It’s been heartening in the past fortnight to see signs of spring finally arrive. Although fields around here are still inaccessible with the tractor and the dry days of February are almost forgotten, at last everywhere is beginning to turn green.

As the blackthorn and whins burst into bloom along country roads and field boundaries to create a lovely contrast of colour, there’s a feeling of optimism in the air again.

Whilst the cuckoo and swallows are yet to appear, a couple of our smaller migratory birds have made their presence known in the hedgerows.

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Willow warblers and chiffchaffs, lesser known than the more common migrant birds, are a melodious assurance that the long days of winter are over.

For those of us with smartphones, there’s an informative app called ‘Merlin’ which can identify bird calls instantly. It’s certainly made walking through fields more educational, if a bit more time consuming as I get sidetracked following birds around.

Merlin app \ Karen McCabe

Not that there’s much walking of fields to be done at the moment, with the majority of our herd remaining indoors for the time being.

Regardless of weather outdoors however, calves continue to arrive, and while we’d prefer to have them out, it’s simply not feasible with the ground conditions.

Happily for the calves, most have learned to jump through the feed barrier in the shed, leading to races up and down between the bales for most of the day.

It’s not ideal, as they make the shed front look like a hurricane hit it, but it gives them much needed exercise, ad-lib hay, straw or silage, plus any number of warm and dry places to lie.

While everything is running smoothly at the moment, all it would take is an outbreak of scour in the shed to set everything back, so extra vigilance is being kept on incoming draughts, keeping doors closed and regularly topping up bedding.

On the subject of vigilance, no matter how often cows are checked, they’ll always find ways to get into trouble.

Our last animal to calve was progressing well, and being a heifer we left her be for half an hour to carry on the job herself. But peeking in the door after 15 minutes, a nasty situation was narrowly avoided.

Lying flat out to calve, she had managed to wedge her head under the gate, leaving her trapped and unable to push the calf out either.

Prior experience in similar situations means we leave the bottle jack in the shed when the calving pens are in use, as an extra inch or two from widening the bars on the gate can make all the difference.

Within minutes, she was freed and shortly after, a lovely red roan calf was born. Of course, it was a bull, but it could so easily have ended differently if we hadn’t been observing proceedings.

Polytunnel

Something which was put off for the last few years was the purchase of a polytunnel, which we finally got around to at the beginning of the month.

Like any sort of yard work with cattle, tempers were frayed as the instructions provided were in every language but English.

This led to a few glares and angry mutterings under our breath as bolts were switched from one side to another after being assured they were correct, only for them to be sheepishly returned to the original position after further framework was erected.

Eventually we got it knocked together, quite literally in places, as a hammer and grease were needed for a couple of parts which must have forgotten that they were supposed to fit together.

As always with these DIY sets, there were a few miscellaneous pieces left over after building. Hopefully nothing too necessary to keep it intact in windy weather.