| 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
| << April 2021 | May 2021 | June 2021 >> |
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1st: Mrs Brown's Twins These two are stonking and we so excited at the thought of keeping the girl. Her tail is quite a feature.  |
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2nd: Potatoes The potatoes are now planted and the other two beds are now ready to receive.. we are determined to keep on top of our growing this year!  |
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3rd: Turkey hatch Our first turkey hatch has gone well - we set 24, 16 were fertile, 14 made it to lockdown and we have hatched 13. Three had splayed legs, quickly fixed over a few days by tying the legs with vet wrap as shown. Works a treat as long as you do it in the first couple of days!   |
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4th: Weather So far the May weather is being weird - it's all March winds and April showers and it's cold. Our grass may start growing one day!!  |
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5th: Swallow Chasing At this time of year, swallow chasing is perfect for keeping the dogs fit - we swear the swallows tease the dogs too, purposely dipping and diving within inches of their heads, below swiftly rising back up again. Makes us smile every time (amidst the occasional intake of breath and the odd, 'wow, that was close...').  |
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6th: Learning We hope Chips has finally learnt to drink from the rack with her older 'brothers' - she no longer lets go and then looks to me with horror on her face as if to say 'help, where's the milk gone, omg, what do I do now...?'  |
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7th: Sparrow!!! I really am tired, pleeease can I just rest here for a while... and I am seriously offended that you thought the only reason I wanted to stop here was to eat that piece of sheep poo besides me that I haven't even noticed...." This is Sparrow being.... well... Sparrow!!  |
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8th: Goat plans We said goodbye to this chap today. He has gone off to be a companion to a billy to a family we know in Beasworthy. Having decided we probably are going to downsize the goats, we mentioned that the nannies i.e. his grammy Sorrel and mum Coriander, may be up for sale too and a definite interest was expressed. We now need to make some decisions!!!  |
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9th: Off to new homes And today the remaining four kids also went to their new homes. They have gone to a smallholding family who are new to livestock and who on a visit last month, fell in love with our goats big time! We also offered Sorrel and Coriander to the family from yesterday and they said yes, so we are now on the path to a reduced herd. The plan is to keep Chestnut and Bruno and maybe Barrington - we feel he would be great as a breeding billy after the fabulous kids he produced this year although we are reluctant to split up him and Bruno.... we will see what, if any interest, we get in him!!!  |
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10th: Poo picking The dry weather (up till this month) and the cold nights have meant the grass growth is pitiful. Even with the recent rain, the temperatures still aren't really enough to get the grass going. As such as lot of the poo from the sheep and alpacas is just sitting on the short grass and drying out, as opposed to being consumed by the various animal life that usually help it to rot down. Yesterday therefore we harrowed and poo-picked both Fruit and Swallow fields in an effort to hopefully reduce the worm burden a bit and have less poo around where the sheep and alpacas are still eating. We had the harrow attached first and then our new poo-picker behind. It worked really well and spread out some of the mole hills too.It was also huge fun!!! (And whilst Jack did this, David get our onions planted.) A very productive day!  |
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11th: End of an era These two went off to Beasworthy. today - a few tears were shed amidst the knowledge is it the best way forward. Our smallholding plans now are more focused on Rugs and Fibre and a few eggs: no meat, no breeding and no milking. The lovely part of their departure was the fact that Corri's mottled kid will be reunited with his mum - which we were shown via a video later in the evening, was all rather emotional!! Although I think he was more pleased than she was!!!  |
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12th: All change Today we moved the goats to the front of the barn with access to the Gathering Area and browsing, the rhea to Goat field and the sheep and alpacas to Oak field. Seeing the latter in a field with more than 1cm high grass was just fantastic. The weather is still rubbish but they still have a shelter and more importantly, food under foot! We were worried about moving the rhea out of Oak field in case we disrupted their egg laying but they haven't laid since Saturday anyway!!! Good moves all round!!!   |
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13th: Broody mums... Last Tuesday, the windy night cut our electricity and so we lost the heat lamp. By morning 9 of the 10 poults in the aviary had died. Gutted is not a big enough work to describe how we felt. We had three poults still in the hatcher and so from our 13 hatched, just 4 are left!! Today we decided to see if one of our three broody turkeys would like to take them on and we chose Napoleona for the role. I think the picture shows that all went well!! Given a chance, turkeys can make fabulous mums... we give ours an enclosed but largish indoor space to really bond and then they become devoted and protective. When the weather is good, they are then allowed out into a large enclosed grassy run. As they get older and start to totally free range with their mum (usually at 5-6 weeks), we then find that all our turkeys then hang out together as one big happy family with the stag being just as good as dad as the females are mums. At night, we have even seen the stag cover the poults with his wings as the females do. All so very cute!!!  |
