Episode 9 This Farming Life

Across some of the most beautiful

and remote landscapes of the British Isles...

This is not a bad office, is it? You know, look at it.

..Scotland's farmers carve a living...

Everything has a time and a season.

Nature doesn't stop.

..breeding sheep and cattle...

There's a lot of old friends here.

They've come to the end of their working life. Quite a sad day.

Wait a second!

..bringing new life into the world...

..and battling with the elements.

They're all cute in their own way,

and especially if they end up on your plate as a lamb chop. Yum.

Over a year, five very different families

let cameras onto their farms...

Hell of a size of nuts on him.

..and into their lives

to share their struggles...

I don't know why you want the... Do you need to do this?

..and their triumphs...

Look at my baby. He's alive!

..as they try and turn a profit, in testing economic times.

That's just depressing, that, really.

There's cause for celebration...

Gorgeous.

..and a time to reflect...

I feel sad that I haven't provided the next generation

to carry on here.

..but it's never dull.

I'm not letting go!

It's not a job, it's a way of life.

It's late spring.

Across Scotland, farmers are welcoming a new generation of lambs.

On many farms, the season is well underway,

but hill farmers Bobby and Anne Lennox are just getting started.

It's an exciting time.

We're looking forward and seeing what the outcome of the lambs,

that - we know we've picked the ewes to go with appropriate rams,

and just to see whether the lambs turn out as well

as we hope they would.

It's also good at this time of year that the kids come about

and everyone basically just mucks in and helps wherever they can.

Bobby and Anne are tenants of two neighbouring farms

near Loch Lomond in central Scotland.

Their land runs from the shores of the loch

up into the surrounding hills,

where they keep a flock of nearly 2,000 blackface sheep.

With their lambing season about to begin,

the plan today is to bring 400 pregnant ewes

down from the hills to the lambing sheds.

We're going to be gathering the sheep off the hill

from the snow away in the distance,

right down this side of the valley,

all the way back down to the farm.

So that's where we're going,

so it's quite a big walk.

61-year-old Bobby has more than leg power to get him around.

His trial bike means he can cover three times the ground

of someone on foot.

Across the glen,

62-year-old Anne has trusty sheepdog Jim as her assistant.

They don't really understand orders, sheep.

Like my dog.

I better go, or I won't be where I should be.

Welcome to my life! Ha-ha.

The ewes are spread over 2,000 acres of hillside,

so Bobby and Anne have brought in extra help,

including their eldest daughter Gill,

who's taken a day off from her job as a tour guide in Glasgow.

I do what I'm told, pretty much.

Get told we need your body out in the hill, off I go.

That's pretty much what I'm doing here.

Ho, ho, ho!

Gathering's quite a big job, gathering lamb and shearing.

All the big jobs, kind of need to lend a hand a bit,

so, quite happy to do that.

Ho, ho, ho, ho!

I tend to try and cross over the middle,

cos I tend to get sent up or down the hill,

wherever someone shouts me so,

I'm going that way, and we'll all meet, at a gate, just over there.

That's the plan.

The gather is expected to take about four hours,

but this is familiar territory for the family.

They've been doing this all their lives.

The Lennoxes have tenanted this farm since 1750,

and four generations still live here.

Right, guys, let's go feed the tups!

Holding the fort at the farm

is Bobby and Anne's youngest daughter Kay.

She lives in the house next door, with her husband and two children.

We do this every morning. We come down and we feed the tups,

here, and we stay at the sheds often

and put the feeders into the... into the feeders for the sheep.

Come on.

Well, this is what we used to have to do, as well, whenever...

whenever we were at home,

we always had to come out and do the feeding and help out

if we couldn't stay in the house.

Come on. Come on.

Blair is coming up three in May

and Ailsa will be two at the end of September,

so she's just kind of 18 months at the moment.

Wahey. One, two, three, up.

With kids, I thought I'd be like,

"Don't touch this" and "Don't do that",

but I just kind of let them get on with it and hope it's all all right,

but they learn, you know?

I allegedly used to eat the sheep feed, which I don't believe.

My mum tells me I did.

But I know I'm going to find them eating that one day,

so I think they'll have really good immune systems, my kids!

Won't you?

Bobby's 89-year-old father and his wife also live at the farm.

This is my grandpa Robbie

and this is my gran Marie

and who's this? Who are they?

Grandpa and granny.

Yeah, great-gran and great-gramps, isn't it? That's it.

Having his 90th birthday in May

and I think we're having a party.

Think something at Shantron in May.

I think we'll have a do, a marquee or something.

We've done it before for the 80ths and things, so...

Just need to get organising now. It's not far away.

