Hi. Just when you thought I had dropped off the Earth, I reappear!

I have been lambing, and have survived to tell the tail. What a great experience! I thoroughly enjoyed it despite the hard work. I spent three weeks in a small town just southeast of Belfast in Northern Ireland. The farm was medium sized with only 500 ewes and about 100 of those had already lambed so it ended up with 360 ewes lambing during my time there. It was just enough to get a good experience without being completely crazy. Also, during my last two weeks, another vet student from Bristol arrived so we could share duties.

I was usually out in the upper barn by 8am and had all the feeding and watering done there by breakfast. After breakfast it was time to feed and water the ewes in the lower barn and start tagging lambs, moving ewes, cleaning pens and doing whatever else needed done. We usually took an hour or so off for lunch and a couple hours off for tea (dinner). Everyone needed food and water again before tea, and afterwards it was time for a final check till 9pm when I finished up for the day. Some days I had the late shift and would get up at 4 and 6am to check on everyone and take care of any who had lambed or were lambing.

In between all the routine work came the fun of helping ewes that were having trouble lambing. Whenever we spotted a ewe that was lambing we would keep track of her and if it was taking to long, or we could see that the lamb was being presented incorrectly, then it was out job to reach in, rearrange the lamb, and pull it out. We would then pull out any twins or triplets left in the ewe. After getting the lamb out, we had to make sure it was viable and if it wasn't breathing we would dunk its head in water or stick a bit of straw up its nose to make it gasp. Once all the lambs were out and breathing, we would move the ewe out of the communal pens and into a small private pen for a couple of days. Later she would be reintroduced into a small group of ewes and lambs, and then moved out to pasture.

There is nothing like working on a hard lambing and ending up with healthy living lambs that would have been dead without our help. Occasionally the lambs were not making it with their mother either because she had no milk, or they were sick, so we would take them as "pet" lambs and tube feed them 4 times a day till they were well enough to go back to their mother or be adopted onto another ewe. The pet lambs obviously became our favorites. Many would snuggle when you held them and were sooo cute! I could have taken them home in a heartbeat.

The lower barn was rented from another farmer, John, who is now retired. Despite his retirement he can't keep out of the barns and loves to give out advise. If he saw Fiona or I lambing a ewe he would stand over us and give orders and drive us absolutely crazy. He also had to tell us how to feed the lambs, what to do with them, and what the weather was going to go. We quickly learned that we could rely on his predictions - they were always wrong! If he said the rain was over, it would downpour. If he was sure a lamb would die, it survived and grew quickly. He was a nice enough guy, but he really missed having sheep and teaching his own vet student lambers.

The family that owned the farm was wonderful. I stayed in the house with them and the farmers wife, Dorothy, cooked all the meals and even did my laundry for me. The food was basic, but good and hearty with potatoes of some sort at every lunch and dinner. There were also lots of sweets so despite all the hard work, I don't think I lost any weight! At every meal and through out the day we drank tea. More tea than I have every seen. We had a cup of tea with Breakfast, lunch, dinner, morning and afternoon breaks, and in the evening. After the last of the tea in the evening, I would get my bath (no shower available), but first, I would have to turn on the hot water heater because they only turn it on when then need it. Then after I was finished, it was back down to turn it off.

Once I got back to Glasgow after lambing, I proceeded to get very sick with what I thought was food poisoning, but now believe to be from working with the sheep. For those of you who might be interested, I think I picked up a Campylobacter infection. Several of my friends who were also lambing over the break got sick and several tested positive for Campylobacter so it makes sense that is what I got as well. All the symptoms matched and it can be picked up from working on sheep farms. Thankfully my case wasn't as bad as some of the others and I was on the mend by the time my dad arrived.

My dad and I had a great time together and even had one sunny day! During our trip up north we stayed in farmhouse bed and breakfasts and visited lots of castle and beautiful areas. One castle, Dunotter, was extremely beautiful and is a ruin on the coast of the North Sea set on a virtually inaccessible rock plateau. The wind was constantly blowing while we were there and I could just imagine what it would be like in the rain with storms blowing in from sea. We also drove through many heather covered hills, saw cairns, and tried to find the Loch Ness monster in Loch Ness.

After traveling around up North, Dad and I returned to Glasgow for a few days living the city life. I must admit, it was really nice to be able to have a choice of wonderful restaurants. Up North, near Inverness, we were driving around lots of small towns and apparently the locals do not eat out. Usually in a town about the size of Sedro-Woolley there would only be restaurants in one or two of the hotels and a fish and chips shop. The hotel restaurants weren't bad, but the prices were quite high for what we got. Here in Glasgow there are tons of top restaurants that don't cost much more than those up North, but have far superior food.

All in all I had a wonderful holiday and I am having trouble getting back into the school routine. Today we have a couple of histology lectures and a histology lab on epithelium at the vet school. Much to my dismay, the vet school just decided to give us a short statistics course. Even so, we have fewer classes per week this term - I guess they think we need more time to study! Hopefully I can do a bit of sightseeing when we have empty days.

God bless,
Rebecca