Never plan anything. Him outdoors had two weeks off and had planned to carry on hedge laying the perimeter of the field before the nesting birds come back.

Instead, he was unwell and the thought of working in force nine winds whilst feeling rough taming bits of blackthorn into a hedge was not an attractive thought. The winds have been horrific. We prepared the paddock with the Poll Dorsets in by tethering everything down and tempting them in with some fresh bedding hay. The lambs although a good size now still need some shelter. Eunice picked the entire lot up and deposited it at various points around the village, bless the Dorsets, they were still obediently sat in what was left of the shelter without a care in the world. We collected the tarp and bits of shelter and did a quick repair before Franklin came to pick up where Eunice left off. The rams on the top of the hill faired a bit better with just a tree down on the hedge line, although lying on some stock fence, they were far more interested in eating the stuff growing on the felled trunk than escaping. It put an end to our plan to move the pedigree flock back to the summer grazing, although I say summer, I mean quagmire. It is not too late for a bit of hedge laying and we have some mixed whips to plant out to fill the gaps. The hedge along the side of the pond was laid before the illness struck which has given us a much wider canvas in which to nurture the spotted orchids, they give off a seed cloud of dust when they have finished flowering. The soil around the pond is a poor quality which the orchids like, they may however take between four and 10 years to germinate and we are careful not to mow around that area whilst the spotty spikes are appearing out from hibernation. They seem to like the dappled shade of the pond edge and put on a grand show of pink spikes when they flower. The snowdrops have been amazing this year and we can already see the first signs of bluebells poking through. The last job of the week was to give the sheep their Heptavac vaccinations, this is an annual immunisation that covers the sheep against all kinds of nasties and will also protect the lambs when they are born at the end of April. Busy times ahead, we are now only six weeks away from lambing.

By Tria Stebbing