Robbie's been working at the farm all his life

and passed on the day-to-day running of it to Bobby

around 30 years ago,

maintaining a long-standing tradition in the Lennox family.

I left school at 15, actually.

I think my father was quite keen to have me at home.

I don't know whether he had a premonition that he wasn't

going to last very long, but it never occurred to us that

what was going to happen did happen,

cos it was just a heart attack,

and he was all right one day and went to bed and died.

It was a lot of hard work, you know, during the war time.

There was a big push on to increase food production,

so it was - it was quite a lot of work.

For his services to agriculture during World War II,

Robbie was awarded an OBE.

He's so proud of it. He's so proud.

He's such a proud man of his family and the history and everything,

so I love just spending time listening to it all

because, to be fair, once, once, unfortunately -

I know one day they'll not be here

and I'll be devastated,

but we might listen now and then you'll have it

and then we can pass it on, do you know?

So that's the point. That's the whole point.

If there's no point for family, what is the point?

In the northeast of Scotland, north of Aberdeen,

an unseasonal blast of wintry weather has arrived

at the worst possible time for the Irvines.

Sheep farmer Mel and fiance Martin have just started lambing.

We're in spring, so we're in end of March, beginning of April,

ten days into lambing

and the weather's decided to go wrong for us, really.

So, the weather was really good in February and beginning of March.

It was looking like a good early spring,

but since the sheep have started lambing

the weather's just decided to go wrong,

so we've had rain, we've had wind, we've got snow today

and we're just kind of getting backed up with lambs at the moment.

The lambs are born in the shed

and are usually put out into the fields within a few days -

but the weather's too cold for the lambs to survive,

so Mel must keep them indoors.

With over 800 lambs on the way,

it's a huge workload and a new experience

for pedigree bull breeder Martin.

He knows what he's doing.

The ewes are pregnant from Mel's 14 rams, or tups.

It's quite good watching the tups run away, chasing all the women.

Over the past two years, Mel's expanded the flock

with some judicious breeding.

The girls, when they're ready, they'll stand,

and their tails do this little flicking thing.

It'll just literally be, two pumps and a squirt, really.

Mel even convinced Martin to take on the contract

to manage the flock owned by the estate they rent their farm from.

Now, they are in charge of 520 pregnant ewes

and there's three weeks of lambing to go.

I'm tired and cold. It's worse as it's cold.

This last four or five days,

it's been about the minus two, three, four at night.

It's frosty, it's cold, it's wet,

and it just kind of gets into you...

and it's nae enjoyable.

-And you don't get a full night's sleep.

-Nah.

Ever.

Mel's plan is for them to manage this enormous workload

completely on their own.

So they've moved into the lambing shed.

This is the love shack, as Martin likes to call it. No.

Because the farm, Braehead, is about four, three or four miles away,

we've got to...and someone needs to be here all night.

Some folk say when you turn the lights off

you should just go away and leave sheep to lamb

and they'll do their own thing.

It's a complete lie.

We quite often can get about,

anything, from like ten to twenty sheep lamb in a night.

So we feel that we've always got to be here.

It's just easier than getting out of your bed at two o'clock

and then having to drive four miles up here,

and then back again, and so we just stay in the caravan

cos you're up during the night,

so we try and aim to be up about every two hours.

And a pregnant ewe could need assistance at any time.

Mel has spotted one.

She just needs to catch her.

We're just going to lamb this one.

Mel's too light for this, you see?

No, no, no, no.

I'm not letting go.

It looks cruel but it's not.

That's one leg.

Martin learnt everything he knows about lambing from Mel...

..but not every birth goes well.

Don't tell me that's dead.

Oh, God.

Swing.

Swinging the lamb should help to clear any fluid

out of its airways...

Come on.

..but he's slow to come round.

Wake up.

There he goes.

Just stimulate, stimulating the lamb to breathe.

There he goes.

Just stimulating his back to make him stimulate his lungs

and get air into them.

There you go.

Happy.

That's one lamb happily settled in a pen with his mother.

Just another 500 to go.

Further south, near Loch Lomond, the weather is much milder.

The Lennox family are two and a half hours into their gather.

The sheep are running well and seem fit enough,

so, quite happy with...

Often at this time of year, they're heavy in lamb,

they've had a hard winter,

there are a few slow ones, dragging away at the tail end that...

but weren't any at all today, so quite happy at the moment.

It's just nice, you get a day like this

and if you look out there and look up,

later in the spring when everything just started to green up

and you sit up on the hill and just look out over that view,

I know why I'm still farming here.

The farm is Bobby's passion,

but it only earns enough to support him and Anne.

So, when the children were younger, he encouraged them all

to pursue other careers outside of farming.

