I was lucky to have been brought up in the countryside and very, very lucky to have had a farming Uncle that showed us the ways of the land from a very early age.  So whenever I get the chance to go for long country walks or trundles out in the car just to see what I can see, I do.   I love to see the newborn lambs at Easter, Easter is all about the lamb, one way or another.  But another fun thing I love to do is to say hello to the previous years hand reared lambs, or rather let them come over and say hi to you.

You’ll soon realise they are the hand reared sheep because they tend to do this. 

Walk boldly up to you, much like a labrador. 

Poke head through the bars of the gate, 

for a long ear rub, you can just see hubby’s hand attended to her needs. And eventually after much ear rubbing 

walk off slightly reproachfully that there were no tasty treats in your pocket.

Another fun fact is if you happen to be friends with a farmer that has hand reared any lambs and they are going to slaughter, the milk fed lamb is delicious, forget all about salt marsh lamb, you’ll never taste a sweeter meat than that.