New arrivals at Toftcarl Farm
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Many hands make light work and that certainly is the case at Toftcarl Farm, near Wick, where cousins are busy helping out with the seasonal chores.
Farmer Hilda Hood has started lambing 140 Suffolk and Cheviot cross ewes and is grateful for the help from her daughter Danielle and son Kyle, along with cousin Marin who is visiting from Massachusetts.
The lambing at Toftcarl is generally worked around the Easter school holidays to ensure extra hands are available and on this occasion it was done to precision with the first arrivals on Monday, March 30 – the start of the holidays.
"I told everybody it would start on the 30th, and it did," said Hilda on Friday.
"There have been lambs dropping everywhere since then, the sheds are getting chock-a-block because of the snow.
"If I'd known they would be having an extended school holiday I would have left the lambing to the middle of April."
Nine-year-old Kyle Sinclair is very keen on helping out with the lambs, while 12-year-old Danielle's main chore involves attending to her two ponies as well as mum's horse.
Cousin Marin came over to Caithness in January and had planned to help out on the farm until the lambing was over and head back home around the middle of April. However, she is now facing an extended stay due to the coronavirus travel restrictions.
The 19-year-old has visited the county before, along with her father Andrew Hood, Hilda's brother, but this is her first visit on her own. She is due to start university in Florida in August.
While at Toftcarl she has been busy helping on the farm feeding cattle, driving tractors and taking bales in.
Her aunt said: "She has been a great help."
Local AI cattle breeding technician Willie Mackay was out visiting the farm this week to see last year's insemination results – two healthy Aberdeen Angus calves.
Hilda explained that their normal calving doesn't usually start until May when the cattle are outside.
During the week before the Easter holidays, when the schools were closed due to the coronavirus outbreak, Danielle and Kyle were among those studying at home.
Their mum said: "They were very good at doing their school work – they both had their Chromebooks home. They quite enjoyed it."
She went on to say that life for them just now was no different than usual. "We are not really thinking about the coronavirus as we are that busy," she said.