Ten years ago, the outlook for sheep farming was not very rosy,

post-foot and mouth, and I said to them,

"Look, go to school. Go and get an education.

"Go and get another trade. Find something else to do.

"The farm will be there if you want it at a later stage,

"but go and get something behind you" -

and they've gone and done their own individual careers

and been successful.

With grandfather Robbie's 90th birthday looming

and Bobby nearing retirement,

the question of who will take over the farm is on everyone's mind.

Did Great-Gran make the shortbread? Is it good shortbread?

Kay runs her own cleaning business,

but spends as much time as she can helping out on the farm.

I would love to be able to be here and stay on the farm

and be part of it and have mum and dad there and we'll...

between us, cos my husband, as much as he works full-time...

He's a boat builder, so his joinery and fixing skills are brilliant.

He's very clever and mechanically minded as well.

He's got a classic car he's doing up

and when it comes to maintenance on the farm

I'm pretty handy with stuff as well and with him there, too, so...

and I've got a brother and sister, as well.

I'm sure they'll be involved somewhere along the line.

As I say, we've not really ironed anything out yet.

Kay's twin brother, Alan,

who works in the oil industry in Aberdeen,

is building a boat in one of the farm sheds in his spare time.

We're not, at the moment, we're not in a position to

make a decision on what's going to happen with the farm in future

cos Grandpa and my dad are running it, so...

that's the way it is,

and Kay's on the farm at the moment,

so I don't know what her thoughts are on...

We've not had to broach the subject of taking over the farm yet

and, obviously, Dad's in his 60s,

so I would imagine be looking for retirement.

My reckoning, Kay's got her eyes on it, anyway.

Whoever takes over the farm, it will be a huge endeavour.

It's 5,000 acres of...

You've seen it. You know, it's up high.

You need quite lot of bodies, which costs money, cos, you know, so...

So, it's just about making it work.

We don't know what it is yet, but we're going to make it work.

The gather is near the end.

That was a good day.

It went quite well, actually, I thought.

Anne, Gill and contract shepherd Derek

are waiting for Bobby near the pens.

He's got much the easiest job.

He doesn't have to do anything like what...

He does cover a lot more distance.

-No, he covers the distance of about three folk.

-Yeah.

Aye. No, I wouldn't fancy his job. It's all right on a nice...

He's standing the whole time, so it's still a lot.

He's not just sort of sitting, dondering about, like it's a lot.

It's hard work on the shoulders and, you know, and the...

Not bad for a 60-year-old.

61-year-old.

Oh, that's right!

The pregnant ewes will now be taken into sheds,

where Bobby and Anne can monitor their feed

and help them during lambing if they need it.

We will go and have our lunch and work our way through there.

The sheep shed there is full of ladies-in-waiting now.

In the north of Scotland near Inverness,

large-scale sheep farmer John Scott runs a successful family farm.

He is three weeks into his lambing season and with over 4,000 ewes

to care for, this is lambing on an enormous scale.

With such a mammoth task, the whole family gets stuck in,

whatever their age.

Today, John's being assisted by youngest son, seven-year-old Archie.

Right. Come and practise this.

When lambs are first born,

they're marked up with the same numbers or letters as their mothers,

so John knows who belongs to who.

That good?

I'm pretty happy with that.

-You happy with that?

-Yeah.

It's very important that we encourage the next generation

to get involved in agriculture.

So, for us, it's great to have the kids here.

Tremendous to have the kids out working with us.

James I can leave to it.

He can get proper tasks to do,

whereas Archie just comes and helps a little bit

and mucks around a bit too, which is fine.

It's good.

The young lambs are also banded.

A tight rubber band on the tail restricts the blood supply,

leading it to wither and fall off.

If you can imagine in the summertime, the grass is rich

and if there's a bit of dirt about the tail,

if it's longer, there's more risk of fly strike.

Dirt on the tail encourages flies to lay their eggs on the lamb,

which could lead to an infestation of maggots.

So, that's why we rubber band the tail, to make it shorter,

so that'll just...

In two or three weeks' time, that'll just drop off that bottom part.

It doesn't... The lamb's only 24 hours old,

it doesn't affect them at all.

Most of the male lambs also have their testicles rubber banded.

So, here's one I need to castrate, so we'll just...

..put a rubber band over the testicles.

Check they're both there, and that's that.

This lamb's not suitable for breeding.

This is just for meat, he's going to be.

So, he doesn't need to have his testicles.

He's a longer keep lamb as well.

It's likely that this lamb is a house lamb.

He's not going to be ready till probably December time.

If we left him entire, he would cause problems -

ie, he would maybe mate with ewe lambs,

so we don't want that happening.

