Pros and No Cons

Things you should know: 
There are more advantages than disadvantages

I moved to Dumfries and Galloway at the end of 2013 after more than 20 years living in cities including Edinburgh, Glasgow and Wellington, NZ. There's really very little I miss about city life. 

• I used to spend over an hour every morning and evening travelling 10 miles each way on the number 25 bus. Now, it's a 3 minute drive into the village or a 3 second walk to my homeworking desk.
• There were people everywhere, especially in Edinburgh in August. The memories of trying to get to the bank in my lunch hour still raise my blood pressure.  
• I didn't know any of my neighbours. When I first moved to Auchencairn, my neighbours all introduced themselves within 20 minutes of my arriving and post like this used to arrive without any problem. 

There's very little about country - or farm - life that makes me grumble. Occasionally, I feel like being able to walk to a restaurant, cinema or exhibition but then I remember all the great things about living where I do. 

• Through Ivie I have an extended adopted family who have been welcoming and wonderful, especially during lockdown. 
• The noisiest thing I usually hear all day is bulls bellowing at each other. 
• People bring us things all the time, like carrots and cabbages for us to plant or juicy raspberries from their garden. 

No shortage of planters around here

One of things I'll never tire of is the view from The Spittal. There are views from the top of the farm that only a handful of people have ever seen. Those of you who know Ivie will know about his Instagram posts with the hashtag #anotherboringview. It's true that he takes it slightly for granted but I think he's appreciating it a little bit more as I get to know my new surroundings. 

It makes every day more than a little bit better. I reckon I'll stay for a while 😉

Lambing: Part 3

Things I learned this week:

1. There are far worse places to be in self-isolation
2. Life (and lambing) goes on

It's been a funny old week for everyone. I'm now in lockdown for 12 weeks since I had a kidney transplant in 1997. I'm lucky that I don't live on my own anymore and that I have Ivie to go to the supermarket and listen to my inane witterings. It's going to be tougher on him than me, to be fair. 

I'd hoped that by the time Lambing: Part 3 came around that I'd be able to tell you that I'd delivered my first live lamb and could now wrestle a ewe in labour to the ground. But the only progress I've made is to feed the pet lambs - one of which is going to die anyway Ivie's brother informed me the other night (cheers for that) - and help Ivie give a wee triplet colostrum. 

The next section is for non-farmers. Farmers - skip this paragraph because:

a. I might have got it wrong

b. I still think lambs are cute (even more so after three glasses of wine) 🍷🍷🍷

Pet lambs are the ones that need a bit more TLC. They might be orphans or more often they're the smallest of a set of triplets. A ewe only has two teats so twins generally fare better. It is possible for a ewe with a single lamb to take on another ewe's triplet but that's a story for another day. 

Colostrum is contained in a lamb's first feed and is full of antibodies. If a lamb doesn't get any in its first 6-12 hours then it might not survive. Giving a new lamb colostrum involves a syringe and a tube down its throat into its stomach. Not as horrific as it sounds. 

Calves and Lambs
Photo by Ivie

*** Farmers rejoin here ***

Lambing has reminded me of the things you take for granted when you're dating a non-farmer:

• going to bed at the same time as each other
• having a lazy Sunday morning together reading the papers
• entire evenings when your partner is wide awake

But the positives far outweigh the negatives:

• at least an hour and a half on my own every morning before I have to interact with another human being
• really appreciating a surprise night off when Ivie's brother was waiting for his daughter to arrive home from college 
• being surrounded by new life and signs of Spring

And, as I said at the beginning of this post, there are far, far worse places to be in self-isolation. 

View from the front step
Photo by Ivie