On the way on round the sheds there are twin lambs that have already been born. Apparently I should have known this! I spot another ewe about to give birth and between us we pull the first lamb. The next is a breach which I identify and Rhian deals with - and this, to some extent, justifies even more the need for me to have disturbed Rhian. And I’m extra-pleased Rhian is there as these twins were born to a black ewe and we would have expected two black lambs – but one is white. I’m sure if Rhian hadn’t been present at the births questions would have been asked about whether or not I had mixed the lambs up!

Rhian heads off back to bed and leaves me to doctor the two sets of lambs. Eventually I get back to my bed – 3.20 am – not bad.

The morning alarm comes far too soon! On my way out a note tied to the gate of ‘my’ paddock reads: “Please feed all the pens. The ones in the shed have been done.” Somewhat depressing as I was hoping for a light start and to get to the pharmacy early. Oh well, just get on with it, Neil. It takes a couple of hours to work round all the pens and outside paddocks, interrupted only by the birth of a single lamb, although I nearly miss a second as I am about to go for my breakfast. Actually it can’t have been too bad working in surroundings like this

I feel I deserve to give myself a treat, having done so much work, and having been told that I should have my breakfast and go to Bala (although and appointment at the G.P.’s has been suggested). So it’s a bowl of Fruit and Fiver (Ben Smith!) and a fried egg sandwich – lovely!!

Off to Bala and the pharmacy where, as last year, the excellent pharmacist Sion (in English = Shaun) sells me some eye drops. They worked when I had a similar problem before. I suspect a few of my regular email-recipients will be surprised that, having been able to park in pole position (it’s Wednesday, Barclays is closed!) I have been able to send a few emails – they would usually expect them at about 7pm!

Back to the farm and a few jokes about the number of days/weeks the pharmacist has suggested I take off from lambing. And a bit of maintenance to do – the gate to The Garden needs a hinge re-attached (and I’m ashamed to say part of the repair is done with bent-over nails!). And I adjust the five bar gate to The Triangle that is heavy to open, and hurts my back practically every time I open it to feed the ewes there. 

The afternoon goes very smoothly with Dafydd and myself working to a favoured pattern. I pack a barrow-full of straw (for bedding) as Dafydd gets the ‘nuts’ and puts them in the troughs. Once in the troughs I let a shed-full of ewes out to feed and while they do so I refresh the bedding while Dafydd fills the hayracks. We let the ewes back in and move onto the next shed. And so on. Dafydd and I sneak a crafty paned (tea break) and carry on, not mentioning it when Rhian returns later and offers us a break! (well, we think we deserved it!)

A ‘double’ seems to only have one lamb. I check her for a second and can’t find anything. Dafydd also can’t find one. Rhian is convinced there should be a second one and sure enough she manages to pull one. But I get a call from her later to tell me that a third has been born. The supposed green mark (meaning ‘triplets’) on her head hadn’t been clear enough!

I’ve somehow agreed to do an 8pm check again – thankfully after a stroll round it involves nothing extra for me.

Thursday, 17^th March

Again for the 2.30 am check I am expecting the worst. All the ewes are inside now so the potential for many new births is great. Eight sheds checked with nothing needed and just one to go. Oh sh 1 t! I can see something that could be a roll of straw or could be a lamb. As I enter the shed there is bleating and I can see two lambs. But my focus of my attention is not the roll of straw I had hoped it would be but a dead lamb, still within its sac. Its body is cold and there is no chance of bringing this lamb to life. Now I have a dilemma. I can find one ewe which might be the mother, but with three lambs there could be two mums with one of them still to give birth to a second lamb. These are wild ewes and it is difficult to check them. One ewe I can find that has given birth has a strap on her as she has previously prolapsed, and that might account for the dead lamb. I need to use tactics here. I suspect that if I deal with this myself there will be an ongoing post mortem tomorrow and there could be some doubt about whether or not the ‘dead’ lamb was actually dead or if there’re was something I could/should have done. So for a second night running I wake Rhian.

Rhian comes to the shed but doesn’t seem totally compus mentis, and it takes a while for her to digest the information. Eventually we deduce that the one ewe has had triplets. And the dead lamb is so cold that it was definitely dead when I found it. Rhian seems to need her sleep so she goes back to bed while I doctor the live twins and put the dead lamb rather unceremoniously in an old feed sack. Must remember that the majority of this is with healthy ewes and lambs

I suspect that Rhian’s disturbed sleep will mean that I am expected to feed all of the pens in the morning and sure enough when I get up they do need feeding. To make it less arduous I decide that I will try to work at a faster pace than yesterday. And to lift the mood, as I place each portion of sheep-nuts into each pen, I offer them a choice of breakfast. “Full English, Madam? “Fresh Fruit and Yoghurt for You?” “Continental Breakfast for you, Madam? We have some lovely croissants this morning.” “More fruit juice for you, Madam?” “So sorry, Miss, the Scrambled Egg has run out now.” And of course I leave saying “Bon appetit.” It makes things go faster and in fact, now that I have described breakfast to them it makes me hungry and I decide my own breakfast this morning will be Fruit and Fiver (I’ve almost run out of the real thing and will soon move onto the Tesco version which I guess might be called Fruit and Two Point Five?!), scrambled eggs and fresh coffee. It’s lovely.

A busy morning doing lots of moving out and moving on.  Rhian’s friend Val arrives. Always good to see her, not least because she is an excellent cook and can always be relied upon to arrive with some excellent chocolate cake (and this year Sticky Toffee Pudding). The weather has remained good so the ground is dry and the grass has kept growing, allowing more ewes and lambs to be out in the open and benefitting from the sun and fresh air. As a result of the good weather jets from RAF Valley have, for the past few days, screamed up the valley, often one very close behind the other. And today a big delta-wing job came past overhead very low.

It’s a YCT day for marking lambs!

After lunch Rhian and Val take hay to the fields while I keep an eye on the ewes in the sheds. A few days ago a young woman staying with a group in the holiday cottage followed me round with her 9 month old son as I fed the girls. As a result of her interest I suggested she might like to help with a birth, but she recoiled at the thought saying that she was far too squeamish even to think about what happened at the births of the lambs. One of the windows of the holiday cottage looks out onto the sheds housing the ‘doubles’ and I know that sometimes they look out and watch. Is it cruel of me to do a very obvious rolling up of my sleeve each time I go into the shed?!

I have instructions that if possible I should organise an adoption of one of the three triplets born yesterday. As luck would have it a big ewe expecting a single lamb is groaning and ready to give birth. And an extra bonus – she has very ample milk. So I choose one of the three triplets and take it with me ready for the birth. It’s a bit of a struggle keeping this errant lamb near me while catching the ewe and turning her on her side. And even more of a challenge keeping the adoptee lamb in prime position as I deliver the ewe’s lamb. It’s a BIG lamb, and I manage to cover the adoptee lamb with loads of goo which I rub in, especially into certain parts which are especially effective (you don’t need the details!). I place the adoptee lamb next to mum’s face and she immediately shows an interest and starts to ‘clean up’ the adoptee. Good so far. She hasn’t seen her own lamb yet and, cruel as it seems, I take her own lamb away to another shed without her knowing she has even given birth to it. When I return the mum is licking the adoptee lamb very naturally and continues to do so until the adoptee starts suckling. Result! It all looks good apart from the fact that when the mum’s own lamb is given back to her later it is about twice the size of the adoptee – and is a pretty boisterous chap too. It will be interesting to see how this new relationship progresses.

I’m sorry to be missing an LOMVC Committee Meeting this evening. But nevertheless I have some homework to do – some YCT documents need to be looked at.

When I walk round at 8pm it’s already feeling very cold and I reckon on frozen water pipes tomorrow.

Friday, 18^th March

I wake concerned that I have overslept, but in reality it is 10 minutes before I need to get up for the 2.30 pm shift. I’m anticipating a hard frost on the ground and I’m not disappointed. The grass is cast with a thousand sparkling diamonds – it is beautiful. I allow myself a few seconds enjoying it before slogging round the sheds. I’m pleased to see that ‘my’ adoption from yesterday seems to be secure – the two lambs are cuddled up against their mum. I’m only on the third, a doubles, shed when I come across a ewe with just a lamb’s head out. Could be tricky. I catch her and do my best to ease the lamb out. But too much enthusiasm and not enough skill could lead to problems – and justified criticism. This job is above my pay grade (what pay?!!). So for a third night running, and knowing that the consequence will be that I have to do all the individual feeding first thing in the morning, I call Rhian. Again, it’s no problem – although I have to admit I back away from her door quickly as she tells me she’ll be with me right away and I hear her advancing to the door. She’s surely not coming out in her pyjamas?!

Usual process. I go back and catch the ewe. Rhian gets dressed and arrives with lubricant to help ease the lamb out. Rhian uses more force than I would dare to search internally for the lamb’s front legs, and out comes a healthy lamb. Rhian makes it look so easy. She goes straight back for the second lamb; we aren’t going to be waiting around for nature to take its course. The second lamb is a breach so we could have waited a long time. Out it comes. I’m left to doctor and pen the trio and Rhian heads back to bed, but not before she confirms that she’s going to make an appointment for me at the local G.P.’s; my sore eye is getting worse. Rhian says I have a stye and that she can find some medication in her ‘sheep’ cupboard if I like! No thanks, Rhian!

Onward round the sheds and one of the black ewes has already delivered two cute little jet black lambs. Rather than the nervousness and skittishness that most ewes display when I am doctoring their lambs this mum mutters away to me and I talk to her and her lambs and, daft as it seems, it feels like we are communicating and working in partnership. I feel disloyal to her as I sit her on her backside to check her teats can express milk – which they do. I leave her and her lambs to continue bonding. One more shed to check, it’s clear and I head back to bed.

What to have on the TV as I try to fall asleep? The InBetweeners is on. Simon – played by Joe Thomas – is naked in a boat. Another of the incredibly crude/rude scenes. But as it happens I know Joe as he is a much-valued Patron of one of ‘my’ charities – YCT. His ‘celebrity’ status is valuable to us and useful in terms of ‘street cred’ with young people.

Sure enough, when I get up and start my rounds my two predictions are correct. There is a heavy frost so the water pipes have frozen, and all of the feeding of individual ewes has been left to me. To make things more cheerful today I decide the theme of serving breakfast to the ewes will be related to the location they are in. The ewes in The Hospital are offered the ‘Ward 9 Special’ and the ‘Outpatients Light Breakfast’. Then I get to the Train; there’s the ‘Flying Scotsman Full English’, followed by the ‘Six Five Special Special’! (Some readers will recall “The Six Five Special’s coming down the line, the Six Five Special’s right on time, coal in the boiler…….” Etc!) It gives me an earworm I can’t shake off for the rest of the morning.

I loudly replenish the bucket of nuts in the feed store below Rhian’s ‘bedroom’, hoping that she will now be awake enough to call the G.P. surgery. Not long after she calls me and confirms I have an appointment for 11am. Rhian assures me that the person she has booked me to see is a real doctor! I’d like to be clean when I go and luckily the folk in the holiday cottage leave to go home early, allowing me to nip in and have a proper shower in the holiday cottage – it is such a luxury.