With extra staff staying during lambing,

there are constant mouths to feed

and, as Easter is looming, it's only going to get busier.

Daughters Izzy and Lexie are helping mum Fiona back at the farmhouse.

125.

We seem to be baking every day at the moment,

because everybody's so hungry after lambing, so we're...

It seems to be a bake a day, or a cake a day,

so we're stockpiling just now.

About there.

That's about right, yeah. Perfect.

We've got three extra staying in the house

and an extra guy that comes in at lunchtime.

And now with the kids being on holidays it's, yeah...

It's a never-ending mission of making food,

clearing up and making more food.

John's trusty assistant is a little distracted.

Archie, do you want to come and do these numbers again?

Come and do these numbers again?

I'm making a real mess of them. I think you should come and do it.

Look at the lazy little brute.

I can mark and band, maybe, 100, 120 ewes with lambs

every morning and it can get a wee bit tedious,

so, if you've got him for a few hours

or just for a few minutes, even,

just to lighten things a little bit is great.

So, can you do a capital "K"?

So, a big one?

Yeah, a big one. Like a big K. Curly K.

So...

Well, no, yeah, but it's like that.

Yeah, on there.

Sorry.

Meant to put it on the sheep, not me.

-Never mind. It was a good K until that part, wasn't it?

-Yeah.

Right, I'll put one on the ewe, will I?

See if I can make mine as neat as yours.

Oh, no.

A big K.

Well, I think mine is better than Archie's, don't you, Arch?

No!

I drew better.

Think you're probably right, I'm afraid.

Across the yard,

Archie's big brother James is helping with lambing.

He's under the watchful eye of farmer's daughter Emma

from New Zealand, who's studying in the UK,

and who John's hired in to help over this busy period.

He's learning and he's really keen to learn,

so it's good actually having an extra pair of hands.

An extra set of eyes in the shed.

-Is it there?

-Yeah, it's there.

I feel a head and some legs...

..and it's quite gooey, actually.

You'll make a good farmer.

He's got a good quiet way with stock.

So, I think that's something that you can't really be taught.

You just have it or you don't.

That's it, well done.

I've lambed four sheep this morning.

I'm enjoying doing lambing, it's good fun.

Further east, there's no let up of the unseasonal wintry weather.

Mel and Martin are still lambing,

and their sheds are bursting with nearly 300 newborn lambs.

They're living on site, sleeping for no more than two hours at a time.

On top of an already heavy workload,

Mel must bottle feed the orphan or pet lambs.

These lambs, for various reasons, are not able to feed

from their mothers,

so they're kept warm by a heat lamp and fed by hand.

This one's Mum didn't have enough milk.

This one is the same, which as you can see, it's a lot smaller.

So, I thought I would take it away and bottle-feed it,

so I'm basically giving myself more work,

but it's more likely it'll live with me than it will with Mum.

It takes Mel an hour to feed them all

and she must do this four times a day.

I used to love feeding pet lambs when I was about eight.

It's when I started really loving sheep

and I used to just go in and sit with them and they used to

do this, climb all over you,

cos basically they just wanted fed.

Pet lambs, when I grew up, are just a pain.

They're like babies, they need fed at least four times a day.

We have a wee heat lamp there just going to keep them warm

because they've got no mum to snuggle up to,

so you'll see them all piled in the corner to keep them warm.

Martin's not convinced it's time well spent.

Need a pet pen.

Mel spends about four hours a day in this pen feeding and feeding

and feeding and checking.

That's four hours that could be spent somewhere else,

but every lambing shed will have a pet pen and this is our pet pen.

Worst thing is you could spend probably 30 quid,

each lamb, in milk to feed it.

But at the end of the day, it's only going to be worth 50 quid

on a good day.

The pet lamb will always be the runt and the small

and take up a lot of time.

This is Mel's pen. This is not my pen.

As pet lambs need bottle-feeding for six weeks,

Mel has come up with a plan to relieve her workload.

This ewe is giving birth to a single lamb.

But Mel is going to trick her into thinking she's having twins,

by covering the pet lamb in her birth fluids.

She doesn't know whether she's had two or one.

So, all the fluids and everything that comes out with this lamb,

we'll soak this lamb in it and it's just to disguise the smell.

She starts licking it and you can see her being happy with it,

that's it, she'll have a take.

This is the pet.

So we're going to try and trick with this one.

Ewes are drawn to mothering their lambs through smell...

OK, you got her?

..but this ewe might not be fooled.

Mel puts the pet lamb in the pen first to give him the best chance...

..followed by the ewe's own lamb.

Fingers crossed. They both smell the same now - or should do.

She's just got to remember that she's got two...

and not, maybe, favour one more than the other.

It looks like the ewe is going to accept the lamb as her own.

