A Farmer's Diary by Sally Urwin

Author:Sally Urwin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Profile
Published: 2019-03-26T16:00:00+00:00

Wednesday 14th March

We wake up to two feet of white, crisp snow. The kids are squealing in excitement, and I ring the school to tell them not to send the school bus. It’ll have to be a snow day.

Lucy and Ben throw on their coats and rush outside to make snow angels and find their sledge.

Steve and I start trudging around the farm to check on all our animals.

It’s –10°C, so cold that my face starts to sting. I’ve got a scarf so I pull that over my mouth and nose to help me breathe in the frigid air. My breath condenses on the fleece and icicles form. It’s like trying to walk in the Arctic.

We feed the sheep inside, pushing out the snowdrifts that have piled up against the shed door.

The water in the sheep shed is running sluggishly, always a sign that it’s about to freeze. Steve carries a clean petrol drum back to the house to fill with warm water to defrost the pipes.

Once he’s finished faffing around with the water we get on the quad to feed the rest of the sheep.

The ewes are pleased to see us and run after the bike, plunging through the deep drifts. We always feed them on the rigg tops as the ground is drier. Or rather it would be, if there wasn’t two feet of drifting snow.

We dig out the sheep troughs and pour in the feed. This field is exposed to the weather and the wind chill pushes the temperature down even further. I’m shivering in my two coats and ball up my fists in my pockets to try and keep them warm. I turn my back to the wind and wipe the hail and ice off my glasses.

This isn’t fun. I never thought marrying a farmer would be all picnics in hayfields, but this is like role-playing Scott of the Antarctic.

‘Happy Steve?’ I shout over the heads of the sheep. ‘Champion,’ he calls back sarcastically.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.