After five weeks without rain, it was wonderful to be woken one night last week by the sound of rain being blown on to the bedroom windows.
We are well prepared for dry spells like the one this year. In 2022 we sank a borehole on the farm, after successive springs when the water supply dried up, so thankfully we now have water for the house and farm buildings even when there is little rain.
The fields rely on natural water, though, and this year the becks ran dry during lambing time. Every morning, I filled the back of the Gator with buckets of water and drove them round the lambing fields. The sheep had to adapt their routine too, as usually they get most of the moisture they need from damp grass.
Water is, of course, essential for them to make milk for the lambs, but yows also prefer to lamb during wet weather, often seeming to hold off for a wet morning to lamb. This is believed to be because they know there will be fewer predators around, particularly birds of prey, of which we have many. So lambing was prolonged this year as well as hot.
On a wet morning, it was a relief to see that the last yow had lambed, and was happily cleaning her new lamb and murmuring to her. Once it is settled and knows her mother, we will clear the meadows, ready to grow hay (which should be ready to cut in July). Lambs will be marked with our red smit mark before walking two and a half miles over several days down to Low Park Farm, where they will spend the summer rotationally grazing small fields surrounded by woodland strips.
Away from weather concerns, a massive relief to me was that a visitor attraction, Into the Wilds, that was proposed for the farm next to ours, was refused planning permission by the Yorkshire Dales national park authority. The plans initially included safari lodges, a ranger base and a variety of exotic animals including white rhinos, giraffes, zebras and lynxes. One of the reasons given was that it would cause “significant visual harm to the iconic landscape”. I just hope they don’t put in an appeal.
• Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at guardianbookshop.com and get a 15% discount