So, by being able to put a pet onto a single's great for us,

because it means that I don't have to feed it with a bottle,

and she can provide the milk,

and she can do the work like she's meant to,

and it gives me more time to concentrate on other things,

or maybe other pet lambs, so...

I would say that this would be successful.

But there are still more hungry mouths to feed.

It's exhausting. I can't stress enough how tired you get.

I'm feeling OK now. The point when I'll get most tired

is when I go home, we'll have tea, you've got a full belly

and you go get a shower, and you sit down.

That's when you go, "I need to up and go",

because you're just shattered.

And your hands are constantly black.

My nails are cut short and black.

I don't look very feminine at the moment.

And you'll also notice that I don't wear my engagement ring.

Just thought, couldn't really go in and say to Martin,

"Just lost my engagement ring in a ewe."

Don't know whether insurance would cover that, to be honest.

I don't think it would.

But with most of the lambs still to be born,

Mel's unlikely to get any rest soon.

Nearly 200 miles northwest,

on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides,

ex-barrister turned crofter, Sandy Granville

is yet to begin lambing.

Alongside his 12 Highland cattle,

he keeps over a hundred blackface sheep.

His lambing is scheduled to start in a few weeks

when the weather is warmer.

So today he's spring cleaning his holiday cottage.

The weather's absolutely rotten, it's soaking wet outside.

I have got some outside jobs I could be doing,

but this isn't the day for draining and ditching.

But it is the time for, erm, making sure that this...

this house is all ready for the visitors coming.

In a... I think the first one's coming in about a month.

Sandy makes his living selling mutton and beef,

but, as a crofter,

needs to supplement his income by diversifying.

This is the house we moved into when we came here first in 2002.

I always do a bit of touching up with paint,

and this year it's new tweed curtains all through.

It's traditional tweed hand-woven by a friend, named after Harris,

the southern part of the island.

It's a delightful fabric to be using.

The machine, well, I'd seen my mother using it,

so I knew how to wind a bobbin and it always works beautifully,

just needs drop of oil now and again.

I expect there might be people watching this who'll think,

that's a really funny way to make a curtain.

It's just the way I do it.

Crofting's always been a life where you have to do

a lot of different things.

Weaving, weaving is a very,

very important part of crofting life.

It was a good work for people to have

that they can do when they - when it suits them.

And it all...it all helps to balance the rather complicated books

that one has.

Across the road at home,

Sandy's wife Ali is getting ready for the Easter weekend.

We used to order hot cross buns and have them delivered by the...

by the baker when we lived in Kent,

and then we started making them ourselves

and today, I've made something called Swedish buns,

which are a bit like a Chelsea bun, they're sort of bready and spicy

and delicious, and I'm just going to take them out of the oven.

Oh, yes. Oh, they look good, they look lovely.

There they are.

Not really hot cross buns, but spicy buns.

We'll have them later with our coffee.

So, so it's looking like a good Easter.

It's Sunday, and on the mainland at the Lennox family farm,

there's an Easter egg hunt.

Bobby and Anne have laid a trail for Blair and Ailsa.

There are eggs in there.

I found the eggs!

Whoo!

No...

THEY LAUGH

I see the eggs!

No eggs in there.

Cow!

There's an egg!

Got another two.

Ah! Cheese!

And at the Scott's family farm, they've invited a few friends...

Right, do you know what the rules are, guys?

Yeah, one from each nest.

You can only take one egg from each nest,

and you can have a bunny rabbit, each.

Can we go out either door?

No, you're going out this door.

Alison, do you want to go out in front of them?

Found one! Yeah!

Found one there, didn't he? Oh, no, he didn't.

-Can you tell us what's happening, please?

-Not at the moment.

COCK CROWS

I'm optimistic there may be one or two Easter eggs left over for me...

but if not, I'll steal it from the kids.

I have a bunny. A little egg and a bigger egg.

I'm struggling with my conscience

to maybe, share it with a young child

who maybe needs a chocolate, or just eat it.

-There you go.

-That's my tax. No? Is it not for me, no?

No. Unless you pay me £20.

You think that bunny's worth £20? How about a pound?

No.

There are no Easter celebrations for Mel and Martin.

Although the snow is starting to ease off,

it's still below freezing outside,

and still too cold for the very youngest lambs to be put out.

After just a few hours' sleep, Martin's up

and checking for any problems.

If I see any lambs with empty bellies or hunched up,

they're not looking well,

and obviously they've not found their mums,

I'll have to pair them up again or pen them.

Just take a walk through and see how everything is.

BLEATING

He finds a lamb that needs help.

Number 119 was born in the middle of the night,

but his mother was not producing enough milk to feed him.

