Monday 14 April 2008

Day thirteen-Lambs and magic eggs-Wiltshire then the Clent hills

Last night I was on lambing duty. Neil has a flock of 20 Jacob ewes on his holding and the last three woolly girls were ready to pop. We parked Ruby in the barn next to the sheep, thinking that this would be the night where all three of them would lamb with triplets. I checked on them at 1.30 and 4 in the morning but nothing other than a cheeky escapee lamb and the orphan lamb (Josh the girl) standing in her pen, bleating at her bottle, hoping it would magically give her some early breakfast. She really was quite hopeful. The disrupted sleep didn’t bother me, Oskar generally wakes up a few times during the night and what a night. Foxes cried to each other in their strange eerie banshee cry. Bat flitting through the umber mooned inky sky and that beautiful trick that the night plays on you-that the whole world is entirely yours.

We slept on in the morning. Probably because of our late night reminiscing with Neil and Jackie, a bottle of Camel Valleys finest, and the fact that the barn cast a subdued light on us in Ruby. When we woke and readied ourselves for breakfast we found that dawn pixies had left 6 eggs on our doorstep. Or it may have been Sasha and Harry Jackie and Neils daughters.

One of the ewesnext door was sniffing the strawy floor and making a nest. I mentioned it to Jason and we packed up Ruby ready for our next leg of the tour to the Clent Hills in Worcestershire. Jason looked over the wall and said in a hushed tone. Jade, Oskar look. Next to the ewe was a wobbly little lamb. Its mother nudged it and soon it was standing on its feet and drinking from its mother. Perfect.

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