Off to the G.P.s where I have to arrive early in order to fill out a Temporary Patient Form. They are expecting a Neil Best (not my name). The reason is straightforward and understandable. Rhian has that name stored in her phone as the best number to use for me when I am in Wales! Fascinating sitting in the waiting area hearing conversations between a number of people moving effortlessly from English to Welsh depending on who they are talking with. A conversation about a fox killing 16 newborn lambs and taking just one is somewhat concerning – and fortuitous.

Eventually I get called in to see the doctor. I take an immediate liking to him as I suggest that whereas the host of the infection is English I suspect the infection itself is Welsh! “Yes, but how long have you been in Wales for, Neil?” he asks. “Eleven days” I reply. “Damn, with that timeframe you are right, it is ours – but we won’t charge you extra for it!” rapidly followed by “You know your lot have a lot to answer for here in Wales, don’t you?!” I guess he is referring to the recent England/Wales rugby match score and wish I could ‘talk rugby’ better than I can. He is very thorough in taking a look at my eye and confirms what Rhian has already diagnosed – that I have a stye – and says that if I like he can stick a needle in it and let the puss out! He can tell from my reaction that it is not my favoured treatment, telling me that the ‘tough shepherd’ image I had created has been completely dispelled. He prescribes antibiotics and an ointment rather than eyedrops. We chat about chlamydial abortions in sheep and the issue of pregnant women being at risk. He then bids me a friendly farewell – such a nice man!

While in Bala I must call at the vet’s for some medication for the lambing ewes. Again I am amazed that I breeze into the vet’s pratice with no order and with no forewarning from Rhian, request what I need, simply confirm the farm’s address and leave with a considerable value of medication!

Back to the farm and back into my ‘farming’ clothes. We have some moving to do and I move ewes and lambs around while Rhian has her lunch.

KE. It’s an LOMVC-theme day!

But our plans are somewhat scuppered when I notice that amongst the sets of ewe and twins in The Triangle, one ewe, which should have twin lambs, only has one. We search for the second lamb and soon come across the answer – a dead, bloody lamb with no head and no tail. The fox has called by, it seems.

This messes up further plans for moving more families on and replacing them with new ones as Mr Cunning is likely to return again, knowing where to find a ready meal. During the afternoon Rhian calls a few contacts and arranges for an expert to visit tonight. Apparently an expert can ‘call in’ a fox in the area and shoot it. It will be interesting to know how successful our guy is.

A tough afternoon of feeding and fitting as many ewes and lambs in as secure places as possible. I just sit down in my bothy to add a few words to this blog when I get a call from Martin from LOMVC. Martin always likes to picture where I am and what I’m doing – which is nice. A quick catch-up and a friendly chat – what a tonic! I’ll be thinking about the guys - and the singing - at the LOMVC rehearsal I am missing tonight.

Saturday, 19^th March

A disturbed sleep, mainly as my bothy is far too hot and I’m uncomfortable. Then something else is nagging me. It could be the alarm, but that’s not quite right. By the time I wake enough to think it through the sound has stopped. Turns out it is 2.15 am and Rhian was calling me. I guess she needs help and call her back. She’s only just got in after some difficult lambings and asks if I can delay my 2.30 am shift until 3.00 am. I can hardly say no – but this presents a dilemma. Do I try to stay awake until 3.00 am, assisted by the irritating 2.30 am alarms or do I risk setting a new alarm for 3 am and hope not to oversleep. I do a mixture of the two and get up feeling confident that if Rhian has been around only 45 minutes ago I’m unlikely to find anything needing attention.

WRONG. At the first shed, The Barrier, there is a mum ready to give birth to her single lamb. She puts up little resistance as I catch and turn her. Usual procedure, pull both front legs straight and then pull on legs while assisting head to come out. Except that that head is not coming out. I struggle and use all the techniques I know. Surely I’m not going to have to call Rhian for a fourth night? But it looks like I am. No. Persevere Neil. I do, with no luck. Maybe this mum needs more time to ‘open’. I haven’t pulled enough to have broken the umbilical cord so the lamb is still plumbed in to mum. So I risk letting the lamb retreat back into mum, planning to come back and have another try, before having to call Rhian, when I have done the rest of my rounds.

Onward round two sheds when bingo, a ‘double’ is over on her side. Catch and turn her and check that she has good milk from both teats. She has. I pull two lambs in quick succession. Welcome to the world, guys! My problem now is that there are no spare pens. Anywhere. I’ll have to create one. Luckily there are spare ‘hurdles’ in this shed and with the help of some trusty balertwine I put together an extra pen. It’s by the door, in a well-worn, mucky, area of the shed, so I need to go for plenty of fresh straw to create a suitable bed for mum and twins. This all takes time and I am aware of the mum in The Barrier. Doctor the lambs and pen the family and onwards. Luckily nothing further in the other sheds so back to The Barrier.

The forlorn mum is still struggling. Maybe I’ll be luckier now that time has passed. Actually no. Little has changed. Call Rhian, Neil/Don’t call Rhian yet, Neil - you should be able to do this/Call Rhian, you can’t risk leaving this birth much longer/Have another try. I struggle, I pull, I try to ease the head forward. Screams of pain from the ewe. Very sorry mum, it has to be done. Don’t give up Neil. Some small advance. Yes, that head WILL get through. With much relief (from all three of us, I reckon) the head comes out, followed by the rest of this big lamb’s body. Not very alive, yet. Clear mouth. Straw up nostril. Palpitate chest, Swing from hind legs. Yes, a gasp, a cough and a bleat. One exhausted lamb kicks into life. Welcome to the world! Mum just lies there exhausted, not at all interested in the newborn lamb I’ve placed at her head. Then nature takes over and she starts licking junior. It’s a hot buttered toast and tea moment. But mum won’t appreciate that and, attractive as the idea is to me, even at 4.10am, it’s not sufficiently long after I last took one of my antibiotics. Back to bed and try to sleep.

The sound of the morning ‘shed’ feeding is familiar but the voices aren’t. I get up and find that Gwil has been called and is there with wire in hand, having been summoned to deal with a difficult birth that has left Rhian’s arm swollen and painful.

It seems that the pattern that Neil feeds all the pens in the morning is now established. Oh well, get on and do it. No particular theme for my serving of the feed this morning as Rhian and Gwil are around and I keep being distracted. Rhian believes that the stye on my eyelid is as a result of me being vegetarian. The subject of the type of vegetarian I am always stimulates a reaction. I like meat but I try to avoid eating meat if that meat has been produced as a result of inappropriate farming methods. If it’s had a chance in life – living wild, not intensively farmed, etc, - I am more comfortable with it. And the reality is that my lovely next door neighbour frequently sends Theo, her son, round with a delicious meal containing meat which would both be rude to refuse and in any case invariably tastes delicious. I try to describe this to Rhian but I don’t think I am getting through. However, she does ‘prescribe’ a steak from the Highland cattle, one of which has been slaughtered recently. These are lovely beasts and I have often fed them, calling them in from the rough, boggy land where they seem to enjoy spending much of their time. They come cheerfully, although trying to hand-feed them, which they enjoy, can be a bit risky with their huge curved horns waving around.

Lots of moving of ewes and their lambs to continue the morning, and I feel somewhat resentful that I am called away from my breakfast to ‘watch the pens’ while other more interesting tasks are undertaken by others!

Gwil then returns in his very smart tractor from one of the other farms 10 miles away with fresh supplies of straw for bedding (and a huge steak!). Without doubt Gwil’s skills in offloading huge straw bales from a trailer and placing them in position are impressive.

There’s a need to create space in the pens and sheds as there are so many births taking place, and it’s off to the big wide world for several families.

It’s a busy afternoon and being Saturday an unspoken agreement that we will finish early. A quick paned, during which there is some consternation about leaving a shed-full of ewes out eating while we eat and drink, but it’s often done. Rhian and I put the ewes that have had extra time eating (and stealing hay from the hay store) back. Rhian is concerned that there are so very many in returning to this shed that maybe she hasn’t given them sufficient food. Then the penny drops! Two sets of ewes have been out eating, separately. One lot has broken through and mixed with the others. About 80 ewes that should be in separate sheds are now mixed up. One view is that the ewes have opened the gate themselves. My view is that someone (no names, no pack drill, but not me) has failed to shut the gate properly!

I fail to understand the process that is used to ‘weed out’ one set of ewes from the other. I just know that it appears to involve far more moving the same ewes backwards and forwards through the separating gate than I would have chosen. Eventually, after a fairly knackering 30 minutes of catching wild heavy ewes and bundling them individually through the gate we have the two lots sorted and back in their respective sheds, but not before a ‘single’ confuses things by breaking out and mixing with them with her lamb.

Rhian and I check the sheds and a ‘double’ is ready to lamb. Rhian expertly pulls the first. To save us wasting time waiting Rhian impressively ‘delves’ for the seconds lamb and with a bit of pulling and shaking gets the second lamb out. Thank goodness we haven’t had to wait ages for nature to take its sometimes slow course.

Looks like an LOMVC committee meeting might be about to take place!

Time to go to Bala and get mushrooms, onions, tomatoes and oven-chips to go with my steak - which is so huge that I cut 1/3 off it and slice that 1/3 in half so that each half is only about an inch thick! (that’s about 2.5cm to younger readers!).

Back to the bothy, a round of the sheds – nothing to do – and back to cook my mega-steak-meal. Everything works well and I remember what steak tastes like! Delicious!

Sunday, 20^th March

As I wake for the 2.30 am shift I am wondering what awaits me. I’m expecting a few births as we have been so busy for the last 48 hours. Nothing until I get to the last shed – the large doubles shed. There’s a ewe looking like she is ready so I catch her and without too much fuss I deliver a healthy lamb. It’s about 3 am. I’d prefer not to have to wait up for ages if it is going to take her a long time to bring the next one forward. So, as with Rhian earlier, I delve deep and find two legs which I try to bring forward. Something says this doesn’t feel right so I hold off and decide to give nature a chance for 15 minutes. I’d prefer not to have to call Rhian – she gets precious little sleep as it is. It’s not a cold night so it is quite pleasant sitting on the side of a pen, ruminating about this strange life I lead at this time of year, while the ewes around me ruminate on the hay they ate earlier.