Now he's critically weak.

This is one of the twins,

and you see this hyperextending,

he's throwing his head back,

he's got an empty belly.

He doesn't look good, so what I'll do,

I'll go fill his belly with milk,

put him under the heat lamp.

He doesn't look like a happy camper.

Number 119 is severely dehydrated.

Martin takes him straight to the pet pen.

Mel's trying to catch up on her sleep,

but the new arrival needs her.

Hey, sleepy head.

HE LAUGHS

It's the worst thing, getting out your bed in the morning

or getting out of bed any time of night.

You're lying, you're warm, you're cosy, it's nice,

and you've to get up into the cold, so, not a nice feeling,

but once you're up you're OK, but it's just that point of getting up.

Everybody knows that feeling.

Even Tilly gets it, don't you, Tilly?

MEL MUTTERS

Morning.

Can't function.

Not enough sleep.

SHEEP BLEAT

Just mixing up some milk...

some milk for the pet lambs, again...

..and having breakfast.

It's cold. I'm cold already, I can feel it.

This is just a milk replacer so it's like,

baby's formula type stuff, but for lambs.

Mel's priority is Number 119.

We'll give it a belly full of milk, give it a chance.

If it won't survive a belly full of milk and a heat up

then there's something wrong with it.

If it doesn't survive that, it'll die pretty quickly.

The lamb is too weak to suck from the bottle,

so Mel has to pass a tube down his throat

so she can syringe the milk directly into his stomach.

With the way that lamb's looking now

I'd give it a 20% chance of living the rest of the day.

If it's going to come round, it'll come round the next couple of hours.

If not, it'll just deteriorate and get worse.

119 is in such a bad way, Mel wants to keep a closer eye on him.

The little pet lambs are all crowded round the heat lamp,

so to give this one a better chance,

just going to keep him in the caravan, which is nice and warm.

Wrap him in a towel, keep him warm for a wee while

so he doesn't get piled up on.

While 119 rests, Mel's keen to get outside

and check on the older lambs

they put out into the field a few days ago.

I see some lambs.

It's amazing - for all the size of a lamb,

it's amazing how tough they can be.

As long as they've had a belly full of milk...

-Kept dry.

-Kept dry, they'll be OK.

So, the two sheep on the left-hand side, 31 and 15,

they're both coloured blue, which means that they're twins.

But each ewe's only got one lamb with them,

so, just trying to remember that

and see if their other lambs are up here.

There's 65, she's got her baby - quite happy.

Look see, there's another one just popped out the other side of it,

132.

Now these guys aren't sitting in the snow, that's good a sign.

Yep, getting the sun, getting a warm up.

That's all the ewes and lambs - seem to come over to this,

can see lambs skipping about, they're quite happy,

everyone's up for breakfast

so, it seems OK so far, which is surprising.

At the caravan, Mel checks on her special case.

Let's try, keep him warm, as best we can.

Heater's on full blast.

He's gotten really cold and Mum's just not looked after him at all.

Shut the caravan door, keep the heat in

and keep him as warm as possible,

and that's all I can really do for him at the moment.

So, go out and feed the other pet lambs just now.

While the lamb rests, so do Martin and Tilly.

I've let him away with that, because I had a...

I was later in getting up this morning as well, myself,

so, it's quite important to -

when everything's half quiet -

just to have a sleep and...whether it's ten minute, five minute,

usually makes you feel a hell of a lot better.

An hour later, Mel's back to get them up.

So he should just be coming out in a minute.

Ha! Look at my baby!

What's happened?

He's alive!

We've gone from a flat little lamb, to... I was thinking that

20% he might not live... no, 20% he'll live.

Now look at him. Magic milk, you know?

I stayed in and looked after it for you.

No, you did not, you were sleeping!

Ten minutes.

That wasn't ten minutes.

An hour or something?

Something like that.

If that's not a miracle I don't know what is.

LAMB BLEATS

Da-da-da-da-da!

I'll pop him in the pet lamb pen, see how he does.

If he gets a bit more cold,

can always put him back in the caravan, so...

The little lamb has made it.

Now he can join his twin, also 119.

In Central Scotland near Loch Lomond,

lambing has now started for the Lennoxes.

But the family recently suffered a tragedy.

Just four weeks before his 90th birthday,

Bobby's father Robbie was suddenly taken ill, and died.

He's going to be sadly missed. We've worked together all my life.

I've been farming 40-odd, plus years, since I left college.

Now I've seen him virtually every...every day,

somewhere around time on the farm.

It's funny in a sort of way,

because we're just so busy with lambing,

it just went whoomph. You've just

got to keep going, and there's that much work ahead, if you...

that you go on.