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14th: First wool rug David has now turned his hand to making a wool rug and this is the result: the wool is from Lisa V Hutchins and is from two fleeces: a Jacob and a Suffolk Mule cross!! The jury is currently out on whether he prefers Wool of alpaca fibre but he is veering towards the latter! He is set now to weave using our own Shetland and Badger Face fleeces so he can compare further. These will be spun in the grease whilst he washed the previous two. The results of this deliberation will probably affect how many sheep we keep!  |
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15th: Livestock reduction and expansion - all in one day!!! We seem somewhere along the line, to have agreed to buy eight more alpacas off friends in Cornwall (kim and Keith) who are giving up keeping them!!!! They are going to take Tarragon and Garlic in part exchange - a nice way to do business!!! And think of all those rugs!!!  |
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16th: Keeping in top We are keeping on top of the allotment and today managed to re-mulch the raspberries and strim all through the entire fruit area. Touch wood, all is doing okay!!  |
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17th: Mustard and PIckle These two love-buckets are just such a joy to have - we are giving them more freedom around the house so they and the dogs get more used to each other. So far, so good!!!     |
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18th: Hatching success The turkey hatching has gone well with only 3 out of the 32 eggs not making it till lockdown. Of those 29, 27 then hatched with only I loss. Sadly though we tried the Bourbon Red as a mum with them and she wasn't the perfect match that our PIed was - she looked like she had accepted them but later obviously decided not and when we checked, she has trodden on a few and pecked others. We lost three. Needless to say, she was removed!!!  |
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19th: Spring - if only for a day Amidst the very wet and windy month we have so far had, we do get the odd day, such as today, where spring vaguely puts in an appearance. Looking out over the sheep and alpacas to this view beyond - well, it's not a bad way to spend a mid-week morning!!  |
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20th: Grass The grass is always greener, this year more than ever!!!! Our lambs are doing so well!!!  |
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21st: Grass 2 The grass may be growing a wee bit but the rain is still falling, the wind blowing and the temperatures are just not what they should be....  |
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22nd: Food As yet, we haven't harvested any home-grown food this year. Planting is behind due to the weather and what is planted is slow going BUT the potatoes we planted back on 2nd are sprouting and the blackberries are covered in flowers!! Fingers crossed!!   |
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23rd: Swallows Waiting for swallows... then chasing swallow!!!   |
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24th: Supervision The sheep at evening feeding, being supervised by the alpacas! We aren't feeding every day any more as the grass is now sorting of getting its act together, but on days like today, when heavy rain and cold winds have forced the sheep to take shelter, we take pity on them. We are told by the weather powers that be that after tomorrow, we are in for a dry spell. That would be so so nice: we may have wished for rain but we have most definitely got enough now.  |
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25th: Perfect End After another hideous day of rain, rain and then a bit more rain, the evening was a bit of a relief and we took this photo to remind ourselves that we are in the middle of Spring! We are being assured the rain is on its way out!!!!! Here's hoping!  |
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26th: Too cute |
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27th: Fabulous additions Our new alpacas arrived today and we couldn't be more thrilled with them - the range of colours is perfect and they are a really friendly group. At the moment they are in Fruit Field and will be staying there till they are castrated (booked for a week Friday) and are then safe to join our existing seven. Rugs and wall hangings are being planned as we speak but first.. names.. they do come with names but as two are 'our' original Pluto and Mars and we now have another Pluto and Mars, they are going to have to be changed for a start!! We are working on a theme.... And Tarragon and Garlic of course are now living in their new home, back at Kim and Keith's in Cornwall, which is where the alpacas came from. We hope they behave and are very happy there!!!    |
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28th: First interactions... (Dragonfly was there too, just out of shot)  |
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29th: Sheep shearing Sara and Aaron sheared our sheep today and we we couldn't be happier with both how it went and the resulting fleeces - we have such an amazing range of colours and there could well be 'handbags drawn' when it comes to who gets to work with what - David may decide he loves working with wool as much as alpaca fleece. The sheep all looked great afterwards too - all in great condition, none over or under weight. Mrs Brown had a sore back right toe and Bressay still has her over-large udder but otherwise all was well AND, as a bonus, all the lambs worked out who their mums were pretty quickly too. We also got all our tagging done - a huge relief.   |
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30th: Spring We are definitely enjoying spring now with our third warm, dry and sunny day on the trot and everywhere we look, everything is growing and glowing. We are in awe,   |
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31st: Totally amazing mum A few days ago, we opened up the aviary so our 20-plus almost-2-week old turkey poults could mix with Napoleona and her four-month olds. We were fairly confident she would rise to the challenge of going from four to over twenty-four charges and so she has (after an few initial looks that said 'what the hell is going on?'). And today, as we now have amazingly warm and dry weather at last, we opened up the pop hole and all of them went outside. What a beautiful sight it was!!!    |
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