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From the farm at Yockenthwaite
As if by magic, the colours of the surrounding countryside have changed virtually overnight - all that was brown and grey is now tinged with fresh spring green.
Leaves and blossom are beginning to show on the old plum tree that stands at the end of the garden and whose branches obscure the view down the dale from the office window.
Hawthorn, elderberry and larch are sprouting tender green leaves and the blackthorn is beginning to display its snowy white blossom.
We still have little or no grass, but things are "freshening up" - the slightly kinder temperatures of late have made a real difference, but there is still much room for improvement.
The cuckoo has returned and is claiming his territory. We heard him for the first time last Saturday and he was in his usual haunt up Deepdale Gill, his distinctive calling echoing clearly across the valley.
A true harbinger of spring, this migrant from Africa usually arrives on our shores in April. The old rhyme says "the cuckoo comes in April, she sings her song in May", so this one must be something of an early bird.
I wonder which poor little birds are going to have to take on the arduous task of rearing cuckoo chicks this year.
Our resident jackdaws are very industrious and are nesting in the chimneys and cracks and windows in the wash-house and barn.
They paddle about like angry little old men in black coats, collecting dry twigs to construct their nests, which are platforms of twigs, straw and baler twine and anything else they take a fancy to.
Fallout from the building site makes good kindling, but lighting the kitchen range has now become something of a hazard as twigs stuck inside the chimney can be a real fire risk.
We are well through lambing now with only 50 or 60 sheep left and these are confined to pastures nearer home so they are easier to keep an eye on.
Stuart, Dan and Edward are busy "marking lambs out" which involves gathering the new families in, checking lambs over, ear tagging and recording if appropriate for pedigree records and finally giving the lambs a paint mark so that they can be identified at a distance.
Single lambs and their mothers are turned out onto the moor and twins are put onto enclosed pastureland where the going is better.
Then that's it for another year and what follows is probably, for us, the quietest time in the farming calendar - the relative lull between lambing time and haytime.
This is the time when everything is growing; grass (hopefully), lambs, calves. It is the most beautiful time of year when everything is new and we have the most time to savour it and enjoy it.
If we were to go away on holiday, it is probably the best time of year, but Stuart can always find some walling to do and with several miles of drystone walls to maintain, there is always plenty of that.
3:28pm Thursday 1st May 2008
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