One more

We are pleased to announce the arrival of Sheldon late on thursday night, a half brother to Penny and Amy.

Mother and lamb doing well.

Lambs

On monday I looked at Mopsy and thought she looked ready to lamb this week, possibly wednesday or thursday, i thought. I put her and Flopsy in the maternity ward on clean beds – the green shed on fresh straw. However, that clever girl Mopsy gave birth to twin ewe lambs in the wee hours yesterday. All three of them look well and I don’t think Flopsy is too far behind. Very pleased that Mopsy has only had twins this year!

Marigold – nothing. Sheep laughing at her inability to have issue.

Making hay in March!

Yesterday afternoon I decided to top off an area of grass intended for grazing later in the year. The weather has been so dry that it made beautiful hay, which I raked in by hand in glorious sunshine. Suitably tanned, tired and contented, we then had a barbeque. It felt like a late August day, not March. The house is also looking happier now, especially in the sunshine.

The pork is all back from the butchers and either in the freezer or curing. The one we have had back whole for a hog-roast barely fitted into the freezer! I am also experimenting with different cures this year, including a brandy ham and a five-spice shoulder of pork.

Marigold – nothing.

Swines

Five little piggies went off to slaughter yesterday. They didn’t go quietly. There always seem to be one trouble maker. Despite carefully corralling them next to the gate, Slash, for that was his name, forced his way through an impossibly small gap! 20 minutes later and we had him trapped in the Ark, from which it was straightforward to get him loaded with the others. At the abattoir it was sad to see our little runt following in behind, but we hope she will make for a super hog-roast in the summer. Back home and I needed a shower to get rid of the piggy smell. No water. For the second time in a month some idiot had dug up the road and burst through the water main.

Marigold? Nothing!

The Extension is coming along though.

Is She, or isn’t She?

Marigold went to the bull on 5 April last year and she came back to us on 26 Jun. Based upon the average gestation period and a 21 day cycle, I had expected her to calf between 12th Jan and 2nd Feb. Nothing! Then I thought, well maybe the big boy didn’t quite get the job done first time, so I now expected ‘issue’ between 2nd Feb and 23rd Feb. Nothing. If she doesn’t calf in the next three days or so, then it wasn’t third time lucky either. The latest possible due date is 4th Apr. Or it might be the knackers yard!

In other news, the pigs go a week today – so slap marking this week. We are planning to have a hog roast in the summer with our little runt (she won’t be a guest), as she really isn’t big enough to butcher normally. The sheep look well and look forlornly out onto the fields full of grass that aren’t growing yet. There are meetings occurring this week among the great and the good of the water and drainage industry to discuss the drought. Standby for hosepipe bans and much more severe measures if we really don’t get some decent rain this year. Butts all round!

Water taught-ya!

Firstly, we are home again. A year and a fortnight after the fire. Builders still have a couple of small faults to rectify and the decorator hasn’t quite finished but we are in. Not unpacked all the boxes yet, but nearly there. The building of the extension should continue in earnest next week. It hasn’t all been smooth running though. The day we moved back some idiot dug up the water main instead of the road. No water. What to do? Go down the pub. However, remember to take your keys, the only set you have, before you close the front door. That is if you don’t want to be re-glazing it on saturday morning before your better half gets home!

On the farm we have been ticking along, the 5 piglets we have left are doing well, so well in fact that they will be off to slaughter this month. The runt we held on to caught pneumonia during the really cold spell we had and we thought we would lose her. It was pitiful to see her coughing, tail down, off her food and feeling very sorry for herself. Four doses of antibiotics and plenty of fresh straw later and she’s right as rain.

The lambs are now in the freezer and have turned out just as delicious as last year. The ewes are getting fatter and are due right at the end of this month. I caught Flopsy yesterday with her head up against the fence to the cow shed and Pip was licking her head, it was very cute.

Talking of the cows. They are the noisiest and naughtiest of the lot. Perhaps it has something to do with the diet of potatoes and straw that they have been on all winter. In the morning they start mooing at top volume the moment I step foot out of the door. This increases in both volume and venom as I insist on feeding the chickens first.  Whilst the house rebuild was going on I did at last run water underground out to the orchard, the pigs and the cows and it has been mostly frost free throughout the winter. When I installed it I put the tap for the cows in the shed – above one end of their water trough.

Easy to refill it, thought I. Easy to chew it, thought the cows. Easy to wrap in chicken wire, thought I. Easy to pull that off. thought the cows. Easy to put back, thought I. Easy to pull that off, turn on the tap and flood the shed, thought the cows. Easy to screw wire to shed and close tap really tightly, thought I. Easy to rip the hole lot off the wall and sh*t all over it, thought the cows. Easy to wrap in barbed wire, whilst stabbing yourself several times, thought I. Easy to …………..

So far, so good.

Recommendations

Recommendations are not guarantees. I recommend you keep the battery well charged that serves the electric fence that contains your very naughty little piglets. If you don’t, I guarantee they will escape and cause havoc. I also recommend that if you remove said battery overnight to charge it – don’t tell the piglets. If you do, I guarantee they will find the wiring for the electric fence and steal it, or bury it, or eat it. In any case, I guarantee you won’t find it again, no matter how long you search for it.

This sort of rebellious behaviour has a tendency to spread. So when you remove the battery for the cows/sheep electric fence the following night – they will know that you have done it. The pigs will tell them. I recommend leaving it a few days and making sure they are well fed and know just what is good for them before you turn off the fence. That is if you don’t want to be extracting entangled naughty sheep  from said fencing, which I guarantee will get you wee’d upon.

These are first hand recommendations. Beware the recommendation from a friend of a friend. This can find you sitting down for an impromptu lunch in a ‘Butlinesque’ dining hall, being served ‘michelin barred’ food by a mad waiter humming tunes from the ‘brat pack’. Not the cosy, fireside, olde worlde country pub you were led to believe it would be. That idyll would not have had signs saying ‘keep doors closed due to the intolerable fly situation’.  Still, it only cost a fiver – and that, I guarantee, is a bargain.