This following article comes with a public health warning. This is not recommended reading for city women who find themselves expecting their first child on a farm. Move along ladies, nothing to see here, put down your electronic device and have a little rest for yourself.

Now, she’s gone.

I hope she’s putting her feet up because although she hasn’t yet realised, being a mother on a farm in springtime, is not for the faint hearted. It’s hard work. She will in time learn this lesson, will find her way through and whats more find ways to survive it. For now though, she’s there, hopefully resting, blissfully unaware and she’s as well off.

Now, where was I? Oh yes, mothering in springtime.

Look, I get it, now. I didn’t get it. It was a steep steep learning curve but now I’m beginning to understand that in order to milk cows, they have to calve each Spring. Who’d have thought it? Me? The city girl that thought, and please don’t judge me, that cows where male. Shhh, don’t tell anyone.

So, I left my deluded state in February, some six years ago. We had just arrived home from the hospital, first time parents, doing ridiculous things like trying to put batteries in electronic butterflies that tell the temperature whilst singing our child to sleep and fighting over how many blankets to put on him. So, the lovely little boy, despite our worst efforts, eventually fell asleep, for an hour.

After that hour, one rookie mommy was trying to get milk into him under instruction from the farming husband who had never actually lactated himself but knew, of course, how it all worked. Being a farmer and all. So, we’re at 2am at this stage and our little boy is nodding off to sleep between us when the farmer announces that he’s away, there was a cow sick to calf and he must look in on her. If he had told me he had another woman with a family to keep next door, it wouldn’t have come as so much of a shock.

Eh, hello, I’ve just calved myself, I mean, had a baby. Here he is. Look! Your son and heir, I’ve just produced him. You’re leaving me alone with him? And you’re off? Now, if you’re reading this and nodding, you know what comes next so I’ll spare you the retelling of the hormonal rant and the farmer, feeling awfuly guilty, going off to check on the cows. Poor man, poor woman. We’ll leave them there and we’ll just fast forward six years.

Six mothering springs on and three babies, I’ve got the hang of it. Just about. Passing my husband in the kitchen at ridiculous o’clock in the early morning while I get a bottle for the youngest and he goes to check on a calving cow. We’ve got the knowing look down; ‘We’ll get there, it won’t last long, it’s hard work, we can catch up on sleep later, we’ll meet again.’

So, we’ve established, there’s little or no paternity leave in dairy farming. By all accounts, or mine at least, it’s a tough old time for the whole family. The funny thing about spring though, is that it’s an annual event, returning to us every twelve months. Like anything worth doing, it’s difficult, but it establishes the programme for the rest of the year, sets the milking cows off, puts the business in motion.

You learn the short cuts in the spring, the ways to get around it, the tricks to get the children to bed on your own. You make a conscious decision to ask for help, to seek support, to get someone in to allow you to get a break. You make do, you get on with it. He’s working hard outside whilst you, for the most part, keep the home fires burning. Working together, you get through.

This spring comes and it goes you know, so you may as well enjoy it. And if you know that mother, who’s about to have her first baby, or is at home with a couple of them in spring, lend her a hand or at the very least, tell her she’s doing a mighty job.