The thaw started on Sunday and once it did start up here in Langstrothdale, the white stuff disappeared fairly quickly. Let’s hope that is the last of it.

Out in the garden the grass is flat from the weight of the snow and it all looks pretty dead, as if nothing is growing. Yet hidden away, in sheltered places, the snowdrops are blooming, as are the aconites with their globe-shaped yellow heads and frilly bright green collars. They are pretty partners growing together there under the trees, creating a colourful carpet of yellow, white and green. In places they are so dense you can hardly get into the middle to pick the finest blooms without standing on them. The other star of the garden is the witch hazel. They are beautiful at this time of year, just bare branches, but covered with firey feathery flowers. They grow in the garden in front of the sitting room window. One is a pretty yellow and the other, my favorite, is a lovely warm burnt orange. For the rest of the year they are quite uninteresting, so now is their time to shine!

Since the weekend the birds in the garden have been much more vocal in the mornings, and were singing from first light today. They obviously know spring is just around the corner This week has turned out to be rather a busy one. We have quite a lot of lambs ready to sell. Stuart has been to Hawes today with one load and will be heading off to Bentham with more tomorrow. We still have about another 90 to sell from last year’s crop, and before we know it we will be back round to lambing time again. It seems to have come round quickly, but we will be scanning later this week. Lesley will be here on Friday, so we will soon have a better idea what to expect at lambing time.

Pregnancy scanning the ewes is a useful management tool. Scanning will tell us which sheep are barren, which have singles and which are carrying twins. The twin-bearing ewes will be kept down in the home fields so they can be managed according to their condition. The other ewes will go back up onto the moor until the end of March. On the granola front we are trying to get ahead for next week as we are going to Wakefield Food Drink and Rhubarb Festival. The festival is a celebration of all things rhubarb, focusing on that wonderful Yorkshire delicacy grown in the famous “Rhubarb Triangle” – a nine square mile triangle located between Wakefield, Morley and Rothwell.

Rhubarb, a native of Siberia, loves the cold, wet Yorkshire winters and this part of West Yorkshire once produced 90 per cent of the world’s forced rhubarb from the low forcing sheds that were common in the area. A trip round the “forcing sheds” by candlelight is an eerie and interesting experience, well worth a visit.