Spring Lambing Season

My old pop (pictured) doing what he loves most.

In 1968 he moved into a one up one down delipidated flint shepherds cottage in a fold of the Sussex Downs, after he had kicked out the young bullocks that were bedded down.

No power or water, but heaven for a self-confessed recluse. Ever since then he has lambed his small flock in the spring and there is nothing we can do or say to stop him, but he is in his element!

A little later, in 1974 he planted the Vineyards at Breaky Bottom, which coincidentally was the year I was born. This is where I had my first workshop, making just one or two kitchens a year in an old barn.

Both me, and the vines are turning 50 this year, so this might not be the last post celebrating life at the vineyard, my old man, and my semi-feral upbringing on the farm.

Toby Hall

 

 

Spring. The first skylarks. Carpets of bluebells and nodding daffodils bring colourful cheer and with it, a sense of optimism with lengthening days and gradually warming temperatures.

April is traditionally the start of the farming year and the lambing season. Which means up and down Sussex there are bleary-eyed farm hands on standby day and night, watching, waiting, fuelled by coffee, delivering the next generation.

The alignment of nature and the farming calendar is a careful balance. The theory is that from the second half of April, new grass growth will be encouraged and gratefully enjoyed by ewes to provide milk for their new-born lambs.

In reality, the English weather doesn’t always comply and ironically, new-born lambs may need a woolly jumper.

It is true. There is nothing sweeter than seeing a little mob of fresh gangly-legged lambs cavorting through the fields across the Sussex Weald and the South Downs. (let’s not mention Sunday lunch!)

Behind the scenes is a different matter.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint. The end seems never in sight. Until it is done.

So Respect. To the sleep deprived farmers, workers, girlfriends, boyfriends, aunties and uncles and practically anyone else they can cajole into helping out.

The kitchen plays its part. It comes to life in the small hours. A place to rest many a weary head at 3am, a welcoming space for tiny new born lambs attached to bottles like babes in arms, a comforting lean against the aga for warmth and coffee. Plenty of coffee.

And then. Like buses, all at once, more lambs want to arrive and so it’s back to business.

It seems miraculous that, within a few short weeks, thousands of lambs are being delivered up and down the Sussex countryside.

A tradition unchanged for hundreds of years.

Same as it ever was.

And the kitchen. The same but different, particularly in the small hours during lambing season.