After 15 minutes nothing further seems to have happened with my ewe. I have another delve and can find front legs, but no head. This could be problematic and it’s time to call Rhian. She must have been sleeping soundly as I have to bash on her door and shout loudly. Rhian comes out to help. Immediately she diagnoses that there are indeed two front legs but no head. It’s my fault; I’ve pulled the legs whereas I should have called her. I explain that as soon as I realised there was potentially a problem I DID call her. That’s not good enough for Rhian – I shouldn’t have pulled the legs and should have called her. I suggest that pulling front legs is what we do with every successful ‘pull’. Rhian says she won’t keep going on about it but I shouldn’t have pulled the legs. I apologise and explain that I’ve got the message. Rhian tells me yet again that I shouldn’t have pulled the legs. I ask her not to keep telling me and that I’ve got the message. Nevertheless she is not in ‘listen’ mode and as she struggles she keeps going on about not pulling legs! It’s serious. She can’t get it sorted. Gwil will have to be called (at 3.45 am?!). But Rhian struggles on, with me holding the ewe up by the hind legs with her shoulders on the ground (back-breaking). Eventually a scrawny, bloody little scrap is pulled from the ewe, and, to my great relief, it is alive. That done Rhian goes back to bed while I pen and doctor the twins, and give the mum a large injection of ‘Pen and Strep’. I go to bed feeling that an injustice has been done. I DID call Rhian when I felt that something was wrong, as she has said I should!

My negative mood hasn’t left me when I wake up and as I go round the ewes giving them their feed I consider my options and rehearse carefully what I will say to Rhian when we meet. But when we do it comes to nothing as Rhian is still not in ‘listen’ mode and keeps telling me I shouldn’t pull legs if there is no head. I’m resigned to hearing this mantra and try to explain again that if I make a mistake it isn’t because I have intended to do something wrong.

There is plenty of moving to be done. Eventually Rhian goes off to deal with some obligations elsewhere with me left to ‘check the sheds’. I patrol around, in between doing some washing. It seems to me that there is a double which has been ‘mithering’ for some time and seems likely to lamb at some point over the next few hours. And the singles in The Barrier keep me busy with three needing to be pulled in quick succession.

I go back to check the ewe in the doubles. Of ffs! Two lambs in the straw, neither looking alive. I check them; they are warm but lifeless. I try everything. Palpitating chest, cold water in the ears. Nothing works. Bad karma in return for my negativity earlier maybe?

Rhian returns. I give her the news. Apparently the reason is that I should have been checking the ‘double’ irrespective of what was happening with the singles (or indeed the other doubles). It seems I can’t win! I apologise; Rhian again repeats that I should have been watching the double. Hmm. Rational discussion is just not on the agenda. Back to my bothy feeling pretty crap. Two young lives that came to nothing. Could I have done better? I don’t know. Maybe three singles wouldn’t be alive if I had been with the double all the time.

Rhian calls me in my bothy to question me about some feeding. She senses I am feeling bad about the lambs; tells me not to worry as such is the farming life (yeah, right, Rhian – that’s not the attitude you had an hour ago or earlier this morning!). However, Rhian knows how to perk me up. Would I take the quad bike down the lane and repair a hole in a gate where potentially a ewe and her lamb have escaped? Sure as hell I will. The sun is shining, its useful piece of maintenance and a trip on the quad bike is always fun. It is a bit of a tonic. And this lamb dozing just outside my bothy is OK too!

Back for a late lunch and then the start of the afternoon feeding. Rhian and Dafydd head up to the fields to sort out and move in some sheep. Val and Eliea arrive and help me with the feeding. It’s a mixed blessing. Good to have some help, but the pattern of feeding is disrupted each time they go to look at or be involved in something more interesting!

But nice to have an accompanist! (get it, LOMVC members?!)

And nice to have some of Val’s excellent apple pie with our paned! Well done, Val!

It’s another steak meal this evening – I’d better busy myself with its preparation!

Monday, 21^st March

I wake up when the 2.30 am alarm goes off feeling very sluggish – I guess that’s what happens when you eat so much meat! I drift round the sheds – slightly less of them to check now since room has been created to house ewes and lambs that would otherwise be outside where they would be fox-bait, and in any case there are now less ewes waiting to give birth.

At each shed, having checked that there are no imminent births, I remove any straw floating in the water troughs and replenish water in the buckets if needed. I can see that Rhian has had a load of births earlier in the night. But there is nothing for me. In a way I wish there was as just one birth shows that I Really was up and about at 3.00 am!!! Lol. But good news - I am back in my bothy by 3.05 am.

When I wake later to the sounds outside of feeding at 6.30 am I get the impression that not only the feeding of the sheds is taking place, but some of the pens – that I would otherwise have to feed – is being done. I allow myself to doze until the alarms jolt me into full consciousness at 7.30 am and I dress and head out, hopeful that my ‘morning feeding’ task will be less onerous. WRONG! It’s the usual round of feeding, except that some of the food containers have been taken out of the pens.

As I go round, the ewes are often desperate to get to their food, and totally reliant on me to provide it – in fact some are so desperate they try to climb out of the pen to get to the nuts I don’t feel ‘kind’ but it is good to be able to ensure that the girls get what they need to remain healthy. The kind souls who take food and clothing to Calais come to mind. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the ‘migrants’ living there they are human beings and in my opinion should be provided with their basic necessities (within which I would include smartphones – being able to contact friends and family, possibly thousands of miles away, as well as access useful information, is vital).

I realise that over the weekend just gone the sound of the screaming engines of warplanes overhead had been replaced by the sound of the screaming engines of the motorcyclists in the valley below – they love the course of the bendy road and come in their hundreds to ride it.

It’s a pretty usual sort of day. Rhian wants me to construct the ‘restrictor’ – a device similar to horizontal stocks, that traps a ewe in place, allowing the lambs she would otherwise butt away to suckle. I think it’s cruel. But it’s not my farm, they are not my ewes and it is not my livelihood.

For the past two nights I’ve shared ’my’ paddock with two of the three totally blind ewes. They are excellent mothers of twins, but do tend to make one hell of a noise if they can’t get their twins to come to them. It’s time for one of them to head back out to the field she lives in during most of the year. This must be a relief to her, having had so many different, unusual, surroundings over the last three weeks.

Rhian goes off to work for a few hours, but it is not long before I have to call her back – a ewe has been pushing for some time and it’s a ‘head out only’ job. Definitely not one to get wrong. Rhian arrives within 5 minutes, dons waterproofs over her ‘farm secretary’ clothes, delivers twin lambs – a bit of a struggle, but successfully done – and heads back to her office.

This lone daffodil has grown in the same place, in the middle of a thicket fence, every year since I’ve been coming here!

It’s probably time for some ‘cute lamb’ pics!

During the afternoon I can see the way things are heading. Rhian and Dafydd are going to need to head off to the fields to do some feeding and some moving and I am going to get left feeding the sheds (mass feeding). Dafydd and I try to get ahead of the game by feeding the pens, we have a quick paned, and then as predicted I’m left to feed the pens. Not really a problem as I reckon I have it down to a fine art. And when Rhian returns it gives me the opportunity to say how much more I prefer feeding the sheds than doing the individual pen feeding – especially as there are now less sheds to feed (hint, hint!).

Tuesday, 22^nd March

Strangely I wake up a few minutes early for the 2.30 am shift. My bothy is not as warm as usual as the fire has burned low. I put a few ‘night sticks’ on the fire and am tempted to leave the door open to allow it to ‘flare’ but if I am too long I might have a chimney fire and can’t risk that. I was introduced to ‘fire sticks’ by a shearer who visits here to do the ‘dagging’. (cleaning up the rear ends of the ewes so they don’t get mucky and the births are cleaner). He went round the empty hayracks seeking out the sticks that had been picked up when the hay was being baled and have obviously not been eaten by the ewes and are now very dry).

Heading out I’m not sure what to expect. Probably lucky I didn’t know! I have a single with a ‘head out only’, and the head is swelling. Miraculously I manage to get it out and after a lot of massaging and palpitating it struggles into life. Then in different sheds two sets of twins – head and one leg for both. Again I am lucky. In fact after that haul I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself. And both sets of twins have instantly taken to their mothers, within 20 minutes of being born moving to the rear of the ewe where refreshment facilities are provided!

Back to bed at 3.40 am and to sleep, eventually.

A text arrives at about 7 am. I hope it is from Rhian saying that she has fed the pens as well as the sheds. I’ll doze until 7.30 am and check it then. When I do it is a disappointing moment – an insignificant amount has been done and I still have the majority to do.

I just can’t get into a rhythm of feeding as each time I check the sheds there is another birth to deal with, interrupting my pattern. Nevertheless it has to be done. When I get to The Stack Yard it feels like I am almost there. But if you have ever climbed Snowdon via the Watkin Path it is similar – the top looks enticingly close, but the climb is steep and significant and the worst is yet to come. On my way round an old crone is watching me – can you see her face?!

As I feed the ewes in the paddocks the ewes are obviously drawn to the food, leaving their lambs. The lambs are used to ‘the milk lady’ coming round to see them and offer them the bottle. I spend a lot of time shooing lambs from following me, assuring them that I am NOT the milk lady!

Today is a sad day and I am disappointed that I will not be able to attend Peter Thomas’s wife’s funeral later today. Peter is a lovely man, a loyal choir member and the choir’s librarian. He cared for his wife while she deteriorated with dementia and then cancer. I would have liked to have been there to show my support. And now more sadness with the news of the Brussels atrocities. My next door neighbour Irene and I exchange texts, feeling that words can’t explain the horror. I have been brought up to use the power of words to resolve issues.

It’s a busy morning with Rhian and Dafydd needing to head off to the fields to ensure that the lambs are bonded with their mums (rather than ‘pinching’ from another ewe). I’m not exactly rushed off my feet, but I’m kept busy with the ongoing delivery of new lambs. In fact I run out of pens and have to construct extra pens to cope with the demand.

And then there’s a mini-crisis! A pen in the corner of a shed should have two lambs and a ewe in t=it and there is only one. A search of the shed and adjoining pens proves fruitless. There is a small gap in the corrugated sheet big enough for a lamb to squeeze through and I go outside to see if I can find it outside. There are seven ewes, and when I fed them earlier there were seven lambs, all about three days old. They rush about as I move between them and, hey ho, running with them is our missing less-than-twelve-hours-old lamb, having the time of his life! Mum doesn’t seem that phased when I return him. In fact she is more perturbed as I block the hold up to prevent it happening again.

The afternoon brings a lot more moving – the priority is to free up space for the increased rate of births we have had over the past two days. And one task I am pleased to complete, as we move sheep further up the hills, is to take the quad bike uphill to close a gate that would otherwise allow the ewes and their lambs to go higher than we want at this stage.

It is often difficult to explain the territory where we are located. Maybe this pic helps.

Having finished so late yesterday I am hopeful that we can be earlier today, but I know that will be a challenge as Dafydd needs to leave earlier. I forego the opportunity for a paned-break and carry on in the hope that I can get ahead of the game. I do, and finish the feeding about 30 minutes earlier than usual. Not a lot of benefit, though. Rhian needs to go back to work and I’ll have to be on duty while she is away – she doesn’t think I’ll be troubled as she has just checked round. My first ‘patrol’ – a single in The Barrier. But she has delivered the lamb herself and allows me to ‘milk’ her to check there is a good supply for her lamb. This is much easier than having to struggle to ‘upend’ her on her bottom and lean over her to check her teats.

Eventually I get away to Bala to do emails, etc – but later than I had hoped.

