Today Rich went back to work, and I was on the farm by myself. Taid was nearby in his little house, of course, but I would be child-free. I planned out the whole day in my mind - I would clean the house, muck out the front porch (which after the busy weekend of lambing and collecting goats was knee-deep in mud and dust) mop the kitchen floor and generally have a quiet orgy of house cleaning. 

That was until Benjamin said “Mummy, my tummy hurts. Can I stay home with you today instead of going to Jess’ house?”

Jess is our brilliant child minder - a lovely lady, mum and dance teacher who lives four minutes from us. She teaches at Benjamin’s nursery school - or meithrin, as they call it here in Wales. On most mornings, Rich gets Beni up and dressed and drops him at Jess’, and Jess takes him to school, along with her beautiful little blond daughter, Katie. (Katie is Benjamin’s girl friend, as he tells us with great pride. She’s four.)

Anyway, it’s a lovely arrangement, which means that I can leave the house at seven with Joli, and get her to the bus by 7.45. It’s all a rather a lean, mean, well-oiled commuting machine with us in the mornings… 

Truth be told, I had my doubts about whether or not Benji’s tummy really hurt. I thought that the added lures of baby chicks, baby lambs and the new goats might just have had something to do with him wanting to stay home. But I’m leaving town on Wesnesday, for three days of work in Paris, and the working-mummy guilt of knowing that I was going away impelled me to agree. 

So I pulled over, we called Jess, and our plans were set…

I love being home alone with Benjamin. He’s such a friendly, cuddly, chubby little man. He loves nothing more than trotting around in his wellies, doing “jobs” and helping out around the place. 

Benjamin at home in his wellies

I warned him that we would be doing loads of house keeping, and he agreed. 

We cleaned out the chicks, and Benji minded them for me while I gave them fresh paper, water and chick crumbs. He’s named one of them Mr. Incredible, and the other one is called Monroe, because it’s just the color of Marilyn Monroe’s hair.

Mr. Incredible and Monroe

Then it was time to go outside and check on the goats. We had quickly cleaned out another stall and filled it with fresh straw for stroppy Nessa and her two twins, Dexter and Lola. But they were all wild as deer, panicking and rolling their eyes when we so much as came close to them. 

There was obviously a lot of taming to do before we could even think of weaning the twins and milking Nessa - and even more work to do on Lola as she grows up, so that we can milk her when it’s time!

I decided that I would start by just going to sit quietly in their stall with them, without trying to touch them, so that they could get use to people being nearby.

But when I let myself into the stall, Nessa abruptly jumped out of it, clearing a stable wall as high as my shoulder!

Nessa and the twins

She clattered into the milking pen and stood looking at me. I looked back at her, then around at Benji, who was standing frozen in the doorway behind me. I was trying to work out how to explain to him which door to close so that the goat wouldn’t bold out of the stable altogether, knocking him down on the way, when thankfully Taid came around the corner just at the right moment.

He was able to swing another door into her path, keeping her from escaping, while I worked my way around and shooed her back into her stable. Phew!

Then Taid told me that he thought there was a dead baby lamb up in the sheep shed. Horrified, I rushed up and found the one he was talking about. It was the twin of a little lamb we had named Mint Sauce (to keep us from getting attached - it was a male -) that Joli had been feeding, along with her own lamb Mansel.

Joli with Mansel and Mint Sauce

The lamb was collapsed onto its side, breathing heavily and twitching. 

I rushed it back into the house, wrapped in towels and laid in in front of the radiator, made up some lamb milk and tried to get it to drink. I settled in in my lap, put the teat in its mouth and massaged its throat, trying to get it  to swallow. 

It seemed to rally for a few minutes, and opened its eyes, and even seemed to be drinking. But then it stiffened, and shuddered, and lay still, and I knew that it had died in my lap…

I ran upstairs, stripped off all my lamb-smelling clothes, and stood in the shower under the hot water, crying and shaking. I had buried animals before, but nothing had ever died as I held it, while I was trying to save it. I could still feel the weight of it in my arms…

It’s twin, Mint Sauce, died the next day. They had some kind of infection, Rich thought. He was reassuring and kept telling me that it wasn’t my fault, that there was nothing I could have done. “Sheep are good at dying. Sometimes we lose them for no obvious reason at all.”

But this time, it happened on my watch, when I had been left in charge, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I had known more, I might have been able to save it….