Completely off topic...

I haven't really ever spoken about what I do for a living; it would take me a huge post to do that. But I do want to talk about something that I'm really enjoying at the moment.

Two afternoons a week, I work on the farm here. It's a biodynamic farm. As with all farms at the moment, it's lambing season! This afternoon, I helped to tag, tail and castrate the poor little guys.

As a person and an animal lover, the above 3 things were horrific to watch. As a farmer, I could see their importance. They have to be tagged, so we know who they are! Some of the males are castrated, as we only need a certain amount. And the tails are taken off (by means of a very tight elastic band :() for hygiene reasons - if not, the sheep are very likely to get fly strike and all manner of other horrible ailments.

Anyway...the best part of it was when we would take the lambs and their mother out to the field (the first time in the field for the lambs!!). To do this, we would pick up the lambs, hold them in front of the mother and slowly walk to the field, with the aim being that she would follow the lambs. Naturally, when I did it, the mothers ran in the opposite direction! They got there in the end though, with a lot of patience and me putting the lambs on the ground every few feet to let the mother come and sniff them. Ahhhh. This meant though that I got to hold the lambs. They are ADORABLE. Seriously. One of them started to nuzzle on my neck! How cute!

I wanted to put them all in my pocket and take them home. :)