by Sally Urwin
Saturday 26th May
It’s celebration day as we move all the pet lambs outside and turn off the Titty Machine.
It’s warm and sunny, and we attach the trailer to the quad bike, and gently move them all into the sheltered paddock in front of the house.
All twelve of the pet lambs are now sitting squeezed up against the outside shed wall with big eyes, staring at the field and sky. They’ve only known the lambing shed so far in their small lives, and being let out into a paddock has blown their tiny minds.
One of them occasionally gets up enough courage to go and nibble on the grass.2 The Spotty Brothers sit tight together, noses pointed to the sky in typical ‘lamb comfy pose’. Fuzzy is close beside them, tucked up against the fence with a bewildered expression. He smells a bit better now. He keeps shutting his eyes, maybe to block out the view of the paddock. Hopefully they’ll get brave enough to do a bit of grazing before long.
Sunday 27th May
Last night a ewe died in the field, due to rolling on her back and suffocating.
When we found her she’d been dead for a number of hours. Ben saw her and reported delightedly, ‘She’s dead! She’s dead! Daaaaaad, she’s even gone all bloaty!’
He wanted to poke her with a stick. This is his ‘go-to’ behaviour when seeing anything slightly disgusting.
The dead ewe left behind a pair of bonny lambs.
Heartbreakingly, once we take her out of the field in the loader trailer, the lambs sit tight on the ground where she’d died. I’ve just been down to check on them, and they’re still in the same spot.
Monday 28th May
The pair of orphaned lambs seem to be following around another ewe. She’s letting them sit close by to her, and although she won’t let them drink her milk, they look a bit happier. I hope they’re mature enough to cope with just a grass diet. We can’t give them any supplements: I don’t want to chase them to catch them to bring them inside; it would mean we’d have to feed every other lamb in the same field.
Tuesday 29th May
All our lambs are outside enjoying the sunshine, basking in the warmth. The orphaned twins have survived the night, and are tucked up close to their Aunty Ewe, with their noses pointed towards the sky. The pet lambs have their heads down in the grass enjoying their breakfast.
I spot someone walking through our front field. They have a dog on a lead, and another running loose.
We do have signs. Polite ones that I bought especially, asking dog owners to ‘Please keep your dogs on a lead as we are in lambing season’.
The dog walker reaches the gate and I see that he has two black Labradors.
‘Excuse me, we’re just at the end of lambing and I was wondering whether you could keep your dogs on a lead?’ I ask, mentally thankful that Steve isn’t here, who would have used much shorter and nastier words.
The dog walker turns and looks me up and down. He’s dressed for the warm weather, while I must look a right state, in stained farm overalls and filthy boots.
‘My dogs always come to call,’ he snaps sharply, pulling one dog to him by the collar, and clicking his fingers at the other.
‘Well, that’s great, but our sheep don’t know that,’ I say sweetly. ‘And they panic if they see a loose dog, and it makes them leave their lambs.’
The dog walker doesn’t say anything, but just marches on up the drive, his dogs following him at a short distance.
‘Thanks for that you complete and utter bellend!’ I shout as he walks past the brewery.
He shrugs his shoulders and continues up the path.
I wonder if I’ll become the subject of an irate Facebook post about a ‘very rude farmer who confronted me on a public footpath’. Most people counsel farmers not to lose their tempers and remain polite, but I’m tired and filthy and I keep seeing police posts on Twitter and Facebook with gory images of dog-worried sheep. Even the calmest family pet dog can go postal and start chasing stock, and I’m buggered if that’s going to happen to my ewes and lambs.
I’m shaking. I’m not very good at confrontation. Having a public footpath through our farm is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing as it brings business to the brewery and the wedding venue. A curse as some leave gates open, break stiles and drop litter. Or allow their pet dogs to roam free, ignoring my extremely polite notices.
Thursday 31st May
This evening I spend some time leaning out over my windowsill listening to the curlews and watching our sheep grazing in the back field. A few lambs are sitting with their heads tipped back, enjoying the spring sunshine.
I spot a hare crouched in the long grass beside the field gate. All I can see is a pair of twitching brown ears as he hunkers in a scrape in the ground.
After a while the hare tentatively moves into the open and comes towards the gate, lolloping through the wooden struts and onto the gravel drive.
He’s beautiful. I’ve never seen one so close up before. His long, slim ears are shell pink inside, and shade to a charcoal black at the very tips. His oddly human eyes are deep amber and outlined in black, while his thick coat is speckled with different tones of beige and brown.
I hold my breath, trying to keep as still as possible, as the hare hops across the grey stones. I can hear the delicate ‘chink, chink’ as the gravel moves beneath his paws, and I see the occasional flash of a pure white belly and chest.
Just then, one of the children makes a noise in the house, and the hare freezes, then bolts across the gravel and back into the field. He doesn’t run in a straight line, but ‘jinks’ from side to side, as if he’s running away from an imaginary pursuer. Maybe he was looking for a mate?
We regularly see hares ‘boxing’ in our front and back fields, and it’s common to see them run across the road in front of our cars, but I’ve never seen one come so close to the house.
