Clarkson's Farm season 3 episode 3 sees Jeremy getting quite the surprise when he comes back from his holiday to learn that the farm has some new additions.
Meanwhile, Diddly Squat is continuing to fight the council on some of their proposals, with Charlie having some strong words with some of the workers about how they'll need to change what they're doing in order to keep the council on their good side. Here's what happened in episode 3...
The episode opens with Christmas festivities, with Jeremy admitting it was business as usual for him on Boxing Day. He managed to go on holiday for a week in the New Year, where he returned to speak with Kaleb who had been looking after the pigs. He's shocked to learn that five piglets were born while he was gone, and realises one of the sows must've been pregnant when he'd bought them.
This number reduces to four after the runt of the litter was eaten (the dark side of farming), which was very upsetting news for Lisa and Jeremy. But with an unexpected litter and a potential for more pig pregnancies, Jeremy focuses on building a new home in the woods, but they were in need of some serious maintenance. This included a rapidly collapsing dam.
He's advised to be careful around the banks as they might collapse if any machinery is brought in, and he also needs to be mindful of any wildlife in the area. He is also told that they'd prefer it if he used manual labour over heavy machinery, purely because it's the safest way of getting the job done.
Jeremy gets a small machine that is remote controlled and able to destroy some of the debris that was in the way of the dam, and they also get to work digging up clay which they'll use for repairs. They decide to create a temporary dam, which leads into Jeremy and Kaleb getting into another argument, which escalates after Kaleb gets a JCB stuck. Jeremy has to cut some of the trees back in order to free him.
But there's bigger problems. Charlie informs Jeremy that there's a very real risk he'll flood a nearby area, and that he should have notified people before carrying out any works. And considering the council have already issued a notice, it would have been very likely they'd deny permission to fix the dam, especially as he hadn't taken no measures to prevent a flood risk. Charlie blames both Kaleb and Jeremy for taking on the work without notifying him or the council first.
Elsewhere, they manage to settle pigs into their new woodland home, which frees up the old field for Kaleb to use. He plans on growing grass there, so he can turn it into hay. While that's going on, Charlie had submitted the appeal to the council, but Jeremy is concerned Lisa's insistence they sell certain products in there as they could end up being fined for not complying with the council.
So he sends Charlie to have a word with her, knowing that he can be quite firm when he needs to be. He explains they can't sell anything there that was made 16 miles away, and Charlie realises quite a lot of the stock falls into that category, so they work on rejigging the shop.
Meanwhile, Jeremy finishes off his winter jobs and gets the pigs settled into their new woodland home, before he leaves to go film The Grand Tour, alongside James May and Richard Hammond. When he returns, he's got more pig jobs to focus on.
The first one was returning the boar Ajax, and they had to pay £200 based on how many successful breeds they'd had with him. Next, Jeremy learns that one of the piglets fell ill, and Lisa sent it to the vet for treatment. Unfortunately, the piglet died, and they were left with a vet bill that was over £600.
At the end of the episode, some of the pigs are sent to the slaughterhouse and he tells viewers that he felt sad but had managed to keep it together. He teases that an "avalanche of heartache" is on the way though, but what could that mean?
