We have 17 calves in the barn at the moment all under 2 months old. They tend to cuddle up together of an evening to sleep. Very cute. But the weather is finally warming up a little, the swallows are back and nesting in the barn but no sound of the cookoo as yet. The warmer weather means it wont be long until the cows will be able to leave the cowshed for good and stretch their legs on the fresh new pasture.

Things haven’t gone well this week. Another stray sheep has eaten all my budding strawberries. They’re quite clinical in their munching. Not a single fruit or flower is left. A sharp frost has affected some of my seedlings, I guess I might have to think about running some power to the greenhouse for next year. And on top of all that I dropped a tray of plants when moving them yesterday. Young aubergine plants and compost all over the place. Nightmare!

The greenhouse is looking quite green at the moment. Louise was getting a little fed up of my propagator on the kitchen windowsill so I’ve now transplanted most of my seedlings into individual pots in the greenhouse. They include aubergines, chilly peppers, sweet peppers, sprouts and tomatoes. The only ones who suffered from this are the cucumbers. They drooped a bit after transplanting, but my new bible ‘The Vegetable and Heb Expert’ did warn me that might happen. I’ve also learnt to favor Thompson & Morgan for seeds. All their seeds seem to sprout without exception which also means I need to learn to sow a little more thinly in future.

We’ve been busy lambing again. It’s been a bit cold and wet for the lambs again this year, but they’re a hardy bunch and seam to be doing ok. The sheep tend to wander a bit more when they have lambs to feed so unfortunately the tulips have already been eaten by some athletic ewes who are able to leap the cattle grid at the end of our lane. I wonder if we could enter them into the Beijing Olympics.