Friday 1st June
Even though lambing has finished and all the dreadful stress has passed, I suddenly have an attack of anxiety. Everything assumes the proportions of a disaster. The future looks bleak. Steve will never get another job. We’re all doomed.
I’ve no idea why my mind does this to me. It waits until I lower my guard and then all the panic and neuroses come flooding back.
I spend the day doing unhelpful things. Eating sugar. Sleeping too much. Stressing about how overweight and unfit I am. Not having a shower. Obsessively checking social media, and scrolling through other people’s Instagram posts to peer at their perfect and worry-free lives.
After a couple of days of this I reach rock bottom, and force myself out for a walk. I trundle down to the wood and spend thirty minutes marching through the brambles, pushing myself to examine the trees and listen for birdsong, and to smell the daffodils. My mind is still chattering at high speed, but being outside gives me a glimpse of perspective.
Of course, life still goes on. I can’t stop feeding the children, looking after the sheep or doing the housework just because I’m anxious. To an outsider, I look OK. Probably a bit jittery and tired, but still coping and being an adult, doing grown-up things.
When I’m this anxious I escape by reading lots of books. I read voraciously, two to three books a week, gulping down novels and nonfiction and anything I can get my hands on. Losing myself in someone else’s world helps me to anaesthetise my brain and stop the chattering of real life. But it’s only a temporary relief; when you turn the last page or switch off your bedside light, the insidious anxieties creep back, often stronger than before.
Steve has been looking for jobs and has been on a couple more interviews. He’d have no problem finding a great full-time job as a site manager, but part-time work is few and far between. Our finances are stretched to the limit. My car has also just failed its MOT and according to the garage, the repair bill will be well over £400. I can’t afford to have it fixed, so with a heavy heart I tell the DVLA that I’ve taken it off the road. I’ll just have to beg lifts until we can manage to scrape together the money to run it
again.
Saturday 2nd June
My anxiety is so bad that I’m finding it hard to get out of bed let alone the house. I carry around a feeling of impending disaster, and tiny setbacks make me burst into tears.
Eventually Steve persuades me to see the doctor, and after an appointment with the local surgery I come back out with some new antidepressants and a recommendation for mindfulness and more exercise.
The feed bill from lambing plops onto the mat and it’s much bigger than normal, due to the extra sheep feed we’ve been giving the sheep to keep them going through the horrible weather.
I’m not sure what to do but begin taking the tablets and force myself outside for a walk every day.
Sunday 3rd June
We’re not the only ones feeling the pinch. Poor grass growth, big heating bills and no money coming in from crops or sheep has pushed many local farmers to the brink. At least the kids have free school meals and Granny and Grandad to help them out with uniform and shoes.
In desperation we ring the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution (RABI).3 It’s embarrassing to have to ask for help, but we’re not sure what else to do. The nice man at the end of the RABI helpline asks lots of questions. He tells us that mental health in farmers is at an all-time low, and he has personally spoken to a lot of people in agriculture who are finding it hard to make ends meet. This makes us feel better, knowing that we’re not the only ones. He promises to come out soon and have a chat to see what they can do.
This isn’t something I would normally tell people, but once I start sheepishly mentioning on Twitter that we’re going through a rough patch, the kind messages start flooding through. Other farmers tell me how close to the breaking point they’ve been, and lots of people send such lovely emails that I’m in tears.4
Tuesday 5th June
The grass is really starting to ‘come away’. We’ve had a couple of days of rain, which has put a stop to the ploughing and drilling, but today I can see that the sudden moisture has provided a flush of new grassy growth.
The pet lambs in the paddock are beginning to grow into chunky little individuals, and the ewes in the big fields are looking less scrawny. Pregnancy and producing milk make a sheep lose condition, but good grass is the best medicine, and really makes a difference to their weight.
All the sheep need treating with fly repellent and dosing with wormer, and the ewes need dagging, to remove any dried-on ‘poo danglers’ from their rear ends. The repellent and dagging will hopefully stop any fly strike, and will make things easier for our shearer when he comes in the next few weeks.
Fly strike is very unpleasant. It can happen overnight, and the first sign is an itchy sheep who can’t stop scratching against fence posts or stone walls. In warm weather flies start to breed, and they will lay their eggs in the warm, smelly fleece around a sheep’s bottom. The maggots hatch and burrow into the skin, making the sheep scratch, breaking the skin even further. This is the reason that farmers dock the tails of lambs, and one good reason to shear sheep’s fleece. If tails and fleece are left long they get covered in faeces, and are a perfect target for egg-laying bluebottles. If it’s left too long a sheep will lose weight, and can even die from blood loss and septicaemia.
We treat the sheep before and during the fly season, and keep a close eye on the flock during the warm weather.
Spraying, dagging and worming is a long job with a big flock, so the earlier we start the sooner we’ll finish. Also, we don’t want to be moving sheep during the hottest part of the day as it makes them too hot and stresses their systems.
Mavis is sent round the back field to gather the flock together. It’s a tricky job, as the lambs get confused and lose their mothers, and then the ewes start bleating for them, and refuse to move towards the gate. Eventually, after a bit of arm flapping and shouting, they’re all gathered into the farmyard and out of the sun.
