What a weekend. What a week. Our sustainable, Planet Positive lifestyle means living in the country and working in London. So, when our 4 ewes came into lamb we have been a bit stretched. We now have 7 by lambs and it has been a steep learning curve.
I’m writing this on the train to work in London.  Every time I leave Field End I feel like I am ‘bunking off’.  I love it at home but I need and want to work -  so I would not want to give up the 9-5 yet (see Guy’s post last Friday). I’ve a busy day in town working on developing our pilot programme for the Carbon Army, a task force of community carbon auditors to help people make carbon and energy savings at home. Later, I’ll go to my first Green Monday meeting. It’s a networking event for businesses leading the way in sustainability and I’m looking forward to it.
But, poor Ros will have to handle Field End…
All the lambs came last week while I have been at work, leaving the burden entirely on Ros’ shoulders. In the evenings and over the weekend I did my bit as we struggled to get our first flock sorted with feeding. The last two, tiny lambs have been the most tricky. The ewe had mastitis which makes it uncomfortable for her and the milk taste disgusting for the lambs.
We mixed the hours with massaging her udders, expressing milk, using warm towels, bottle feeding and eventually persuading them to eat. We seemed to get breakthrough last night as they were consistently feed from their mum.
It was parenthood all over again, with all the tiredness and worry too. And the upside is that we have seven chocolate brown lambs bouncing around the field. Spring is truly amazing.

Posted on Monday, May 11th, 2009 at 10:47 am