Most of the sheep work during April is normal shepherding, maintaining the health of the flock and making sure the lambs are growing at a steady rate. Sometimes there is an odd weak lamb that needs to be brought in and fed.

With the lovely weather we have had during April it has been a busy few weeks for the tractors as the farm is prepared for the busy summer season ahead. The two old John Deeres are the workhorses and while a tractor is fair investment for any farmer they certainly pull their weight and are a necessary commodity that is very difficult to go without. Michael has ‘taken up’ 40 acres of ground for silage so all the sheep batches have been tightened up and there are now 3 batches with twin lambs and one batch with single lambs. The silage ground was then fertilised with 18.6.12 at 3 bags to the acre.

Michael is very disciplined about power-hosing the tractor and fertiliser spreader after its use as the fertiliser will corrode the metal if left on for any length of time. I remember when Michael and I started dating 11 years ago he showed me the fertiliser spreader, with the hydraulic arm for lifting the ton bags and positioning them over the spreader to be emptied into it, that he had made himself. I was mightily impressed and told him to patent it, but he never bothered. Imagine, we could be millionaires by now!

Spraying

He also did a lot of spraying this month for neighbouring farms, including spraying off 40 acres of very steep, rocky ground for reclaiming and reseeding. Two of our own fields were sprayed off for reseeding and sowing stubble turnips to fatten the lambs on. Then he emptied the sheep shed of its winter's build up of manure and got a local contractor to spread it on the sprayed off fields. All of this lovely natural fertiliser was then ploughed into the fields in preparation for sowing and reseeding, which will be done once the lime is spread.

Potatoes

A little passion of Michael’s is to grow his own potatoes, usually just a small amount to supply our little family of three. And prolific extended family. A corner of one of the fields is fenced off, to stop stock damaging the spuds and drills are made. For early potatoes this year he planted Red Duke of York and we should be able to harvest them mid to late summer all going well.

The main crop are Roosters, Michael’s favourite, with some Sarpomiras and Salad Blue thrown in for a bit of variety. Summer is nearly here as signalled by the arrival of the beautiful swooping swallows on the farm, to my joy. Unfortunately they cause Michael endless heartache by pooping on the tractors necessitating hours of extra power-hosing!

Read more from Waterfall farm here.

Read more of Hannah's posts for Irish Country Living's blog here.