Our lambs have started arriving. I miscalculated….I had worked out they were due mid-August, but the first birth was at the end of July.

They were twins, quite big and healthy. I assumed they were early because they were big, but the next day we had another birth, also twins. Then the day after…twins again. I reckecked the livestock calculator. Hmmm. My mistake, end of July is when we should start expecting them.

The first set are now getting frisky and adventurous, and starting to take note of what's going on around them. The others are still timid and stay close to mum.

The process we set up last year has started. At the end of the day we go out with a small amount of feed and rattle the bucket. We walk them into our fox-proof goose paddock, and they spend the night there. In the morning we lead them out again.

The sheep started by following us in from wherever they were. Now, more often than not, they queue up at the gate, bustling to be the first in.

Apart from the bucket feed there are fresh olive tree prunings every second day, which they happily demolish.

But this afternoon the first twins were not both there. Mum was, and one lamb, but the other was nowhere to be seen.

A fox could take a lamb during the day, but we weren't expecting that. The sheep are alert, we're around, and the faithful alpaca is on guard.

Newborns, or a birth at dawn is risky out in the open, but with our system most of the births have happened in safety. So to lose one was very deflating, and both of us slumped through the shut-down process.

But then Sylvia heard a bleating, and we found our missing lamb. She'd crawled inside a tree guard. The guard is a heavy-duty one, made of welded steel with stitched wheat-bag sides, which keeps things out, but stopped us seeing inside. I went over, lifted her out, and brought her back to her mum.

On the way back we detoured through the stony tree-paddock. A rock-blasted mess, this is ruined land from the dredging last century. Except there are more than a hundred trees planted in it, and the wet year we've had has kicked everything on. The trees look fantastic, and I am hoping they have grown big enough now, with deep enough roots, to get through the coming dry summer. One end of the paddock is wetter than the other, and the trees at that end are lush and 3 metres high. At the dry end life is tougher, but its looking positive.