In your field

It is great to be writing my first column this week, with it just being International Women’s Day and the global theme of Women in Leadership.

With the hotel, hospitality and tourist industries still in lockdown, you would think their purchasing power would be missed in the market with the knock-on effect being sharply felt at the farm gate with depressed prices.

We welcomed our son Arthur into the world on February 23. Isobel was an absolute hero and after a long labour and a bit of a scare he arrived surrounded by the midwives and doctors. We were home the next day and cannot thank the NHS enough.

A couple of weeks ago we lambed our Leicesters and were in a busy period of calving, the sun was shining and it really felt like spring. Lambs were starting to fill the fields further down the valley.

As spring approaches and the local amateur wildlife photographers start dusting off their cameras, the requests to come and photograph on the land start to come in.

A break in the weather has given us the opportunity to get out in the fields and try to get some jobs ticked off the list.

Our yearlings are lambing well, apart from the occasional large single. We designed the lambing shed so we did not have far to go to reach a bonding pen, which helps immensely with reluctant first time mums.

I think I tempted fate by mentioning the ’Beast from the East’ in my last column.

What a month February turned out to be. Mother nature put on quite the show, kicking off with rain, then the cold with extremely sharp and hard frosts, then came some snow and to finish we had a mix of strong winds and sunshine.

February fatigue is setting in and the novelty of our well-oiled winter routine has worn off – turnout cannot come fast enough.