The last few weeks have been a bit surreal with all that has been happening off-farm, as we are in essence cut off from the wider world during the lambing.

The cycle of life necessitates that I carry on working. It feels like a plot from James Bond, only this time Bond didn’t stop everything in time. Needless to say, we have been doing what we can to protect ourselves and our families. I am conscious that if myself, the family, or our staff were to become ill, it would present huge difficulties, as the lambing can’t be put on hold. Some precautions are already standard procedure on the farm, like the regular washing of hands. However, we have had to take further precautions.

Where possible, we practise physical distancing, separating the tasks to work individually. All dealings with contractors and local merchants are dealt with over the phone and all deliveries have been without contact with drivers. As of last Friday, after the Taoiseach’s announcement, all students have finished their placements.

Thankfully, the majority of the ewes have lambed down at this point, with only the repeat group starting, as I sit down to write this piece. This group consists of the repeats from the previous two groups and are due to lamb over the month of April. If the weather stays as it is at the moment, I will consider letting the couples out into a paddock beside the yard to lamb. This will hopefully reduce the workload.

The first groups of ewes to lamb have now been fully grouped into their respective grazing mobs for the coming year. There will be three large groups of mature ewes and one small group, which will consist of the repeat ewes. The main limiting factor for group size is determined by what I can put through the yard in a given day for treatments while still allowing time for me to do other tasks around the farm on the same day. These larger groups are also beneficial to utilising and producing more grass on the farm, as they have a shorter residency period in each field, allowing more grazings per field in the year.

As the ewe lambs were run dry again this year, they will act as a clean-up mob, moving around the farm to cleanout fields to the desired residuals.

I have also managed to get a bag of protected urea per acre applied to the fields across the farm as well as getting 2,000 gallons of pig slurry spread across some fields. We have also taken advantage of the dry weather and sown spring barley.

The children have been home from school for over two weeks now and Alison is working from home too. They are settling into a new altered routine, but they miss their friends and the social interactions.

We are all becoming familiar with using social media and conferencing apps to see family and friends. The children have started to write to their great-grandparents, much to their delight. Keeping contact with family members, especially those who are most vulnerable to this horrendous illness, is so important. It is humbling to see the kindness and generosity of so many in the face of such adversity. I have never felt prouder of this little country.

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