I haven't had time to dwell on it too much, or, to be quite honest,

I sadly haven't missed him from the mourning point of view.

I think that'll probably come, again,

once I've got time to think about it.

He was a great man.

He'd done an awful lot in his time.

He'd seen a lot of the world.

And, you know, I think the tribute at the funeral

when the church was standing room only,

for a 90-year-old's... quite a tribute.

It's very surreal, very strange.

It's very strange him not being there.

You just expect him to walk through a door.

No, he's a great miss.

But, anyway, we were lucky.

I was lucky he was a lovely man and I was treated so well by him.

He was a real gent.

Life has to go on.

We're on a farm, nature doesn't stop,

and everything has got a time and a season that happens,

irrespective of what happens roundabout.

We've still got to get on with the farm. We've got to work,

and everybody's got to get on and do what they have to do,

to make the farm keep going,

cos you can't leave the animals stuck in a place

where they can get into distress or into trouble.

We've got to look after them, so life just does go on.

On the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides,

Sandy and Ali are expecting the first guests of the year

to their holiday cottage.

People coming today, and we're a bit behind hand...

with the sorting out.

It's all finished now, more or less.

Ali usually cleans the kitchen.

I mostly do the...do the rest of it.

The last people didn't score very highly.

Five days ago, Sandy and Ali

welcomed a different kind of arrival to the croft.

Tormod is the second calf to be born in the last few weeks.

As Highland cattle are so hardy,

his mother Morag gave birth to him outdoors on her own.

It was Wednesday - I got a call from a neighbour

saying my cow was calving, he was watching,

so I raced down on the quad,

and went and had a look, and it's a big calf, nice calf, very good calf.

It's always very worrying, because the first couple of days

they're really, really, you know, a bit vulnerable,

and this chap, I think he was getting loads of milk,

loads and loads of milk from his mother,

but because he was getting so much milk,

he just kept falling asleep and looking like he was dead,

and just lying there, completely abandoned -

but I had to keep going and poking him,

making sure, then he'd jump up and rush around and be absolutely fine,

but after a while we realised that he was actually having to sleep

because he was getting such a lot of good food from his mother,

so that was all good.

So they're both good, they're both fine.

Yeah, good calf. Good calf. Nice strong boy.

He'll... Next thing got to catch hold of him and put his ear tags in.

And that's...

The earlier the better,

before he can put up too much of a fight.

The last people who were here, I told them

they were in charge of the calving.

They seemed a bit nervous about it.

It's an interesting thing for people coming up here

to meet our funny old-fashioned ways of doing things.

-All clean?

-That's it. I think it's fine.

-We're gone?

-Yep.

On the mainland in the northeast, the snow has finally cleared.

Nearly all the lambs are out in the fields,

so Mel and Martin can take a welcome break.

They're back at the house,

and at last have time to think about something other than lambing.

They're getting married in two months,

and today Martin has a kilt fitting.

We've both spoke about it

and just said that we wanted everyone in different kilts

and the same jacket and waistcoat for the wedding party,

and socks and that.

So, I wasn't really that bothered, to be fair.

This is the sort of thing that Martin's got to sort out,

and it's about the only thing that he needs to sort out.

-Ta, Mel!

-I've done everything else.

I haven't booked the bus yet, though.

Eight weeks tomorrow. Look at the stress on Mel's face.

She worries, but I know everything is just going to fall into place

when it comes. That right, Mel?

How do you know that when you've not done, booked anything?

THEY LAUGH

It'll just fall into place, I ken it will.

Mel panics, Mel worries over everything, don't you?

I'm just, yeah, I think I've got everything done

it's just going to be that week before, and I'll forget something,

or something's going to happen,

but we've just got so much to do in between.

This eight weeks are going to be the fastest eight weeks

I've ever had, probably.

All right, so, it's half past ten -

half past eleven, half past twelve, half past one.

I'll be back at half one.

Martin is meeting his two brothers

and dad Stevie in the nearby town of Grantown-on-Spey.

Yeah, it's a nice kind of place.

-It's not all hillbilly country up here.

-Hello.

-Hello.

Who's in first?

It's a proper Highland outfitters

with a complete range of tartans, including the Irvine Clan -

but, for Stevie, it's a new experience.

Dad, he needs the full shebazz.

-All right, Stevie. What kind of kilt?

-Erm...

You want something with purple in it because is purple the theme?

No, it's just any...

Anything you like.

You can always have purple, but...

Never worn a kilt in my life.

I've got the Douglas, which is quite like the Irvine.

Just show me - you can pick whatever you fancy.

Let me have a look at this here.

This is the Isle of Skye.

You want to have a wee look, Martin?

You dinna know, really, do you?

