It's a lamb's life

After the long dry spell, our farmer neighbour was well pleased with the rain as the grass had stopped growing.  When that happens he has to put out bales of silage, which the sheep reluctantly eat until the grass starts growing again. Once fresh grass is on the menu, then they turn up their noses at the old silage which has to be removed from the fields. Food waste!

Dol Moch Lamb

Along with the rain came a cold snap, with icy arctic winds and ground frost; not the best time of year to be a newly born baby lamb. The lamb from Dol Moch Farm looked especially fragile.

But this morning’s pitiful bleating, as I closed the gate at the bottom of the drive, came from a tiny lamb, thigh deep on the far side of the river. I walked over the bridge, along the bank and clambered down the steep bank. With one arm secured around a branch, jacket pocket zipped in case my phone fell in, I stretched as far as possible but could not quite reach the scruff of its neck. The scruff has lots of loose skin with which to lift a baby lamb. Instead, the best I could do was the scruff of the back on which there was nothing to get hold of. But my touch was so frightening that the lamb jumped into the water and thence quickly out onto land and scampered up the bank, bleating for its breakfast. Fortunately there was lots of sunshine to warm it up.