Sleepless nights and tiring days, yes!  It’s lambing and calving time again.
 
So far we have had ten calves born, which include a pair of twins and a calf that would not suckle, after a few days of persevering Keith, John and Rosemary managed to successfully get the calf to suckle on its own.

Trying to persuade a day old calf that you won’t get milk from your mothers back leg is quite a task, they can be very stubborn at times!
 
Lambing has started at Unthank Farm, but we are still waiting for the first of many to arrive at West Layton.  We are glad at the moment that none have arrived as the weather has turned cold and snow showers are
frequent. 
 
Drilling of the beans and oats has now finished, Simon is anxiously waiting for the weeds to start growing, it is a race against time – who will get there first?  The weeds or the crop!  And will Simon manage to weed the fields before the crop starts to grow?   Being in the first year of organic conversion is very daunting, after years of relying on sprays to keep the fields clear of problems, we now rely on nature and a weeder that trails behind a tractor.  The weeder has lots of tines and they drag up the weeds as you drive through the field.
 
However, at the moment there are more pressing matters, fencing the garden of rabbits, keeping them out and our daughter in.  The time has come to sort this problem out, rabbits are a constant pain for me as I like to garden and they eat everything I try to grow.  The only good thing I can see from having rabbits is that they eat the grass as well; there is a section in the garden that won’t need mowing for quite a while!