Wednesday, 23^rd March

I wake up imagining it’s about 7 am and it takes me a while to realise that I have woken early for the 2.30 am shift! The usual ritual of struggle out of bed, perk the fire up – although I am incredibly hot – get dressed in a mechanical way and as I am about to go out of the door I look at my phone only to see a text from Rhian, sent during the cacophony of the alarms, saying that she had just gone in and could I go round at 3.15 am. Damn. Do I go back to bed or stay up. I take off half my clothes and do a bit of both. Apart from the inconvenience of the change of hours this later shift is no problem and I am back in about 30 minutes. As I try to go back to sleep the sound of a lamb bleating plays on my mind. It is far out in the fields. It has possibly become estranged from its mum. Or maybe it is being stalked by a fox. Or maybe it is the fox-catchers pretending to be a vulnerable lamb.

It’s the usual round of feeding for the start of the morning, starting with a list from Rhian of what has and hasn’t been fed and what might have been fed already. Plus, there’s a door that needs to be mended, it’s time for a fire to burn feed-bags and cremate dead lambs, and on a more positive note the warm-milk machine (Ewe 2) needs to be rigged up so that the pet lambs (= orphan lambs) can feed themselves rather than rely on bottle-feeding. There are increasing numbers of pet lambs.

And there are some newborn lambs to be doctored. Oh yes, and within all of this I need to check the sheds for lambing ewes. Well, I guess that’s what I’m here for.

Just starting my breakfast when I’m called by Rhian. Have I fed ‘The Front’? No, I haven’t. I was told that it had been fed. Apparently it hadn’t. BIG crisis. I say I’ll do it now but that’s not good enough apparently. Much huffing and “I’ll have to do it myself to get it right.” Quite a tantrum.

Eventually things calm down as a result of other tasks needing to be done and also as far as new births are concerned, although the ewes keep producing and the occasional one takes us by surprise.

I reflect on how some people respond when things aren’t done the way they would do them. In my experience doing things differently can often be seen by others as challenging or even threatening. Or it can be seen as refreshing, novel and stimulating.

The weather forecast has said that rain is on the way, and indeed it is obvious a front is coming in as the temperature dips during the day, so part of the day is spent in preparation for what is to come. Straw raked up from the ground, the bales of straw covered in a ‘tarpoli’. Weak ewes and lambs accommodated indoors.

Again this afternoon I try to move the afternoon feeding on in order to finish early and again I fail to finish any earlier.

As I fall asleep I can hear rain on the roof. It’s arrived.

Thursday, 24^th March

I really should have learned from yesterday. I’ve got up at 2.30 am and am about to go out into the rain when I check my phone and again there is a text asking me to delay my patrol until 3.15 am. Serves me right.

Three quarters of an hour later I head out, with a hunch that there will be nothing to deal with. Wrong again. There’s a single in The Barrier. Easy. Then at ‘The Top Shed’ I come across two ewes, each making a fuss of a newborn lamb. But these lambs look almost identical, implying – but not proving – that they are from one mother. If I get this wrong one mother, or both, will potentially reject a lamb – and I will be the one to blame. I catch the ewe I think is possibly the mother and an ‘internal’ seems to suggest that there is no other lamb to be born. But it could just be far back. It seems the best option is to call Rhian and I am half way round to wake her up when I decide I should be able to deal with this myself. Form a hypothesis, Neil and set out to prove or disprove it. My hypothesis is that the ewe I have identified as possibly the mother of both twins in the shed IS their mother.  In which case the other mother will still have two lambs to be born. I pen the two lambs and their possible mum. My hypothesis doesn’t look good – she’s not that keen on them! Oh well. Catch the other ewe which is ready to give birth. I pull her lamb – it looks the same as the other two already born. Not good. And even worse, an ‘internal’ doesn’t prove that there is another lamb to be born – although it might just be far back. It’s 4 am, Neil. How long are you going to wait up for?! I’ll give it 15 minutes while I check the other sheds. A bit of a distraction while I ‘pull’ twins from a ewe in another shed, pen and doctor them.

Back to the ‘hypothesis’ shed. Catch the ewe currently licking what I am hoping is her first-born. Another ‘internal’ examination. Yes, there’s another lamb there. I pull it. It’s identical to the other three. But having pulled two lambs from the second ewe it seems my hypothesis was correct and the other lambs were from the other ewe which has now started showing a mild interest in the lambs she is penned with. I sort out the new family, put markers on the pens to show that they need to be checked and head off to bed at 4.30 am.

Grey mist hangs low on the hills, a sight I have seen many times before a little further west in Snowdonia. Not a pleasant sight early in the morning, knowing that much of the day will be spent up in that grey mist, tracking and checking on groups of young people undertaking their Duke of Edinburgh Award Gold Award expedition. And potentially if there is rain at this level at this time of year there will be snow on the tops. No such experience for me today – I just need to slog around the pens doing the feeding in the damp mist.

Reference to D of E reminds me that it was on about this date some XY years ago that I was interviewed for and appointed to my first teaching/youth work position. Being a compliant applicant, and in any case being an outdoor pursuits enthusiast, I had readily agreed to take over the running of the school’s Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme. Just one week later the national news was reporting a D of E expedition group missing in the Snowdonia mountains – and from the school where I was about to take over the D of E Award scheme. Well, at least it meant that it wasn’t long before I was sent off to gain my Mountain Leadership Certificate. The BBC made a documentary about fiasco – “The Day Seemed So Good”. It gave us our fifteen minutes of fame.

Rhian will be away for much of the day so moving and checking starts early. A day like many others. Lambs are born, families are moved, pens are re-strawed. Ewes are fed. At one point as I am running to catch a ewe, I hear a rip, and the inside leg of my jeans suddenly has a long tear in it. Drafty!

Such a busy day that I still haven’t had chance to get back to the automatic feeder and get the pet lambs’ milk system working. Here’s the tub that has an outer water jacket that keeps the milk warm and two white teats can be seen in the pen.

Friday, 25^th March

Maybe I am getting the hang of things for the early shift. I wake up at about 2.15 am and doze for fifteen minutes. Check phone before getting up and no text asking me to delay the timing of my ‘patrol’.

Off to The Barrier to check the ‘singles’. There’s a lamb already born, oh, and a ewe thrashing around on her side. Move in quickly, Neil. It’s a simple delivery and the ewe seems to be relieved of the pain. I’m just on my way out when I see a black ewe with a lamb’s head hanging out of her. Difficult to see earlier in the dim light. The head looks lifeless and somewhat swollen, but they often do. I ease a leg out and ‘pull’ the lamb. Although I immediately think it’s dead I go through all the techniques. Palpitating, straw up nose, water in ears, mouth to mouth (well, mouth to closed fingers round lamb’s mouth). It’s no good, I can’t revive it. It’s dead. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of point calling Rhian. It doesn’t look like a good prospect for an adoption to me. But I know there will be a worse inquest in the morning. I wake Rhian and try to describe what has happened in case she doesn’t need to come out. But she insists. And there’s the inevitable inquest. Did I …..,?, did I ….? did I…? There’s a suggestion that I could have done better. I don’t believe I could. Rhian tries a ‘wipe the adoptee lamb with the dead lamb’ adoption, but it doesn’t look like it will work – not enough goo to convince the mum.

There’s another set of twins that have been born and need to be penned and doctored. And Rhian has found a ewe that looks like it might be starting the process of lambing. It’s one I would have left for nature to take its course. But Rhian ‘explores’ and manages to ‘pull’ a lamb. But the twin is a long way back. It’s 3.30 am. Rhian cheerfully says that I should wait for the next lamb to be brought up, and to call her if it isn’t there by 4 am. I bide my time doctoring and penning the other twins, and look round the sheds for ewes that might be lambing. Then I just watch the ewe for signs that she is ready with the next lamb. I don’t want to try too early and mess things up, nor do I want to wait up all night. I estimate that things are ready and indeed I’m right (thank goodness) and pull the second lamb. Welcome, doctor and pen, and back to bed. It’s 4.15 am.

I’ve mentioned to Dafydd yesterday, in one of our ‘chats about Rhian’ that I find it frustrating that the morning feed is often random depending on what pens have already been fed, apparently non-methodically. Two reasons: 1) I’m interested to know how much of my opinion about Rhian gets back to her via him 2) In the hope that the message might get through!

My briefing for the morning feed seems far more methodical than usual! Simply coincidence or not? I don’t know. But it improves the experience and I can enjoy what seems to be becoming a warm, sunny day. There’s even the opportunity to experiment with a panoramic view.

However, one of my tasks is to cut the legs off last night’s dead lamb so that it can be skinned and used as a jacket for the failed adoptee.

It turns out to be a very long day – I’ve experienced these before at about this stage of the lambing season. 7.40 am – 6.40 pm with only two short breaks for breakfast and lunch. I have to admit I’m knackered. I do get the opportunity to get away for a short while to repair an aerial lead in one of the holiday cottages, and while out take the opportunity to log on to the Internet and, joy of joys, my emails that haven’t been working for two days are now apparently operational. It’s a bit like having the use of my right hand restored! Had I not been able to resolve the problem, Karen was ready with useful advice.

I try to convince one lamb in the paddock outside my bothy that I am not the milk lady – but it doesn’t understand and keeps wanting to follow me!

I’m missing yet another LOMVC rehearsal this evening. Hmm. Hope I can catch up. The rehearsal is at a different venue; I wonder how many, out of habit, will go to the usual place?! Old habits and all that!!

I’d previously said that today had been a long day. I’m not wanting sympathy, to impress, or anything like that, but half way through my evening meal, at 9.45 pm, my phone rings and it’s Rhian urgently needing help with a difficult delivery. I was enjoying that home-cooked (thank you halogen oven) fish and chips. Oh well, duty calls. Outdoor clothes on, out to assist – which simply consists of holding the ewe down as Rhian delves and struggles and eventually pulls a live lamb. A slight touch of ‘what goes around comes around’ as Rhian has to wait for the next lamb to be brought forward before it can be pulled, while I go straight back to the rest of my meal (after some serious hand-washing!)

Saturday, 26^th March

OK, so it’s my birthday. And maybe my first birthday present is that nothing needs attention during the 3.00 am patrol! I’m back in my bothy by 3.15am. But the gale that is forecast is on its way – strong winds but no rain yet.

I’m hopeful that the morning feeding might all have been done as a sort of birthday gesture – but that’s not the case and I plod round ensuring that all the ewes are fed.

The range of birds I see regularly has increased. As well as chaffinch and blue tits a lesser spotted woodpecker has been pecking at seed that has fallen from a feeder I put on the washing line. Sparrows and at last a robin that sometimes seems to follow me around, and a heron that flies to the river. Oh yes, and somewhat spooky owl cries when I go round at night.

It is ‘holiday cottage changeover’ day today and I’m hoping to nip in and use the shower as soon as the current occupants leave and before it is cleaned. Rather than ask (I get the impression that my previous similar shower before going to the doctor’s might be being considered a one off!) I state that that’s what I will be doing and as soon as the nice people leave I grab my towel and some clean clothes head across to the holiday cottage to start to enjoy a lovely shower. Unfortunately it is drawn to an early end – the previous occupants have been astute in terms of how much money they have put in the payment-meter and the amount paid for runs out, immediately switching off the lights and shower. It costs me £1 to be able to get the lights on!

