In the wee small hours

Graeme Bethune shares some of the emotions and experiences of a night spent in the lambing shed

- Graeme Bethune

LAMBING: IT'S like nothing else. How can I really convey what the experience is like? Hard work... insane hours... an emotional rollercoaster... All true, but none of these descriptions really cuts to the heart of the experience. As I sit and write this, it's the 6th of May, and wee sheeps have been arriving since the 11th of April, , so I am tired in mind and body, I am deep in the moment, living purely in the now. So that's what I will try to describe; when work exhaustion and emotional overload strip away the veneer of civilization and you find yourself living, after weeks at a peak of concentration, with your senses at the front of your attention in a way that modern life suppresses. I feel more alive during lambing than at any other moment.

There is no way I can cover everything of the lambing experience - you have to live it for yourself. But I have been reading Matsuo Basho's The Narrow Road to the Deep North, so, inspired by this, I am going to talk about a single moment, and try to put you there with me.