“How’s she doing, lad?”

“All right I think.” Nathan looked down to see if she was breathing. He shook her a little and she coughed and, after a few moments bleated, much to his relief.

“Aye, she’s fine.”

He jumped as another icy blast rattled the battered window-shutters. His attention had only been on the little one. With no prompting, the mother came over and began to lick her baby.
As she did, he realised she wasn’t done.

“There’s another one coming.” He noticed his voice squeak a little as he looked over his shoulder towards his father.

“Aye, there may be. Can you manage?”

He didn’t answer for a moment. He was watching the mother and her lamb. On the one hand, she was attending to her firstborn and at the same time, there was another on the way.

“I’ll be all right. She knows what she’s doing.”

The unstable life was trying to stagger to her feet. For Nathan, this was the first time he’d ever supervised a ewe and her birth. Their move to the farm upon the hill had been after lambing last Spring, so this was a new experience for him. He was doing well; yet he knew that this was only the start.

He could barely think, what with the shed full of the bleating of expectant mothers as well as the few newborn lambs that had already arrived.

The early ones had their full attention, for they came slowly and before full production came into swing. Soon, Nathan’s whole family would be busy and most of the mothers would be left to their own devices when their time came. The family would focus only on those that needed their help, for that was all they would have time for.

“Where’s your sister?” His father’s voice called out from the other side of the barn.

“She’s coming now.” And with that unconscious prompt, the barn door opened and his sister came in, carrying flasks of tea for them both. Another bitter gust followed her in and he tugged his coat all the tighter around him.

“Keep that door shut will you.”

“I got to come in, or you’ll get no tea.”

She left one flask on the stone sill two pens away from him and carried on into the barn to give her father his.

Nathan stood back from the mother and the lamb and looked around him. Standing on his toes, he could see nothing but the bobbing heads of mothers and mothers-to-be. The warm and comforting sounds of nervous contentment only bettered by the natural smells of straw, animals and farming at its best.

Suddenly she bleated out loud. Nathan was shaken out of his dreaming and back to the real world. He looked over at her and saw another head forcing its way out into the world.

“The other one’s coming now.” There was no response from his father, but Susan rushed over to see the momentous event.

“Can I watch?” she asked.

She was the younger, but they were both young enough to view this first lambing with excitement, rather than the apprehension of the numbing fatigue that would soon follow.

He stepped back to let her see another lamb forcing its way into the warm barn. The mother bleated again.

“Will she be all right?”

“Aye, she’ll be fine. She’s done it before.”

“The little one, I mean.” He caught her transfixed as the mother gave birth and began to nurture the second of her lambs into the world.

Nathan noted the concern in his little sister’s voice and reassured her.
“She’ll look after him alright.

“Have you just got back?”

“Yes, just now. The pass was closed, so we had to go round.

“Mum isn’t sure of driving the truck in the snow yet.”

“Bit different than the city, isn’t it?” he laughed.

He’d had been in the truck with his mother when winter started. She still slid around a bit and took things with great care. She didn’t have the confidence of his father. Those years of his youth on the hills, weren’t ever forgotten.

“How are you liking our first winter then?”

Nathan looked over at his sister. The move had been a big decision for the family and one that they had not taken lightly. But when the factory closed and his father lost his job, the inheritance came at just the right time. They talked about selling the farm, but his mother knew that Nathan’s father had been waiting for this opportunity all his life.

“It’s all right,” said Susan.

Nathan saw the awe in her face at the activity around the barn.

“Is it going to be all right for you, do you think?”

Before she could answer, his father’s voice prevailed over the hubbub.

“Can I have a hand over here?” Nathan looked at his ewe. She was doing fine with the addition now, as well as the first.

“Coming.”

He ran over, wasting no time. He knew the sound of urgency on the farm by now. There was no time for small talk or delay when a request came.

“She’s all caught up inside.” His father had his hands up around the ewe’s nether regions and was grimacing as he manoeuvred the lamb, still inside her.

“Will the lamb be alright?”

“We’ll see in a minute.”

Nathan watched his father’s skill. Eyes glued to the scene in front of him, he aspired to be as at ease with farm life.

It was a new world to him. It was a new world to them all.

His father was the sage. The mentor. They would follow him, for they all trusted him.

As he looked around the barn, he felt at home for the first time since their upheaval. The lambs seemed to complete the circle.

The circle of the seasons that was now so vital to them all. The new lives bursting forth, fulfilling their dreams of their new life.