30/05/2026
It’s been a bit quiet on the Oakleaf page lately.
Not because we’ve suddenly become organised, sensible farmers. Quite the opposite.
The last few weeks have consisted mainly of two broken vehicles, obsessive camera checks and the sort of daily chaos that makes you wonder whether taking up knitting might have been a better life choice 🧶
Yesterday’s activities involved me and the boys gathering up all the mamas and babies for shearing, hauling the creep feeder back up the field and getting the stable sorted for the rams’ temporary bachelor pad 🐏
By the evening, the ewes, future mamas and rams had all been relieved of their fleeces. Given the weather lately, I imagine they’re feeling considerably less offended by life today.
Massive thank you to Ollie for helping Alex with the rams. At over 100kg a piece and with the subtlety of a runaway tractor, they’re not always the easiest lads to move around 🥵
And a huge thank you to Micheál Nolan for shearing the flock. It’s not every day a professional jockey ends up in your sheep shed, but given the size of some of our rams, we figured if anyone was qualified to handle animals you could potentially ride, it was probably him! 🤣🐏
Now…
Normal people would assume that once the sheep were sheared, everyone had gone home and the yard was shut up for the night, that would be the end of the day’s excitement.
Those people clearly don’t own sheep.
At some point after we’d all left, Cookie decided that hurdles were more of a suggestion than a physical barrier and launched herself over one for a solo nighttime tour of the driveway.
Nothing gets the heart rate up quite like seeing an escapee on the camera.
Having just put the children to bed, I took great delight in announcing, “It’s your turn.” 🤭
Cue Alex being summoned back to the farm while Her Majesty enjoyed her freedom march around the yard.
Eventually the escapee was returned to custody and peace was restored.
For approximately twelve hours.
Today’s task saw me and Archie head up to the rams’ field where Sprocket had apparently been conducting his own landscaping project. What should have been electric fencing was instead a tangled ball of wire stretching across half the field like some sort of agricultural crime scene.
Several hours and a fair amount of language later, the fencing is standing again and ready for the boys to move back tomorrow.
Honestly, sometimes farming feels less like livestock management and more like being a full-time event coordinator for a group of woolly idiots with absolutely no regard for health and safety.
That said, weeks like this are also a reminder of how lucky we are.
Whether it’s friends helping move sheep, neighbours lending a hand, family mucking in or fellow farmers turning up when needed, nobody really does this alone. Behind every flock is usually a small army of people helping hold the whole thing together.
And thank goodness for that.
Because if it was left entirely to us and the sheep, Cookie would still be touring the driveway and Sprocket would probably be halfway to Wales dragging 400 metres of electric fence behind him.
🐑🤣🚜