The pressure is on to get as much done as possible before the rain arrives, the usual round of feeding and moving is interrupted by births of lambs. A week mother has produced twins, both of which need to be adopted. In fact, adoptions are on the agenda all the time. Many are cross-cultural (meaning the adoptive mother is a different breed to the adoptee lamb). Here’s a mum conned into taking on a lamb that’s not hers by it wearing her deceased lamb’s clothes!

Time for a change on my birthday – can you spot what I’ve done?! (I’d intended doing it when I arrived but haven’t got round to it).

The weather turns foul in the afternoon – heavy rain and strong wind. Some lambs and ewes that have been put out in the fields, but are too weak to withstand this weather and are brought back in. The pressure is on for accommodation. And all the time there are births. An innovation this year, to ensure that I can alert Rhian to possible issues, especially at night, is a set of signs I write and attach to relevant pens.

Luckily for me – because it means I can work inside, out of the rain - some lambs need heat to help them develop and I need to install a number of heat lamps in pens. This is always a challenge as extension leads, suitable heat-lamp units (many home-made) and bulbs that work, are difficult to find. It usually needs several broken units to be consolidated.

The afternoon feeding is a wet, muddy, hurried affair, but we have time for a quick paned during which the inevitable subject of the change to BST is discussed. I can never win on this one! The sheep don’t live their lives according to GMT/BST. Rather than have our usual amount of sleep, and simply put ‘patrol’ times forward an hour compared to the ‘new’ time, we have to stick to the same times, but at BST. I’ve been cheated out of an hour of my birthday!

I decide to ‘treat’ myself to a meal out this evening. But before that I double-park outside Barclays Bank in order to access emails, upload the latest update to this blog and look at Facebook and WhatsApp comments. So many kind birthday wishes – for which I try to thank everyone. Very warming to know how many people have sent birthday wishes. Then it’s on to the Bala Spice rwestaurant. I’ve tried to wear some more appropriate clothes for the evening but as it’s pouring with rain I still have my waterproof jacket on and it is shedding pieces of straw. Maybe this is why they sit me at a table at the back! But coincidentally it is Table 26! Both my birth date and my age! (yeah, right!).

I can’t recommend the Bala Spice restaurant enough. I can’t recommend it at all. Probably the worst vegetable biriani I have ever had. They pride themselves on their knowledge of spices. Maybe they should try using them in their cooking! And they don’t have a licence so I have to have a soft drink. And they don’t accept credit cards! Oh well, at least I didn’t have to cook it myself and the poppadoms were ok.

Back home to my bothy – which I have appreciated more and more each time I have gone in out of the wind and rain and into its warm, dry, welcoming confines.

Sunday, 27^th March

Having thought that I had adjusted the times on my phones appropriately to allow for the change to BST something has gone wrong and I am woken up an hour early. Eventually I’m up and out at the right time, and a quick round of the sheds, with again nothing to deal with. What a relief – I won’t have to chase after ewes (the sheds are emptier so they can escape easier) and I won’t have to get mucky hands, risk needlestick injuries or upend uncooperative ewes to check their milk. Lol!

Awake again at 7.30 am and as usual I switch the light on ready to get up – except that it doesn’t come on. No surprise after such a windy, rainy night. Given the amount of overhead power lines across north wales (I’ve winged about them in the past – dreadful blots on the landscape) it is possible that something has tripped out somewhere. Or more likely the local trip in the holiday cottage, supplying the outside sheds, Rhian’s barn and my bothy has tripped.

This is confirmed by Rhian who says that it tripped as she was making her toast at 4.30 am. We can’t reset it until the people ‘in the house’ wake up, and until them the lamps keeping the delicate lambs warm, and the kettle allowing Rhian to prepare warm milk to feed the various needy lambs, won’t work. Fortunately I have hot water in the kettles on my stove and this is used to some effect.

Eventually the trip is reset and all returns to normal (whatever ‘normal’ is in these parts!). I help Rhian ‘tube’ some of the lambs (a tube down its throat and into its stomach, and milk poured in).

With the weather having been so wet there’s a lot of bedding (= straw) needing to be carried to the pens before feeding can take place. Luckily for me Rhian decides we will do this together and it makes the task much quicker.

During the morning Dafydd and I sort out sheep-families to move on higher up the hills. In reality this means that I stand at the gate and open it when he separates a trio (mum and twins) from the rest and ushers it towards the gate. Sounds easy, but the ewes and lambs get mixed up; some ewes try to go without their lambs (not allowed) and some that have gone up through the gate want to come back down. But watching Dafydd confidently walking the field, using his crook to separate individual families, and move them up to me, is a lesson in itself. In thirty minutes we have moved about fifteen families up into two different fields.

And now some of the sheep’s accommodation has to be converted, taking into account the changing family circumstances. The barrier has to be ‘fenced off’ on one side so that it is suitable for ewes and their lambs which, without the fencing, would get through to the expectant ewes on the other side. It’s been a good arrangement – the feed goes in the trough in the middle, the ewes being able to access it from either side.

A selection of items are suggested for this task – two sizes of ornamental plastic garden fencing and a few hurdles. Luckily I have managed to save plenty of balertwine (usually immediately regarded as rubbish and consigned to the fire) which I can use to help secure it. It’s a strange mixture of construction materials but it seems to work.

I head out to fix a securing chain that has become detached from gate to an outdoor, cave-like, hut. It needs some new fence staples put in to keep it secure. Very appropriate that on Easter Sunday the large boulder we have used to keep it shut until now can be rolled away! And interesting that the small field next to this hut is called ‘The Garden’!

The weather is just what was forecast – very heavy, gusty, showers with some small respite in between. I am grateful for my waterproofs; and especially pleased that they dry so quickly in my bothy. I think one thing worse than taking off wet muddy overtrousers is having to put them back on – which I have done many times getting out of a small tent after a wet night up in the hills - while they are wet and muddy!

Talking of which, the dreadful weather reminds me again of so many Duke of Edinburgh Award expeditions where young people tested their tenacity and powers of endurance. Many were out in the mountains in awful conditions over several days. But they adhered to the training they had undertaken, and trusted the faith we leaders and assessors had in their ability, and saw it through, finishing with a fine sense of self-worth. Days, weeks, months and sometimes years later it was good to hear them recall that they had surprised themselves in their ability to continue in the face of considerable adversity, and that the experience had been a valuable lesson to take with them for the rest of their lives.

Val, of cake-baking fame, left me with a thought last time she was here that I can’t get out of my mind! She has had experience of being on the fringes of lambing in various parts of Wales and the borders. Her suggestion is that rather than the set-up we have here (Rhian in her barn, me in my bothy, Dafydd calling by and all of us having to look after ourselves) the ideal would be that she (Val) lives in the holiday cottage during the lambing season, preparing meals and generally supporting the overall effort. It would be so good being able to go inside and sit down to a drink or a meal that was prepared and ready. It would be great to have a bit more (more?!) time to relax, rather than spend part of that time preparing food, cleaning up, doing the washing, etc, I suppose I can dream!

Somehow we finish feeding early today – remarkable given that in reality it’s an hour ahead of what it should be!

A ‘must do’ on Sunday evening is to watch Countryfile, and especially the weather forecast. I’m not too happy with Tomasz Schafernaker’s forecast when he says that Storm Katie will have passed over by the time we get up tomorrow. But what about those of us who have to get up tonight, Tomasz?!

Time to do the usual Sunday evening catch-ups. A nice chat with my sister and then to Bala for emails and updates.

As it’s Sunday there’s no opportunity to buy any food, but as I had cooked another vegetable stew in the slow cooker a couple of days ago I have half left and with some roast sweet potato wedges I rustle up in the halogen oven it makes a wholesome meal.

Monday, 28^th March

I’m woken in the middle of the night by torrential rain pounding on the roof of the bothy. Storm Katie has arrived. I wake a bit later and the sound on the roof has changed. It is lighter. My hope is that there has been a change to light rain; my hunch is there has not been.

I get a text from Rhian. Can I go round at 3.15 am? Adjust alarms and go back to sleep. I wake again at 3.10 am. There’s still something falling on the roof, but it isn’t pounding rain. I look out. OMG! The thickest, wettest densest grey snow is falling. It is certainly full waterproofs needed. As the ground is so wet, and the snowflakes are so wet, the snow isn’t covering the ground. But it’s pretty grim. Thankfully all is quiet in two sheds and a set of twins has already been born in The Big Shed. Pen and doctor and head back to bed in the dense snow. And whilst it’s not freezing it still feels cold. There are lambs needing extra heat which are under lamps in various locations. Please don’t go making toast and trip the electrics tonight, Rhian!

The electrics are still on when I get up – and although it is a grey miserable day the mountains across the valley are covered in white snow – we were lucky to avoid it.

I’ve consistently told the little lamb in my paddock each time it runs to me, hopefully wanting to be fed, that I am not the milk lady. I think it might suffer trauma later in its life, due to being lied-to, as my first task is to bottle-feed it, along with another lamb in the paddock. It’s a greedy little chap and rapidly finishes off a full babies’ bottle.

Then as I’m about to start feeding there are two ewes needing help delivering their single lambs in The Barrier. Neither have much milk. Eventually I can start feeding and thankfully I am joined by Rhian so the task is less arduous. Some of the lambs are getting quite adventurous.

Nasty, heavy, cold showers plague us during the morning and I expect to get cold, even in full waterproofs. Dafydd and I have a lot of walking to do, bringing ewes and lambs in from various fields and sending them uphill to new fields. The exercise keeps me warm as does opening and closing the gates separating the correct ewes into the correct places. The rate of births has slowed down considerably but there are the odd ones to deal with during the day.

And between the moving ewes around I shelter in The Barrier watching the singles and noticing that yesterday’s handiwork on one side of The Barrier is holding up.

The weather improves during the afternoon, making it much easier to work. Concentration on the feeding means I miss the birth of twins I have been expecting, but luckily I get to the second, clear the mucus from its mouth, and get it breathing, in the nick of time.

As well as being exasperating at times, Rhian never fails to impress me with her energy and tenacity. I leave to go to Bala at about 7 pm, having spent about 45 minutes writing an update to this blog, during which time Rhian has continued bottle-feeding the very many lambs needing extra feed, and she will continue for an hour more. So I offer to ‘check the sheds’ (meaning look out for potential births) when I get back from Bala at about 7.45 pm and before I go to bed at about 9. 30 pm. It seems only fair to give Rhian more ‘time off’ although as it turns out Rhian uses the time ironing sheets for the holiday cottages and catching up on paperwork.

My 7.45 pm check is an ‘all clear’ allowing me to get on and cook my evening meal. At 9.30 pm I come across a set of twins that have already been born. I doctor and pen the trio. No milk in the ewe’s udder, so I leave a note pegged to the pen to let Rhian know they will potentially need a bottle-feed top-up.

