Mrs Downs Diary- December 03 2008

The story goes like this.

There are only a few of his year's lambs left to go to market. They have reached about 100lb weight each, nearly a cwt or, 45 kilograms if we are being euro correct. This is a good market weight but John has judged they still want a bit more finish on them. By that he means more flesh on their backs. They have a field of their own, 15 acres, so with only 23 lambs there is plenty of grass and plenty of opportunity to do well. There is not a lot of goodness left in the grass so John feeds the lambs some rolled barley every day. This also gives him an opportunity to make sure everything is OK. And this morning when he counted up it was not. He counted 22 lambs and not 23.

There are not many places in this particular field where a lamb could get lost. It is a good level field but in the corner there is an inspection chamber for the drainage system. It stands just over a yard high, about 4 foot in diameter, goes down approximately 8 feet and has an open top. There is a concrete bottom to the chamber and two drains from a couple of fields drain into the chamber and then out into eventually a dike. If there is a lot of rain the water can back up and stand in the bottom, but usually it just runs through.

Just before John decided to leave the field as there was no sign of the lamb, a faint bleating sound drifted across to him. At first he thought it came from the hedge bottom but when he went to look, no lamb. Then maybe it had got through to the next field. But still no lamb. However, as he walked the boundary of the field he realised that the bleating was growing louder and that the source appeared to be the inspection chamber. Peering into it, he found his lamb. Eight foot down and with four wet feet.

As soon as the lamb spotted help it stopped bleating. Now there is faith in your shepherd for you. But John said "I'd nothing to get it out with, as soon as I walked away the lamb went frantic, so I decided to come back to the farm to get you to try and pull the lamb out". Fortunately for me (I was busy idling away doing very little and enjoying it too) a friend was driving past the end of the field on his way for a morning's pigeon shooting. A neighbour has a field of emerging rape plants and the pigeons are feeding voraciously off them.

After stopping for a chat (farmers are notorious gossips) our friend was organised to fetch a rope from the farm and give John a hand in the rescue attempt. He lassoed the lamb in the chamber, pulled it up far enough for John to get hold of is front legs and then together they hauled the lamb to safety and its friends.

Chatting about the lambs lucky escape over a cup of coffee John commented that although the chamber had been in that corner for nearly twenty years, and that there has always been sheep in and out of the field, this was the first time that any ewe or lamb had tried to jump on top of it.

And we just wished we had seen the lambs face when it had.