Clarkson and Kaleb are working on the farm; Clarkson, driving a telehandler, listens to the radio news broadcast talking about the initial spread of COVID-19. Carrying a fence post on its forks, he attempts to repair a fence gate on his own. Noticing the gate doesn't close fully, Clarkson attempts to create a dry stone wall and brags to Gerald about his accomplishment; Gerald laughs this off and kicks the wall down. Later in February, Kevin and Ellen assist Clarkson in herding the sheep for lambing season, with more news on the initial spread of COVID-19 playing over the radio news.
Clarkson is initially only worried about the impending lambing season, but come mid-March 2020, a second thing begins to worry him; a montage of barren streets, subways and public transport is shown, with a statement made by British prime minister Boris Johnson urging all British citizens to stay at home playing in the background followed by an excerpt of a statement by Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick to underscore the severity of the situation. Clarkson holds a "socially-distanced meeting" with Kaleb, where he voices his concerns about COVID-19, with his past health issues amplifying his worries. Clarkson then notes that they have been listed as key workers due to their involvement in farming, and thus are allowed to keep working; they then come up with schemes to prevent the spread of the virus within themselves or the film crew, such as staying within their own tractors and practicing social distancing.
Kaleb returns to the farm in his tractor while Clarkson heads to his newly-built lambing barn, built in preparation for the upcoming lambing season; he states that Ellen will be helping out with lambing, but also states that because Ellen will not be there all the time, he would learn how to do some lambing himself through watching her. After evenly splitting the expectant sheep into separate pens, everything was ready for the arrival of the lambs. As the days passed, no lambs had been born; while waiting, Clarkson decides to feed the chickens, whereupon he receives a phone call from Lisa stating that one of the sheep had gone into labor. Clarkson and Lisa then observe the successful birth of the first of 138 lambs and is overjoyed at the birth, but changes his tune after seeing a massive bag of blood hanging off the sheep after birth.
Clarkson notes that said sheep was carrying twins and that there was no sign of the second twin, worrying Clarkson; knowing that contacting Kaleb would be of no use due to his loathing of sheep, he contacts Ellen instead, who arrives just in time to help with the birthing. Over the next few days, Clarkson and Ellen assist with the birthing of more lambs, with Ellen teaching Clarkson other tasks to do with lambing, some of which disgust him. Grossed out by some of the processes involved in lambing, not helped by Ellen's descriptions, Clarkson returns to his tractor and uses a crop roller on some of his crops.
While using the crop roller, Clarkson decides to replace the spring barley planted in that field with vegetables, despite Charlie and Kaleb actively discouraging him from doing so. While preparing the field for vegetables, Clarkson voices more of his concerns regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and his worries about the UK's farming industry. The sets of vegetables arrived at Clarkson's farm a few days later, along with an old and rusty planting machine. Clarkson attempts to hook up the planting machine to his tractor but is discouraged from doing so by Kaleb, who opts to use Lisa's Massey Ferguson. With Lisa driving the Massey Ferguson, Kaleb and Clarkson try their best to socially distance in the cramped space of their planting machine and begin planting the vegetables; as they drive along, they endure the jarring noises produced by the rusting machine.
After planting the vegetables, Clarkson returns to the lambing barn, but realizes he is on his own. As he observes the sheep, he panics on noticing that one had gone into labor and as a result he'd have to do the birthing himself. He successfully assists in the birthing of a lamb on his own and is overjoyed before a second lamb is born shortly after. Ellen arrives shortly after and assists in the birthing of more lambs, which were coming "thick and fast". Another lamb goes into labor and gives birth after Ellen and the film crew have left for the day, with Clarkson being informed through the CCTV feed and runs over to the lambing barn, but notes a lack of open pens. To combat this, Clarkson builds some makeshift pens using metal fencing and barricades for the new lambs and their mothers, with Lisa assisting in filming.
As the night goes on, more lambs are born. As Clarkson continues to build pens, Lisa notices an ewe attacking a lamb; knowing that this meant that the ewe knew that that lamb was not her child and very distressed, Lisa rushes Clarkson over to separate the lamb from the attacking ewe. Clarkson and Lisa later work out which ewe the lamb belongs to and reunite it with its mother, as Clarkson heaves a sigh of relief.
While Clarkson was tending to the sheep, Kaleb spent his time working in the fields, tilling the crops and preparing them for harvest, along with spotting the mistakes Clarkson had made while tilling. Kaleb complains to Clarkson about his irregular tramlines, with Clarkson trying and failing to prove that this was a one-off error. Stating that the other farmers who pass by have already seen Clarkson's irregular tramlines, Clarkson claims to Kaleb that he had solved that problem by intentionally letting the hedge grow to block other's views of the farm.