Tuesday, 29^th March

As is often the case, it is a struggle to get up for the 2.30 am check, made more arduous by having to don full waterproofs as heavy rain starts drumming on the bothy roof. I’m not sure what to expect. My hunch is that there will be a few new-born lambs. As I walk through ‘the girls’, whereas in the early days there would have been a stampede of ewes around each of the sheds, now there is almost a ‘whatever’ attitude from many who remain down on the straw, with some coming up to greet me as though we are old friends (and in some cases we are as we have met each other over several years and some I have hand-fed when they were lambs).  There is nothing happening and I am back inside in 20 minutes. Again, so thankful for the fire which keeps the bothy warm. I realise that it has been continually alight for 21 days! This has to be a record and I can’t help feeling that there is trouble accumulating in the flue as it hasn’t been burning as hot as is recommended.

The person I am sleeping with is taking up too much of this very small single bed! But I wake up to realise I am dreaming, I am of course alone, and the duvet is bunched up on one side of me!

Later it is again a struggle to get up for the 7.30 am alarm, but needs must. Snow on the Berwyn again! It’s the usual round of feeding the pens and sheds where ewes and lambs are now commonly accommodated, punctuated by the odd interruption to help Rhian tube-feed poor weak souls. The Ewe 2 milk machine isn’t working and the pet lambs are decidedly fed up about it!

I’m watching a couple of ewes which look like they are on their way to the start of their lambing. But it’s breakfast time and by the time I come back out they have been ‘pulled’. The other looks like she will take a while.

The weather isn’t good – heavy rain showers followed by bright spells. It’s a question of moving ewes around rather than putting them out.

It’s time for a further delivery of sheep-feed. Just watching the guys unloading the 25 kg sacks of feed makes my back ache – and one of the guys must be at least as young as me! They make a quick job of delivering a lot of feed. This amount has lasted us two weeks.

During one of the bright spells I pull a set of twins from a lovely compliant mother. At this particular point the sun is shining warmly into the shed and rather than rush her into a pen, as we are not too busy, I give her a while to ‘bond’ with her offspring.

Later in the morning I go back to my ‘expectant’ ewe. She has a massive ‘bubble’ the size of a cantaloupe melon hanging from her rear end. Usually this would mean that in a fairly short time I would expect her to be on her side contracting and soon after that the telltale signs of a lamb. But she fusses around, digging at the straw but not lying down. I give her 30 minutes and this is going nowhere. Should I intervene? If I get it wrong there is no one to call for immediate backup. But she has been trying the deliver this lamb (and she is expecting two) for a long while. She puts up a good fight as I catch her. A bit of exploring and I can find a leg. At first it seems to be a back leg, which wouldn’t surprise me and could account for her reluctance to ‘push’. But it’s a front leg. Useful. I can feel a head, but no second leg. OK, Neil, use your previous experience. I pull the single leg and feel for the shoulder of the other. I can’t find it, but pulling on the one leg and easing the head out gets me part way there. Now, tempting as it is to pull the leg and head that is a ‘no go’. So I feel for that elusive shoulder and applying a gentle pull out comes a big lamb. Nice one. I feel for the other lamb – it’s close. And again it’s a ‘one leg’, but as it’s the second lamb and it’s smaller it comes out easily. Mum has plenty of milk and it’s great to welcome the lambs, doctor them and pen the family.

Absolutely foul weather during the afternoon and the temperature drops. A mixture of rain and snow changes to pure, thick, heavy snow. The pens in the lambing sheds are full and need to be emptied, so despite the weather Dafydd and I move ewes and their lambs around. Then it’s around everyone doing the feeding. Cars arriving back at the holiday cottage are covered in slushy snow. This is the reality of lambing in the Berwyn Mountains!

It’s good to get a short ‘paned’ break – with particularly delicious carrot cake which Dafydd and I enjoy and Rhian doesn’t like! Result!

I retire to my bothy at the end of the afternoon, but as there is a rescue effort of ewes and lambs that potentially won’t get on well in this terrible weather I volunteer to ‘check the sheds’ while Rhian and Dafydd are away getting them back in. And I’m kept on my toes – lambs from a single in The Barrier and a double in The Big Shed. All straightforward deliveries and the mums have plenty of milk. Luckily, just as I am catching another ewe I am concerned about, Rhian arrives back and assists with the delivery of a first lamb, agreeing to watch for the second. And, having put it off for some time, we catch a lame ewe so that Rhian can deal with its foot (a seemingly cruel process involving lots of cutting of ‘nail’ and pad – which usually involves lot of blood; but the outcome is a ewe which can walk better).

Just as I’m finishing an update of this blog my phone rings and its ‘me old mate Martin’. It is always good to hear from Martin and to catch up with LOMVC news. Then I hear the sound of a tractor coming up the lane. This can only mean one thing - another delivery of straw. The tractor is amazing and the cockpit looks like it has more controls than a cruise liner. Although it is impressively flexible in what it can do, the process takes a while. 1) lower trailer tow bar to the ground. 2) unhitch the trailer. 3) use the front spikes to stab the bale of hay and lift it from the trailer. 4) manoeuvre tractor and bale so that it can be taken to the correct place 5) lower bale onto second trailer where straw is stored. (Now there is an extra task – the second trailer’s tow bar was pushed off its parking block last time and needs to be lifted back on. There has to be a Health and Safety issue about using the spikes to lift the towbar but I’m not going there – In fact I’m standing well clear.) 6) reverse tractor to road trailer and manoeuvre hitch into ring of towbar. 7) lift hitch and check that trailer is firmly attached 8) The End!

All this makes me very late getting to Bala but luckily my ‘pole position’ parking space is available and the WiFi connection via Barclays is good. Thank you again, Barclays!

Wednesday, 30^th March

A text arrives at 2.00 am asking me to delay my ‘patrol’ from 2.30 am to 3.15 am. At 3.15 am the cacophony of reset alarms ensure that I get up and start the check round the farm.

I’m feeling like I have been let off the hook in terms of lambings tonight when I spot a lone little lamb amongst a shed of ewes waiting to lamb. Two ewes are making a bit of a fuss of it. So it seems that my task is to find which one is the mum. However, I can see that neither of them have recently given birth. I check the rest of the ewes in this shed. None seem to have given birth. It’s a quandary. Then, in the corner of a dark pen, I spot a ewe which almost blends into the background. Maybe it’s because I’m tired, maybe it’s because the convention is to use the next pen nearest to the door, not the one furthest away, that I haven’t noticed until now. She has one lamb in the pen. She should have two. I put the stray lamb in the pen; mum licks it. All is sorted.

I check The Tap (it’s a shed with a tap in it!). A barrier across this shed allows lambs to squeeze through to their own area, keep warm under the lamp and eat ‘creep’ (special lambs’ food) but keeps the ewes out. It’s fun to see the gaggle of lambs playing together in their own ‘playground’.

Nothing further that I need to deal with, apart from a ewe that has broken out of her pen with her lamb and needs to be caught and returned. I return to my bothy. It’s a starry, starry night again and I’m getting better with the words. Perish the thought that one day I’ll end up in an old people’s home where the residents are expected to participate in reminiscence singing. But if I do I hope it’s more ‘Starry, Starry Night’ and less ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’!

When I get up at 7.30 am, predictably with the new straw having arrived, rather than feed I am to put fresh bedding EVERYWHERE. This is no small task and takes about an hour before I can get on with the usual feeding. But it’s needed as the wet weather has meant conditions underfoot are damp in some places.

More and more of the sheds now have up to ten ewes and their lambs in them. The lambs have fun, chasing each other round, testing the boundaries of trying to steal a suckle from another mum, and creeping through gaps out of the shed if they get the chance. And as they develop they ‘spring’ about almost vertically in a very characteristic way (is this why it is called ‘springtime?!).

Frequently, as we are moving ewes and their lambs to new quarters, the first thing the ewe does, rather than make a fuss of her lamb, is to grab at any food left over, or hay around to grab on the way. I’m wondering if Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs applies to sheep?!

When we started lambing we had an expected ‘throughput’ of about 500 ewes. We now have about 40 ewes expecting twins and 20 ewes expecting single lambs left. Although the rate of births is slowing down they still keep occurring and I have a good day, pulling several sets of twins and a single as well as identifying a couple of breach births for which I call for help. I seem to have a good reputation for identifying breach births.

I seem to have picked up the regular 10 pm check. Not especially onerous at this point and it means that Rhian can get a bit more sleep.

Thursday, 31^st March

Another text at 1.45 am asking me to delay the 2.30 am patrol to 3.15 am. Reset alarms and go back to sleep. Up at 3.15 am and a quick round shows that Rhian has had a couple of births but there is nothing for me to deal with. There’s frost on the ground, but it’s not as cold as I had expected.

‘Blindy’ is making a terrible groaning/wailing noise. Having been shown earlier in this blog taking her ‘OK’ twins out into her familiar field this blind ewe was later found paralysed at the side of her field. The blame was initially placed on being hit by the tractor spreading fertiliser in that field the previous day. She was brought in, with her lambs, and propped up between hay bales. For several days she has looked to me to be at death’s door, almost lifeless, but in the way she does, Rhian has ensured that she receives what is regarded as appropriate treatment, including a shot of a very expensive drug. I’m not sure if tonight Blindy is giving her last gasps or calling for her twins which are in a pen 50 m away. I don’t want to increase her pain, and I know that sensing people around but not knowing where they are and what their intentions are, distresses her, so I stay away.

Back to my bothy and the fire has died down more than I had expected. But a few ‘night sticks’ bring it back to life pretty quickly. And then back to bed and again it takes me ages to go to sleep. In fact it seems to me that I still haven’t slept when Rhian and Lester start the morning feeding. Later Rhian tells me that that could not have been the case.

I wake up feeling it must be time for the 7.30 am alarm to go off. Struggle to focus on the clock and it is indeed coming up to half past something. Light on. Sheer joy! It’s 6.30 am – another hour to rest.

Despite the extra dozing time getting up, getting dressed and getting out is laborious. There is now a heavy frost and the standpipe needs to be thawed. I undertake my usual tasks, enjoying the increasing warmth as the sun comes up.

The triplets are looking good.

As I watch the lambs in the sheds, playing, chasing and bouncing about it occurs to me that they have far more ‘personality’ now than they will have when they are adults. Perhaps adult sheep are just very laid back – the effect of a regular intake of ‘grass’?! Talking of which, I’ve been trying to find out on the Internet what might be wrong with the Ewe 2 milk machine, but apart from good lambing techniques the predominant results for ‘Ewe 2’ seem to be about ‘feminised marijuana’!

The weather forecast is good so I must take the opportunity to do some washing. It’s a bit of a fuss washing the various items in the sheep tub/shower tray, rinsing them in a water bucket under a standpipe and in between each of these carrying them across to the spin dryer plugged in near the holiday cottage. And whereas the process I remember using in the days of a ‘twintub’ was to move from whites to coloured, my route is from dirty to filthy. As I wash the last items I have to ask myself if they are getting dirtier by being put into the grimy water. I guess Surf biological, with some nonsensical claim to a fragrance (mountain strawberry and red ruby, or something), along with the excellent soft water, will at least mean that the dirt is clean!