So, why don't we just try something on and then we can go with colours?

-Aye.

-I'll look stupid with a kilt on.

No, you'll be fine, trust me. Trust me, you'll be fine.

-Really white legs!

-No, it's fine, I've got tan and stuff, no problem.

Right, so let's go and we'll try, we'll pick...

-16.

-Aye, 16. You got a phone in there?

LAUGHTER

I'll not tell anybody.

Can you see the panic in his face?

This would be the first time Dad's ever wore a kilt. Never.

Get oot.

Sook it in, Dad.

It's great fun, actually.

There's nothing nicer than seeing a'body all dressed up

for their weddings.

You try to make people feel comfortable that have never

worn a kilt before, my dear.

There's enough room in there for one whisky and two pints.

My knees.

Go on, Dad, give us a twirl.

-What do you think?

-Very smart.

What can you tell me?

-What do you think?

-Comb your hair, at least.

Strike a pose.

Usain Bolt!

It takes eight yards of tartan to make a kilt,

and Martin's is yet to be sewn together,

which is just as well,

as all the hard work of lambing has taken its toll.

He's lost an inch and a half.

As soon as you've finished your lambing and that, pop back,

make sure that your kilt's fine.

At the farm, Mel's got her hands on a new bit of kit

that could change her life.

This is our shepherdess bucket.

What it is, it's a bucket within a bucket,

with two teats in it, and it's got a thermostat at the bottom

that keeps the water warm around the milk bucket.

So these lambs are our pet lambs

that constantly have, basically, ad lib milk,

so it's milk on tap, or on teat,

so I don't have to feed them.

This one doesn't always put himself onto it,

so I've got to physically hold him there.

He will get it, just about.

It saves me and Martin, or mostly me, a lot of time.

They're nibbling my waterproofs!

This bucket will save us about four hours a day.

It's brilliant.

They're content, they're not squealing, you know,

"Feed me, I'm hungry," type of thing.

They just feed themselves, which is great.

This little 119 with the blue head and the pink nose

is the little lamby that we took into the caravan

and me and Martin said it's only got about a 20% chance of living,

and showed us up and lived, which is great,

and that lamb just hasn't looked back.

Hey, toots, come on. So, it's a little rascal.

It feeds itself. It's quite happy, aren't you?

And he's put on a lot of weight and he's looking good.

So you have, haven't you?

It's a boy so we won't be keeping it.

We won't be keeping any of these, they get sold, so...

but, yeah, it's a miracle little lamby, aren't you?

LOUD BLEATING

In Central Scotland, near Loch Lomond,

the Lennoxes are getting together at the family farm.

It's been four weeks since the death of Bobby's father Robbie.

This would have been Dad's 90th birthday party today.

His 90th birthday would have been yesterday,

so there's a party arranged.

The invites were due to go out

at the weekend that, unfortunately, he passed away,

but tonight was the night that we'd planned to have a party for him.

We'd put the marquee up in the garden behind there

and there's about 35, 40 people, would have been coming to it.

It wasn't to be.

Right, if you want to come through and we'll get started,

get drinks organised. Who's on red wine?

GENERAL CHATTER

-Well, good health.

-To grandpa.

-Grandpa.

-Grandpa.

GLASSES CLINK

With Robbie gone,

Bobby's been thinking about the future of the farm,

and it seems that Kay is the natural successor.

There's no doubt with Dad dying now,

I think that's concentrated all of our minds to the future.

Kay is learning the ropes just now,

she's starting to try and learn the paperwork side of things

and doing the accounts and bits and pieces

and learn as much as she can, but that's the bit that is the hard bit.

It's running the business side of it

and all the red tape and rules and regulations

that you've to comply with now, is a big task.

I'd be fine, cos I'd have Dad to kinda keep me right, you know?

I mean, at the end of the day, you would just get on with it.

I just really enjoy it. It's nice to be part of

it. I've got really, really strong ties to the farm,

and obviously the family, and really enjoy the work.

Obviously, I don't do it every single day, so that might change.

Day in day out, I know it's a hard slog and you're out in the rain -

no matter what happens, a job needs done, but I don't mind that.

I don't mind getting my hands dirty, always have done,

always been a bit of a tomboy, so...

Things might need to change a little bit to make it work,

but all of us will be together with it, and we'll work it through.

Next time...

John Scott has to call on the vet to do an emergency Caesarean.

A live calf, very narrow pelvis, small heifer.

Martin's cattle finally get to go outside after eight months indoors.

That feeling there for them must be a great feeling.

Just getting back onto the grass again and away.

And George MacPherson celebrates a big one...

# Happy Birthday to you! #

Thank you very much - and don't give up your day job!