A few days later, Kaleb turns his attention to his seed drill, left malfunctioning by rats chewing on the mechanism. Clarkson then wonders where Gerald is, with Kaleb remarking that he was likely isolating himself. Back in the office, Clarkson reads about an article saying that eggs were being stolen from farms to combat the egg shortage, providing his own opinions in that regard. Hearing news about panic buying over the radio, Clarkson decides that he would open the farm shop for business, despite not being allowed to due to planning permission issues, claiming there are more important things to think about at the moment and proceeds to erect advertising signs outside the shop.
Admitting his inability to sell the vegetables he had planted as they had not yet matured, Clarkson opts to sell the remaining potatoes he had left in cold storage when he was forced to close the shop. Once he prepares the potatoes for selling, Clarkson reopens the shop with measures to prevent the spread of the virus. A few customers arrive to buy potatoes initially, but business slows after that; making the most of their new carpark, Clarkson and Lisa bide their time by playing a ball-throwing game.
At the end of the day, Clarkson and Lisa count their earnings, totaling up to £12.50. As they pack up, Clarkson finds a stray bottle of beer in a puddle, picks it up and gives it to Lisa. As he packs up, Clarkson comments that while life may be difficult, he still loves it; he walks to the lambing barn, where he and Lisa share a beer from the bottle he had picked up earlier.
The next day, Clarkson returns to the lambing barn for his duties. At this point, 49 of the ewes had given birth, leading to the lambing barn to become a bit cramped. Clarkson notes that some of the earlier births had matured enough, and with Lisa's help took them and their mothers back to the fields to reside, making space for more births. Ellen summons Clarkson back to the lambing barn to aid her in an act of subterfuge, by making an ewe that had given birth to a single lamb accept another, thanks to triplets being born. Clarkson and Ellen successfully manage to convince a sheep to accept another child. His duty done at the lambing barn, Clarkson donates some of his unsold potatoes to local villagers, including Gerald's family and speaks to his wife.
After his duties were done in the village, Clarkson returns to the farm to discover that the old hay bales for grain storage that he had made into a silo had been set on fire by vandals. Charlie arrives shortly after and talks about the smoke caused by the fire. Kaleb stops spraying the crops and quickly puts the fire out, leading to him getting nauseated and going on a rant about the vandals. Leaving Kaleb to put out the fires, Clarkson returns to the lambing barn to look at the lambs and ewes.
Recounting that over a span of three weeks, 120 lambs had been born, Clarkson rushes to the lambing barn, having seen through the CCTV feeds that two more lambs were born. He then recounts about the lambing experiences; most were born without issues, some were "touch and go" and some were stillborn. Soon after returning to the fields, Clarkson discovers a malnourished lamb abandoned by its mother; he contacts a neighboring sheep farmer, Jeremy, who feeds the lamb with nutrients. Hoping that the nutrients would be enough to strengthen it, the lamb grew weaker still as the day wore on, with Clarkson deciding that he should be transferred to "intensive care"; despite their efforts, the lamb passes the next morning.
Ellen informs Clarkson about the financial hit they were going to take from selling the lambs, as most restaurants and pubs were now shut and their inability to export the sheep; as a result the value of each lamb had halved. Despite this, Clarkson declares the lambing season a success, having successfully delivered 134 of the 138 expected lambs, and comments that he loves having them around. A montage of activities the Diddly Squat farm crew follows, showing what they had done during lockdown. Clarkson comments that although he had not been allowed to leave the farm for six weeks, he didn't want to leave and these few months had genuinely been the happiest he'd ever been, before all of it would go horribly wrong for Clarkson and the gang again.
Tropes featured in the episode:
- Everyone Has Standards: Clarkson may have had no qualms about wanting to shoot water voles, but he is grossed out at the prospect of "chopping the bollocks" off of a sheep.
- It Makes Sense in Context: Clarkson's reasoning for replacing his spring barley with vegetables does make sense on paper; spring barley is used to make beer, and due to pubs being shut no beer can be made. The vegetables were selected on the basis of him thinking that vegetables flown from abroad will eventually be in short supply. Whether that plan worked in practice however is an entirely different story.
- Oh, Crap!: Clarkson's reaction to the rapidly spreading COVID-19 pandemic.
- Skewed Priorities: Kaleb is more annoyed about having his appointment at the hairdresser's canceled than COVID-19.
-
Squick: The process of ringing the sheep and the process of castrating the male lambs grosses Clarkson out to no end. - Talks Like a Simile: He calls the crop roller "the most Thunderbirds-y farm machine" in his possession.