Rhian heads off to work for a few hours, leaving me a somewhat random list of things to do. Move three ewes and their twins to The Mound, replace a bulb in The Tap, spin dry two towels she has washed, find a lost feeder for some lambs and hang the tarpolies up to dry; oh yes, and check the sheds, of course! Well I won’t get bored as I haven’t even had time for my breakfast yet.

Lyndsay from YCT calls – the forthcoming new financial year means a decision about some new documentation needs to be made. It’s good to catch up with her. More checking of ewes and lambs afterwards. The Life of Pi?!

A small challenge during the afternoon. A ewe I have been keeping an eye on for a few hours is acting slightly strangely and when I catch her I find why – a lamb unable to be born as its head is stuck. A bit of manipulation and I can get one leg out. That will do. Pull on the leg I have found, get a finger round the opposite shoulder and with a bit of pulling, and some swearing from the ewe, and out comes a big lamb. It doesn’t take long to get it breathing. I ‘search’ for the second lamb. It’s on its way, is quite a long way back, and feels like it is ‘head only’. I’ll leave her for a while to clean up her first lamb and see if things resolve. After an hour they haven’t and soon afterwards there’s the second lamb’s head hanging out. It’s no surprise. I catch her easily and search for a leg. Yep, I can get one and as with the first lamb, hooking my finger on its shoulder, I can get it out. Result! Two healthy, live, lambs which would potentially not have survived without the intervention.

Spring is on its way.

I usually write up updates to this blog in my bothy at the end of the afternoon sheep-feeding. Today, though, the weather has been good and the Berwyns look inviting. I can still see snow on the tops. As the furthest I have travelled since arriving here is the Coop in Bala I decide to take a drive up into the mountains. So this update is being written ‘up in the hills’ with some excellent views. I believe I can see ‘The Lake in the Clouds’ for the first time.

A very pleasant hour across the valley in the hills I can see from my bothy.

Emails, updates and shopping and back 'home' to cook my evening meal.

It’s a bit of a struggle to stay awake for the 10 pm check, and I have an idea Rhian is still around at 9.30 pm. No surprise then that there is nothing to deal with apart from a ewe which has broken out.

Friday, 1^st April

It is now agreed that I will do a 10 pm and 3 am check. Not too difficult getting up for the 3 am patrol, but the temperature inside my bothy has dropped to an unusual 17 degrees! A quick round, an escaped lamb put back with its mother here and there, and back in my bothy in 19 minutes. The fire needs night sticks to perk it up, but it behaves itself and is soon ready for a helping of coal to see it through the rest of the night.

I guess I must be getting enough sleep as I wake up 25 minutes before the alarm.

It’s going to be a busy start to the day as Rhian needs to be away for a few hours. A selection of tasks, some from Rhian and some I have been looking for spare time to deal with. A huge lamb was brought back in from the fields with its mother, has failed to rally and has died overnight. Rhian wants me to cut the legs of it so that she can skin it and use it as a jacket for an adoptee. Next the usual feeding, prop Blindy up and get her to eat (which she does voraciously), air a mat of Rhian's over my fire, put some straw bedding down in various sheds, pull Blindy onto her side, collect her lambs and let them suckle and hang a tarpoli up to dry. Watch the sheds, of course.

Rhian leaves and unusually won’t be at the end of a phone to provide backup if needed. She’s going to a funeral, the second of the week. As she leaves I say that it’s probably inappropriate to hope she has a good day. Rhian says that it will be a nice way to relax!

I’m pleased to deal successfully with some births and not to have to call emergency contact, Gwyn. In a way it’s a shame as I enjoy Gwyn’s company – he has a good sense of humour.

On my ‘to do’ list is: to check the water supply from the dam to the field (it turns out it needs unblocking); collect up all the aerosol sheep markers from the various places they have been left and throw out the many spent ones; sort out the balertwine I have saved; refill the bird-feeders outside my bothy. Have a cup of coffee and a chocolate biscuit at a mid-morning break. And watch the sheds!

In fact I’ve been watching four ewes in the ‘doubles’ shed on and off all morning, one is acting in a slightly unusual way, three are looking to me that they are on the route to their lambing. Turns out I am right with one – still waiting for the others!

Rhian returns, having been back to her home farm, and has collected the replacement TV/satellite socket I have ordered to replace a faulty one in one of the holiday cottages. I’ll deal with that later as, when I return to my bothy for lunch my inattention has allowed the fire to go out. This is an ideal opportunity to sweep the chimney with my special chimney-sweeping brush; I manage to get the brush almost all the way up the chimney, which is not bad given that it has to go through two bends – good news.

A quick trip to Bala to fit the replacement socket – an easy job as it’s a direct replacement. Then back for the afternoon feeding.

One little lamb has big ideas – sampling the adult’s food!

I’m not expecting anything during the 10 pm check so I’m surprised to spot a ‘single’ looking like she is ready to lamb. It’s a bit of a gallop round the shed to get her. In fact when Rhian and I chat about it we both agree that it is now more difficult to catch the ewes. Rhian thinks it is because we are tired. I think it is because with less sheep in the sheds it is easier for them to duck and dive and get away. It is probably a combination of both.

The ewe has got a big lamb, but I pull it successfully, doctor and pen it. Check the rest of the sheds – there are a few lambs that have escaped and need to be returned to their proper home – but no further lambings.

Saturday, 2^nd April

It probably takes me more time to put my clothes, including waterproofs, on and subsequently take them off again, than it does to get round the sheds – there are no births in the offing. Back to bed.

My first task of the morning is becoming a regular one – cut the legs off a lamb that has died overnight so that it can be skinned and rehomed. Rhian tells me that she asks me to do it as I am better than her at it. I’m not so sure. And she reckons she will soon have me skinning the lambs. I don’t think so!

There is always a change of priorities on Saturdays as holiday cottages have to be cleaned and it seems to me that lambing becomes much less important. I take advantage of the shower in ‘our’ holiday cottage after which I ‘check the sheds’. I also have time to catch up on a few more maintenance tasks. It’s nice to have adequate supplies of some things – I’d be off to B & Q and not know whether to buy a pack of five or a pack of twenty.

All is fairly calm.

Just starting my lunch when Rhian phones to ask if I could nip down to one of the holiday places to look at a dripping tap on an old washbasin. Not my favourite task as, with age, things get corroded and using too much force to undo the tap can easily break the porcelain basin. Oh well, I’ll give it a try.

It turns out to be fairly straightforward, although it requires a trip to the hardware shop to get some ½” tap washers. Result.

Back at the farm I can make an early start on feeding. But then DISASTER! The oil on the quad bike is being topped up when the next occupants of the holiday cottage arrive. The quad bike is moved to enable their two cars to be parked, after which the oil filler cap can’t be found. The bike won’t run as there will be no crankcase pressure without the cap screwed in tightly. An hour of searching reveals nothing. The bike is needed to carry heavy bags of feed up the hills. Attitude in abundance! Dafydd heads off with a huge, heavy sack of feed over his shoulder. Rhian takes a smaller – but still heavy – sack. The mood is gloomy and I am left to ‘check the sheds’.

I’ve previously suggested that Rhian should look at two ewes which have been mithering for some time, but they have not been checked. One is now on her side, ready to lamb. She doesn’t move as I approach her - not good news. A quick internal and I can tell it’s a ‘head only’ job. At this stage I would usually call Rhian. But she is up the hill on foot and can’t easily come back quickly. Get on with it yourself, Neil! Luckily for both the ewe and myself she has ‘opened’ adequately, allowing me to search for legs. I find one, it’s a front leg and decide to go for it. I’m successful, although the lamb I pull needs considerable encouragement to start breathing, but eventually does. In for the second lamb and again it’s a ‘head only’ case. Same technique, same result – a live lamb and more willing to start breathing. Pleased with myself, not so pleased with Rhian’s comment later that they would have lived until she got back!

We are now really late with the afternoon feeding, Dafydd who would usually help has to leave, and it’s a long slog to get everyone fed – but eventually they are.

A second ewe I had been concerned about now becomes the focus of attention and somehow it is my fault that this ewe has been labouring for so long (well I HAD mentioned it….!). Ah well, not many births left now!

And at least there is now enough daylight to allow me to spend 30 minutes up in the mountains enjoying the solitude and the views – and a chocolate biscuit!

I drop back down to Bala. It’s strange that several times when I’ve been a bit p’d off – as I am today about the events of the afternoon – I get an email that cheers me up. Today is no exception as, as I download my emails, there is one from a super choir member whose kind comments cheer me up enormously.

Back to the bothy and, good news Rhian has found the oil filler cap. It turns out that the dark metal part we have been looking for is actually a light plastic part! It was under the quad bike where we ‘shook’ it. What a relief. The quad bike is so much a part of the work here that being without the use of it would be almost impossible.

The 10 pm check yields no lambing ewes, so it’s into bed pretty soon.

Sunday, 3^rd April

I’m not expecting any lambings when I get up for the 3 am check and indeed there are none. I do notice, though, that it is strangely quiet – the usual owl-hooting is missing, as is the bleating of ewes and lambs in the fields. Strange. I’m back inside within 19 minutes. It’s a pity that it then takes me more than 30 minutes to go back to sleep! (I know this because I set the timer on the TV for 30 minutes and it has switched off before I have!).

There are no legs to be cut off dead lambs when I meet Rhian in the morning. A lady from the holiday cottage has shown an interest in the cute lambs. I show her a few. She is entranced. Very nice but it takes up time when I   could be feeding! Somehow I manage to get through the feeding fairly quickly. Rhian is going to have a rest – she deserves it – and I head off for my breakfast. I realise when I wash my hands just how rough and cut they are. That’s normal for this time of the lambing season. I’m reminded of a joke I read recently on Facebook about a daughter talking to her Basildon mother. “Mummy, why are your hands so soft?” To which mum replies “I’m twelve.”

A few more birds have been around. Wrens are now darting about and there are buzzards soaring high up in the hills. Nice

It’s a better morning than is forecast and after my breakfast I check the sheds. I have to admit the cute little lamb that runs up to me every time I go into the shed always gets my attention! I don’t kid myself that the attention it pays me is anything other than the expectation/hope of being fed!

To my surprise there is a ‘double’ looking like she is starting to lamb. In no time she is on her side and I jump in to assist. It a fairly standard delivery, although it’s a big lamb and I have to put some effort into pulling it – and even more effort into getting it breathing. I give the mum a while to ‘bring the next lamb up’, which she does impressively quickly. I grab her as she careers round the shed – I have learned that once I have a handhold I mustn’t let go, even if it does mean toppling over and being dragged across the straw – which in this case is what happens. The second lamb is a ‘head and one leg’ job. I’m rather pleased that I now am no longer in any way phased by this and rather than calling Rhian from her rest I confidently feel for the shoulder while pulling on the leg I have, and out comes a second lamb. It breathes easily.

