Wednesday, 17 April 2013

The end of the school holidays

Today marks the end of my son's four week Easter holiday and tomorrow is the last day before I go back to school too. It has worked out that I have had nearly four weeks off too because of the way my work dates have fallen. I think it is in some ways harder when it comes to an end after a longer period than a shorter one. I can't say I am ever delighted to loose the company of my lovely boy, or to go back to work myself but this holiday it seems particularly hard that it is coming to an end.

Despite loosing a week to the worst tonsillitis I have had in years, this holiday has been easy, companionable, exciting, relaxed and generally rather wonderful. The improvement in the weather has helped, the change in the clocks always seems to make things more relaxed, but most of all I think that the latest episode in my husband's smallholding enterprise has put a lovely glow on everything.

Let me start from the beginning, for the last ten years or so we have kept pigs for fattening and chickens for eggs. Last year my hubby bought some sheep. This spring, or more precisely, last week, they had lambs. I was bought up with goats and they had kids each year. I have always thought I would like my boy to have the wonderful experience of the birth of animals.

This experience has not been without some problems, the first triplets to be born died before we got to them, probably of cold. Therefore there was some anxiety about subsequent deliveries, a well founded anxiety because we had to assist with the next four births. The first ewe was not having proper contractions and had been in labour for several hours, she gave birth to two healthy (one huge!) lambs. The next had a lamb with the leg stuck back. We intervened earlier this time, having more confidence, and it is a good job we did, the presence of meconium in the amniotic fluid proves the lambs were becoming distressed. All turned out well again, and we had another pair of healthy female lambs. The last pair of lambs were born without intervention, but the second of the twins didn't seem to have an instinct to suckle so we ended up giving him some extra feeds to get him going. After 3 days of tube and bottle feeding he began to suckle for himself from his mother. Now we have 6 lambs and their mothers out in the field thriving, hooray!

Anyway, amidst all of this drama and excitement we have thrown plans and routines out of the window, worked together as a family and discovered new skills. I didn't know I would be able to pull a lamb from its mother and my husband has learned to milk a ewe and feed a lamb. Our son has been there through it all, gaining amazing experiences of birth and death and everything in between, including the boredom of waiting for hours for something to happen. He has witnessed his parents and Grandparents pulling together and helping out, using their various strengths and getting on with things that needed doing and has played his own essential part too.

Today marks an end to the freedom of going with the flow like that, and as we only have 3 ewes left to lamb things will naturally go back to the humdrum anyway. Of course I value school and the multitude of experiences he gains there, but it has been a quite a holiday!

Oh and I must add, he is just such great company even when we are just at home. He plays for hours with his Lego, I sew and we chat. Ahhhh, I cant wait for the summer, only 11 weeks to go...