Millie had not come across sheep before...

“Worth the cost of the call out,” John says. I noticed some of the natty little accoutrements that the vet was using, lamb ropes and a sort of snare. John relies on his big hands or my smaller ones to furtle around inside the ewes to see what position the lamb is lying in when matters start to get complicated.

But sometimes you need a bit of technical help. The occasional agricultural accessory. Out of loyalty I tried our local agricultural supplier first but they did not stock the items I was after.

So I have been on the internet. All the bits and pieces I wanted arrived the next day. Free postage too. In these days of rising fuel prices it certainly helps.

Meanwhile Millie, the terrorist Jack Russell, is on a report card for behaviour. The ewes have been moved into a field opposite the farm entrance. The gate into the field was created so that cattle and sheep could move straight from the big foldyard, across the lane, into pasture. But the lane is increasingly used as a rat run for vehicles wanting to avoid a slightly longer route on an A road.

Despite signs at both ends of the lane clearly stating it is unsuitable for heavy vehicles ( tractors excepted of course), lorries thunder through. Because it is too narrow for two large cars to pass, cars, vans, tractors, lorries even the school bus, must dive for the verges to avoid losing at the very least their wing mirrors.. There are only two official passing places in a four mile lane. Elsewhere farm and house entrances along the lane and the edges of the lane itself are well and truly gouged out. Does the council do anything about the pot holes and erosion? Of course not.

But back to Millie. She had not come across sheep before. We don’t take her into their fields. So they were immediately classed as Number One threat to the farm and Millie was going to sort those big woolly things out. She spotted them from the meal shed and raced up past the fold yard and old milking parlour with me in screaming pursuit. Straight across the lane.

Missed being run over by a whisk of her tail. Into the field, with me apologising to a shaken driver who thought he had hit her. Millie meanwhile was harrying a field full of heavily pregnant ewes and not taking a blind bit of notice of her demented owner.

Very luckily no harm has been done. We hope. There have had hardly any lambs at all these past few days. And the weather is beautiful and warm.

As soon as it starts raining the ewes will be popping out lambs at top speed.