The Maternity Unit is ready........

We spent this morning getting the 5 lambing pens ready for next week. We have to put boards along the bottom of the pens as the Shetland lambs can get through the gaps and think it's a great game to stand outside their respective pens and bleat at mum, who can't get to them and so gets very frantic. So the boards stop this happening, but I'm sure at times the ewes would love to be able to get into the pens and ignore their lambs!!!!!
Talking of lambs, Frea and Finn are coming on a great storm. They are now 4 weeks old and starting to take an interest in the concentrate sheep food as well as eating the grass and sneaking a lick of the mineral bucket when none of the ewes are looking. Lucy and Emma have adopted Frea and Finn and make sure they are well looked after, but how they will feel once they both have their own lambs only time will tell. The ewes have now been moved off the common land and into one of the paddocks near the lambing barn, they fair skipped into the paddock as it has some new grass growing in it. We always try to keep the 2 paddocks near the lambing barn clear until this time of the year, so that we don't have far to carry newly born lambs. Once everyone has lambed, they get moved into the back field which has been empty since late last year.
Today was a lovely warm day, a great relief after the cold and windy week we've just have. I've been able to spend some more time in the veg garden digging over some more of the soil, which still feels quite cold despite the sunshine. The Broad Beans are finally through in their pots in the greenhouse, the garlic is now a good 4" tall in their pots, only a couple have failed to come through, so we should have a good crop later in the year. The potatoes in the shed are not chitting very well, but I'm not too worried as it's going to be another couple of weeks before I shall be planting them out on Good Friday, the traditional day to plant spuds. Hopefully I will have a couple of Hobbits to help me plant them as they arrive next Saturday for their Easter holidays.........