Even after that short run the ewes are panting heavily. Their fleece makes them overheat, and the sooner we can get them sheared the better. Except our shearer, John, is in great demand, with plenty of other farmers needing his services, so we will have to be patient and wait in the queue.
Then the work begins. I drive a few lambs and ewes at a time into the barn, and Steve catches each lamb and gives them a dose of the worm drench. I don’t suppose it tastes very nice, and there’s a real skill to grabbing each lamb, pushing the syringe properly into their mouths to make sure it goes down their throat. Each ewe needs to be caught and her head put into a circle of twine, so that Steve can use the electric clippers to cut off the soiled fleece at her rear and spray her along the back and sides with repellent.
It’s a sweaty, dirty, backbreaking job. Sometimes a ewe’s backside is absolutely plastered in green poo as a result of eating fresh grass. Steve’s hands are slippery and at the end of the morning he’s aching and splattered from head to toe with dung and worm drench.
I take over while he eats a sandwich and has a cup of tea. The lambs wriggle in panic and lunge away when I try to hold them still to squirt in the wormer. These aren’t cute little babies any more, but thick-set, muscled animals, with some real strength behind their snub noses and cute faces. I’m sweating while I struggle to catch each one and hold them still. While I’m bent over trying to give a lamb a dose of wormer, another one jumps past at head height, giving me a right crack against the side of my skull. I sit down suddenly and drop the wormer, spilling the white medicine all over the floor.
It’s not serious, but I have a rather good bruise on my right cheekbone. Steve sends me out for a bit of fresh air and a cup of tea while he carries on with the rest.
I sit on the cobbles with my head in my hands. Sometimes I think I’m not much use. I know it’s not all to do with strength, but rather the knack of knowing how to hold and immobilise a lamb, so that it can’t pull away from your grasp. Even so, sometimes I wonder if Steve would have been better with a great strong farmer’s daughter as a wife, rather than a weedy shortarse …
Wednesday 6th June
All the ewes and lambs have been dagged and dosed, and now they’re out in the fields, head down, munching through the grass. We’ll need to dose the lambs again in another few weeks, but for the meantime the flock is peaceful and enjoying the sunshine.
The mark on my cheekbone has developed into a full-blown black eye. The kids inspect it solemnly and Ben asks me to tell him again how the lamb bashed into me. I must remember to watch the children around the animals. Not so long ago, Lucy was helping us move some sheep into the ring at the Mart, and a ewe ran into her from behind, knocking her off her feet and giving her some nasty bruises up her legs and spine. They can be rough, dangerous animals, especially with children handlers.
Thursday 7th June
Today we’re nervous, as someone from RABI is visiting the house.
Once the kids are at school we gather our bank statements and bills together and wait for the appointment, biting our nails and drinking endless cups of tea. When the RABI rep arrives he’s very nice and sympathetic, and carefully goes through our accounts to give an outline on how he can help.
RABI doesn’t assist with business finances, but will help us with our household bills, such as heating oil and clothes for the kids. He’s lovely and discreet and I babble on to him about how hard lambing has been, and farming in general. He nods and says all the right things, but when he leaves I walk into the lounge to find Steve sitting on the sofa quietly, his head in his hands.
I know what he’s thinking. Steve prides himself on being able to provide for his family, and the knowledge that he’s not making enough money to even pay for our weekly food bill hits him very hard.
We’ve done everything we can – stretched finances, invested wisely, cut back all our expenses – but we just can’t make ends meet. We sit in silence next to each other, each one with our own thoughts, until it’s time to go back out to check the sheep.
Friday 8th June
Good news at last
. Steve has managed to find a part-time job. It’s not a site manager’s job but rather working at the local agricultural merchant’s in Hexham. He’ll work three days a week and then fit the farm work into the remaining four days. At least now he’ll have a regular monthly income; we celebrate with fish and chips from the local chippie.
We tell an elderly farming friend. ‘But why do you need another job?’ he says. ‘Won’t you be embarrassed to be working behind the counter, to be serving other farmers?’
I don’t think they understand how desperate our finances have become.
Once the kids are in bed we sit down and work out a budget. There will be no money for luxuries and new clothes, but the relief of having a regular income makes us leap up and dance around the kitchen. The children don’t understand what’s going on, but they lean over the bannister and laugh at us waltzing around the dining room table. Things might be looking up.
Monday 11th June
RABI have sent us a letter. It reads: ‘I am sorry to learn of the difficulties you have been facing and wish to help where we can. We are unable to help with business bills but can give a grant towards domestic costs.’
They have enclosed a small cheque to ‘assist with the purchase of heating oil and help with further household bills’.
We are very grateful. It feels mortifying asking for help, and I don’t suppose anyone knows how much we struggle with day-to-day costs. From the outside, we look on an even keel. We run a car, the kids are in clean clothes and have enough to eat, but it’s all a very thin veneer. I never thought we’d have to turn to charity to survive, and I feel a curdling mixture of gratitude and shame as I look at the cheque.