We've been caught out.

I said from the start I wanted this blog to be a true reflection of life on the croft, and that means telling it as it is, not just when things are going right.

Over the winter, as I’ve said before, most of our ewes are left on the hill. The last couple of years we’ve gathered them at the end of March and brought them home for lambing, and this year we’ve done no different.

But this year hasn’t been like the last few.

We had a mild enough January here on the island. An old crofter friend of mine once said that it used to be believed if you had a mild winter with no snow, the sheep would suffer for it, because they wouldn’t eat the tops of the heather. That, although it was never their first choice of grazing, would in the long run give them the necessary bite and goodness to carry them through the back end of winter. I’ve no proof in the science of it, but to my simple mind it makes a lot of sense.

Our hope — and expectation — had been that the ewes would come in with enough about them that we’d get them built up a bit before lambing. But the last few weeks have been hard going in sheep terms. We’ve had bitter winds, driving rain, cold nights, and not enough of the kind of dry days that let sheep settle and graze properly. Instead of getting their heads down and filling themselves, they’ve been spending too much of their time with their backs to the weather, just trying to stand it out.

It’s often said sheep will stand wind, and sheep will stand rain. But when the two come together, that’s when the bother starts. The ones that haven’t found shelter in the hill, and are out on the open moor or the parks, are the ones that take the worst of it.

That kind of weather takes the heart out of everything, grazing included, and I’ll put my hands up and say I got it wrong. Hindsight’s a fine thing, but we’ve been caught out.

Some of the ewes — thankfully not all — are leaner than they should be, and it’ll be a bit of an uphill job now to get them right for rearing lambs. It’s a schoolboy error on my part — “the best shepherd in the world is always the one looking back over his shoulder” — and there’s nobody else to blame for it. I should have seen what was coming, got them in sooner, or had feed blocks out, or done something to stop them falling away.

But there’s no use dwelling on what should have been done.

What matters now is doing what can be done. We’ll get feed into them, keep on top of them, and hope this weather eases off. A few good days and some dry backs for the ewes would make all the difference in the world.

All that being said, I’m very thankful the cameras aren’t running alongside me these last few days, because a very different side of me would have been shown — and it’s one nobody would be wanting to tune in for.

On a personal note, I do feel guilt and sadness about it. These sheep are in my care, and I feel like I’ve let them down. But I also know I won’t be alone in feeling that. Most of us are doing our best with what’s in front of us, and sometimes we still get it wrong. That doesn’t mean you stop — it just means you get on with putting it right.

The clocks changed this morning, so at least there’s another hour of daylight to work with. Whether that means more jobs getting done, or just an extra hour for me to walk about the place muttering at the weather like an old man, time will tell.

That’s crofting though. You can think you’ve got it right, and the weather soon reminds you who’s really in charge.