Farm Life, March 2020

I seem to have taken hundreds of photos of hens this month. I have a few fancy ones and their hilarious bouffants amuse me every time I see them. Photographing them though seems to be harder than it looks and I was happy with one photo until I went back and I had chopped the top of her head off.

Don’t worry, I will continue to try.

Before the madness of the world began, the farmer needed a tractor part from a machinery place so, with the older two at school, the youngest and I tagged along and we told the baby we were going to Tractor Land. He was so excited looking at all of the machinery and picking out the ones Daddy would buy and which he would buy when he was a grown up. It was lovely pretending we only had one child and we even sneaked in a lunch stop.

We tend to feed the ducks and the goats at a similar time each day-usually after school and we had a great adventure one day when, with my back turned, the goats all escaped and had a lovely run around the farm. The children usually love the goats but, with the speed of their escape and the frolicking joy of their freedom, the boys went and jumped up on the bike and my daughter hid behind a bale until a laughing goat mother rounded them up single handedly and the older boy shut the door for me.

The ground is just still too wet for them to be out for any amount of time so I am hoping a dry spell will help.

The farmer ordered bag muck to be put on the fields which is aways a sign of Spring. It is basically a fertiliser to help the grass grow.

Betsy, the original sheep from last month’s Farm Life, was taken back to the main flock by the farmer-much to the dismay of the children but their sadness was short lived as Betsy II came to live with us shortly after.
She was the pet lamb of a friend who could no longer look after her so obviously we took on the role of adoptive owners and she came in the boot of a car. Betsy did not come alone. She lives with a giant sot toy which she is very attached to an will follow the toy around.

We have readied the barn for lambing and Betsy (and her soft toy) were in there, waiting for the rest of the sheep to come over and we got them all up with minimal fuss and I am so pleased that we have something else to go and look at.

Betsy II has a really distinctive bleat and you can hear her wherever she is. In the photo below, the is in the middle at the front bleating and always comes over to see us.

Betsy I had a dramatic entrance to the lambing shed as she is lame so she got a ride on the back of the quad be to the trailer and it really looked like the farmer was hugging her. We love both Betsy’s and hope they will be friends.

We have planted quite a few seeds in the last week so my kitchen window sill looks like a plant nursery as ornaments have been boxed away until it is warmer for seedlings to go out. I think many people are in the same boat with this uncertainty so let’s see if anything grows for us this year.

Farm life in March has been a strange affair because of everything that is going on in the wider world but, of course the animals need feeding and preparations need to be made for lambing. The normality of animals is definitely helping in these scary and uncertain times.