Time to check the various water supply arrangements – all are operating well and an advantage is that on the way back I can take advantage of collecting some wood. This year I have been especially lucky in collecting some very dry wood. It has almost fossilised. Strong, but at the same time rather than having to be sawn it has a brittle quality that means it can be snapped by being hit hard against the sharp corner of one of the kerbstones around my bothy. It gives a satisfying ring as it snaps.

The thick balertwine that is used on the straw bales is very strong and I don’t like to see it wasted by being burned or thrown away. In order to recycle it I plait it into ropes. Not sure what to use them for but I hope they come in handy!

There’s some moving of new lambs to be done, but with worse weather forecast not too many will be going out far.

And now we have another disaster! Gwil has come to move some of the more mature lambs and ewes around. He heads off on the quad bike (thankfully fully in use again) with two sheep dogs. When he returns he has lost his mobile phone somewhere. He has been back and forward on the bike in fields, through the woods bringing errant sheep back, and far up the hills. Finding it again is going to be a slim chance! He goes off for an hour trying to find it. Some hope. The recriminations are many and varied. That retrospective smugness about what would have avoided it being lost isn’t much use!

Feeding takes a long time as the ewes and lambs are spread across a range of accommodation,. Dafydd and Rhian head off as usual to feed the ewes in the fields. It turns out that they stop in a part of a 100 acre field, trying to get a ewe back with her lambs when, right beside the quad bike Rhian spots Gwil’s lost phone! Wow! What a stroke of luck!

The afternoon’s work is almost over and I help Rhian by doing a bit of bottle-feeding. Just finishing that when I am called to help Rhian. A ewe is very ill. She believes its food has gone down the wrong way so the treatment is for us to hang it by its back legs and shake! Then it is pumped full of all sorts of medication. As I leave it it seems to me that it is drawing its last gasps. Poor thing.

As it’s Sunday it’s time to catch up with my sister by phone. We are both busy it seems. She asks me if I am glad to be going back to London on Wednesday. That’s a difficult one to answer. In a way I am and in a way I’m not! It will be good to be back in civilisation, meet up with friends, have easy access to a shower and washing facilities and almost constant access to the internet and a decent mobile phone signal. On the other hand I am so used to being here that it feels like I live here and that this is home. The constant challenge of the work is invigorating when it’s not draining. A variety of tasks throughout the day, mainly set by others, reduces the responsibility I have for my own workload.

Partly as a result of a late finish and partly because of watching Countryfile (it has to be done!) I am late heading to Bala for emails etc. And made even later, having said I’ll check round before I go, by the birth of twins that holds me up and means that I have to go back to my bothy to clean up again. I have to go to Bala as I need to distribute a load of emails about a work party at the weekend and Vodafone/Google think I am sending Spam if I try to send more than about 40 per time. I have to do it over four sessions spread 24 hours apart! The LOMVC weekly email system is SO much better.

Pole position outside Barclays – couldn’t be better.

At 10 pm the rain is torrential – it was forecast as coming earlier so in a way we are lucky. I check round the sheds at 10 pm as well as looking in on the very sick ewe. She is still alive, but not by very much, it seems.

Monday, 4^th April

The 3 am check is an ‘all clear’ although the rain is still hammering down. To my surprise the almost-dead ewe is now standing up, pacing round and bleating for her lambs which are in a pen next door. It seems reasonable to put them in with her (although I am not sure what medication will now be in her milk!). She reacts as if they are strangers, moving away from them and butting them. Not a good move. I take them away again. Back to my bothy. Takes ages to go to sleep.

Up again at my usual time. The rain has stopped drumming on the roof but I’m expecting to take in a gloomy view as I open the bothy door (I really should get into the habit of opening the blinds!). Not so! It’s a lovely morning. Bright and colourful and temperature inversion means that white mist is filling the valley below. I had meant to discuss with Rhian the remarkable recovery the ewe has made. Rhian has had the same experience with the sick ewe rejection of her lambs. Rhian thinks she has died and come back to life and in doing so has forgotten that she has given birth. The ewe won’t take the lambs back so she is put in ‘the stocks’ where her head is trapped so she can’t turn round and a bar either side of her prevents her from moving when her lambs try to suckle. I have never liked this device, but it does the job and is better than some of the ‘tied up with balertwine’ arrangements that are sometimes used.

One of the pet lambs has had a treat overnight – it has managed to break out of the pet lambs’ pen and eaten a bunch of daffodils Rhian has collected to welcome the next occupants of the holiday cottage!

It seems that feeding has taken less time than usual and it is only when I get back into my bothy that I realise that I have already been on the go for 2 hours. Rhian is heading off to work and the pressure is off, giving me time for a slightly relaxed breakfast and the opportunity to chat to the people from the holiday cottage.

I can also catch up with a task Dafydd wants done – fit new lawnmower blades on the mowers he uses during the summer to tidy up around the holiday cottage. It turns out that my ebay order for two of the mowers is correct, but the third is not. So if anyone can make use of plastic lawnmower blades to fit a Minimo E25. E30 or PlusXE let me know! When I ordered them it was cheaper to buy 24 than to buy 4! Nevertheless, not an economical move!

I have the first opportunity since I arrived here to draft a few emails during the day that I can send when I next have internet access. But this opportunity is curtailed when Dafydd arrives and we start moving ewes and lambs around. A small glitch when we find a little lamb nestled in the straw in a pen. Half an hour earlier its mum has been assumed to have only one lamb, has been re-marked as only having one lamb and has been sent, with that lamb, up into the fields. It’s starting to rain again and we have to don waterproofs and head uphill to find this ewe and her lamb and bring her back down to reunite her with her second lamb. Luckily, unlike the others she has been released uphill with, she has been aware that she is missing a lamb and hasn’t gone too far. Dafydd and I slide around on the mud of the slopes to bring her and her lamb back down. She gets a further spray from the blue sheep-marking aerosol to cover the red that had been used to cover the original blue!!!

As I only have two evenings left here, and I missed my 30 minute break ‘up the mountain’ last night, I’ve made it clear that I would really like to finish early tonight. As the afternoon progresses it seems less and less likely that we will finish early. There’s what seems to me to be a slow messing about, not really getting ewes and lambs into their accommodation for the night very promptly, and preventing me from starting feeding. I potentially react less charitably than I could have when Rhian says I can start feeding while she and Dafydd head off up the fields to do the ‘outside’ feeding. Both of them then seem to remember that they had assured me that today would involve an early finish and that isn’t likely to happen. There’s a sudden rush to ‘help Neil’ and a not-very-efficient process kicks in with all three of us taking on the feeding. Inevitably some areas get some aspects missed. “Has Behind the Mesh had water?”  “Have the nuts in The Hospital been done?” “Do you need hay for The Train?” “The Tap look like they haven’t had new bedding.” So much energy and effort goes into getting the feeding finished early that I feel I have to make best use of my extended ‘free time’.

So, as I write this, I have again driven ‘up the mountain’ to the spot I have previously pictured, with a cup of coffee in my insulated mug and a couple of mint club biscuits! Luxury! Sun is shining through gaps in the low cloud that moves slowly across my view, picking up the purple of the low vegetation nearby, the bright green fields on the hills, dark green pine forests creeping over the mountains, and from time to time, reflections off the surface of ‘The Lake in the Clouds’

And not a bad view along Lyn Tegid (Lake Bala) on my way to do my emails.

I’m using up food so that as little as possible has to be taken home or thrown away. I’ve been fairly successful in reducing rubbish. I reckon in the time I’ve been here I have no more than a supermarket carrier bag’s worth. Much of this is as a result of burning anything that will burn and putting all cans/tins in the fire and then bashing them flat. It’s what we used to do at scout camps many years ago – the three ‘B’s – Burn, Bash and Bury. Although it’s fair to say that for weekend and half term Patrol Camps in the New Forest it was more a case of Burn, Bash and Bung. There must be many a gorse thicket concealing the rusted remains of our tins!

My 10 pm check has no births, but a ewe has wrecked her pen and that of her neighbour and it takes a while to re-construct the pens and get the correct lambs with the correct ewes.

Tuesday, 5^th April

Thankfully the 3 am check is uneventful and I am back in my bothy in 19 minutes!

When I get up for the start of my last full day the news is that another lamb has died. But my expectation that I will be asked to cut its legs off is unfounded – at this point in the day.

Bottle-feeding and then the daily morning trip round the sheds and pens to feed the inmates. Then later it’s time to start dismantling the pens – in this case as this shed is used for collecting and ‘drenching’ the sheep in a month or two’s time.

Doing any maintenance work in this environment has its extra features as often there are ewes and lambs either getting in the way or trying to show an interest. It can be annoying and it can be funny. Anything that involves small nuts and bolts or screws has to be done extra-carefully as once a small screw has fallen into the straw it is impossible to find it again. It’s the same with the hypodermic syringes used to inject each of the lambs – once one of those is dropped into the straw it is difficult to find it again and is obviously dangerous.

Rhian and I deal with a few births during the day and I enjoy some good views across the fields.

It seems my prediction that I wouldn't have to butcher the dead lamb was wrong! Its skin is needed for an adoption attempt. So out with the chopper and off with its legs! Leg of lamb anyone?!

Then my last afternoon feed of this season. Luckily it is started early enough as, despite the fact that many of the ewes have been moved around, the redistribution doesn’t actually mean less feeding.

Some of the lambs have started learning to eat hay like the adults!

Away early enough to take a drive to Afon Tryweryn, write up this blog and enjoy the views.

Friday, 6th April

And so, today, this year's lambing is over (for me).

It always takes an age to pack up 4 week's worth of use of my bothy. The girls always take priority over things like cleaning and tidying, and time away from them is spent resting or sleeping.

Unless the fire is cleaned it will be a mess next time - and for some reason I always take pride in cleaning the soot and grime off the inside of the glass of the door. Not really sure why as it will only take a few hours of the next fire being alight for it to be sooted-up again.

Eventually all cleaning and tidying is done and the car is packed. I have the choice of two routes by which to head home. Over to Corwen and down the A5 (longer but quicker) or over the Berwyn Mountains (shorter but longer - but definitely much prettier). I choose the latter. On my way I pass a caravan in a field which has recently become a henhouse (they MUST have been listening to a recent edition of The Archers!). Near the highest point of my route I stop for one last look, for a while, across these wild North Wales mountains that have been my home for the last month.

Then onward in and out of Wales as the road goes along the border. Through Knockin (where there really is a shop called 'The Knockin Shop' but I've done jokes about that before) and on to the A5 near Montford Bridge and the Field Studies Centre where I attended a workshop in January.

And so, with the visual stimuli getting ever greater - advertising boards especially, but also the insides of motorway services - I make the adjustment from the life of a Seasonal Shepherd up up in the hills, to the prospect of a very very different life 'down south'.

I'll be back in a few months, hopefully to spend some time relaxing and maybe doing some pieces of maintenance (the roofing felt on the roof of my bothy - yes I know it should really be covered in turf! - is showing signs of ageing, and therefore leaking).

Another year of lambing is over.