third day

Uh oh, spent too much time gardening, as the weather is so nice, and then sorting morris dancing stuff out this afternoon, so not so much time to write about lambing.
Forgot my camera today. Straightforward morning doing pens with no one around first thing, then, just as I'd used up all the bales of straw and hay in the sheds and I was wondering if I'd have to go and get a wheelbarrow the farm lad rolls up on the quad and asks if I need to use it. So off up to the top shed to pile it up with straw and hay ( I can fit two bales on the back and one on the front) and zoom about unloading a bale or two here and there. Farmer and wife come back and I'm instructed to turn out all the marked ewes and lambs. They are all black faced suffolks today so all have to go in the same field. Most of them won't follow well, apart from one who nearly knocks me over as I try to open and shut gates. So I end up doing the driving reluctant ewe and lamb while holding spare lamb trick. It works well, tho it's a bit slow. It takes me until coffee time to do all my jobs.
After coffee we have great fun running about 120 ewes with their lambs about 4 miles along country lanes, down a bridleway, across a main road and then down more lanes, through a couple of fields and a wood! It's a big team effort, with Farmer, wife, son, farm lad, me, two dogs and a quad bike. The lambs are probably December or January born, so are fairly big, but we and the ewes and lambs are all pretty worn out by the end! The son, who doesn't like sheep, but likes tractors, kept muttering that we should have loaded them into the trailers. I'm really glad we didn't as I got to go down lanes and across fields I'd never been to before. I also feel very important when I'm herding sheep, tho unfortunately we didn't see much traffic for me to feel important to.
Only 6 twins born while I was there this morning, there are a lot of sheep out there, and it's going to get busy at some point.
Here's me back from work. Do I get any prizes for the least glamorous blog picture? And I'm sorry about the cat's bottom, I was going to edit it out, but I'm too tired! I've just had a bath and I can definitely feel my feet throbbing.

Not sure if I will I keep this up for 3 weeks, but it'll be fun trying..