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| << July 2021 | August 2021 | Sept 2021 >> |
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1st: More Garden Wildlife Spent a happy hour in the sunshine (in between the showers) spotting one of 'our' bees and a stunning Red Admiral feasting on the Buddleia flowers. Love the bumble bee coming in to land too!!!   |
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2nd: Riotous Rowan The Rowan berries are massively abundant this year. We even discovered two extra trees we didn't know we had behind the double field shelter in Goat Field. Beautiful, cheerful trees!  |
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3rd: Pekins We (Jack!!) seems to have rather fallen in love with Pekins. Last week we went to buy a duck and a goose from Tracie A Martin and came back with three ducks, one goose and three pekins.. Yesterday we went back for more of the little fluffy butts and now have seven in total. Aren't these just beautiful?     |
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4th: Sheep TLC We had all the sheep in today for a bit of a 'look-over' before moving them from Goat to Oak Field: it was a chance to check over the ewes' body conditions, look at how the lambs are doing, inspect teeth, feet and bums etc. Not much needed doing at all, they are a fit and healthy group and we are mega proud of them all - altogether we now have 22, the original Badger Faces Mrs White and Mrs Brown; our four Shetlands ewes; Patch, our now wethered Jacob; six shearlings and six lambs, plus of course our bottle babies Chalk, Cheese and the adorable Chips. Some of our ewes are getting on a bit: Mrs White and Mrs Brown are now 11. Between them they have given us 35 lambs in their lifetimes. Whalsay and Bressay are 8 and 7 respectively and they have popped out 12 little ones. We were delighted to see that Mrs White and Mrs Brown both still have full mouths but somewhat shocked to see that Bressay now has just 5 teeth (2 less than last year) and Whalsay a mere 3!!! Both these ewes are a little underweight from lambing but their lambs are all but weaned now, and as we have masses of grass at the moment, we hope to see their condition improve. Sheep can eat with zero teeth but we are a little anxious about the winter and will need to keep a special eye on these two. We have no plans to cull unless for welfare reasons but we know we may end up needing to be cruel to be kind...    |
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5th: Chalk and Chips Although Chalk and Cheese are brothers and arrived together, it is Chalk and Chips that are best buddies. Chalk pretty much took Chips under his wing when she joined us as a rather small, vulnerable 2 day old back in April. Nowadays she is a confident barrel who loves a head and back chuckle and who wags her tail in appreciation. Just gorgeous!!  |
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6th: Home grown We may not be having much luck on the allotment this year with our veg, but inside the greenhouse all is well. The courgettes in the first photo were, within two hours of being picked, turned into the meal of the second!! Scrummy!!   |
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7th: Making the most of the weather The weather has been pretty vile these last few days so we have pretended it is winter, retired to the front room and got stuck into our spinning and picking. David has washed all our alpaca fleeces and is now spinning and Jack is picking the last of last year's sheep wool with a view to trying her hand at spinning too!! Watch this space!   |
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8th: Poultry Pride Thoroughly enjoying our poultry at the moment - all our newbies have settled in so well. The Lohman chickens on the left are so friendly and the Gucklings on the right so bonded and inquisitive. Jack sat down in the long grass and they all came to say 'hi', giving her a chance to try out the camera on her new phone!!!   |
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9th: Strutting her stuff At just over eight weeks old, our first batch of rhea are either doing really well or not so well and sadly we have lost a couple already!!! It's gutting when they die having got so far but we know from last year and from others' experiences, how vulnerable they can be up to three months. We will continue to do what we can and keep everything crossed!!  |
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10th: Fascination Pickle is utterly fascinated with the bubbles in the sink when I wash up the feeding bowls, even to the point of dipping his entire lower leg in the water. It's hilarious and sadly, he will probably grow out of it!!  |
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11th: Small Tortoiseshell We have a stretch of willow hedge in Swallow Field that is full of thistles, not great for the hedge but perfect for butterflies. Every day at the moment we are counting 20-30 Small Tortoiseshells feeding on them. It really is rather a remarkable sight!!  |
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12th: Latest hatchlings Fingers crossed for these guys...    |
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14th: First attempt Jack had her first attempt at spinning today, using wool from Mrs Brown - she was tentatively pleased.. maybe   |
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15th: Sensible birds It's been a bit of an April day: sun, rain - heavy at times - and as usual, the birds have used the pig arc as much as the stables to shelter in - we bought this arc for the geese to nest in, back when we got our first West Of England trio. They are of course, the only birds NOT to have nested in here. It has still nonetheless proved to be an excellent buy as these ladies (and gent) are demonstrating!  |
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16th: Pepper the Parrot This is one of Pepper's favourite positions: on Jack's shoulder - and she will often be happy to be walked around like this. As well as demonstrating such delightful adoration, she also makes a great scarf in the colder weather.   |
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18th: The Meadow grasshopper Another reason we love smallholding - one of our 3-acre fields, 'Oak' Field, may currently be providing food for almost 40 sheep and alpacas, but is also a perfect home for a myriad of invertebrate life, including this aptly named Meadow grasshopper (think it's a Meadow anyway due to the shortened wings.). The nibbled grass shoot may well be down to him/her. Grasshopper watching is a fabulous pastime!!  |
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19th: With a little help from their friends We put out a bowl of lettuce and spinach each morning for the rhea chicks to feast on... they seem to be getting more and more help with getting through it all...!!  |
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20th: Moving Day! Today we moved the rhea from Goat to Oak field and the sheep and alpacas from Oak into Swallow. The alpacas did their usual race around, checking out each corner whilst the sheep were simply heads down as soon as they could!!  |
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21st: Take aim, and grab White Toe, as inquisitive as ever, finding huge satisfaction in grabbing David's dog whistle - as with most birds, their aim is fabulously accurate - which is why fingers are usually well out of the way!!   |
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22nd: Sneaky finds The joy of finding a ripe raspberry hiding underneath a well placed leaf - we are loving picking our own fruit at the moment!! A bowl of our own home-made muesli and soft fruits for breakfast is the best start to a day ever!!   |
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23rd: Mountain Fleece Just adore the Mountain Fleece, left on the first photo! As do the bees. The garden is giving us a lot of joy at the moment - it is a bit 'feral' in places and we are never on top of it, but it is a very calming place to be and we feel very lucky to have it!!   |
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24th: Chili We have, for some time now, worried that Chili has a slight deformity in her back end. Back when she was a kitten we commented on a vet visit that we felt her back was arched. There was slight agreement with this observation along with the suggestion to monitor and come back with any concerns. Whilst Chili gets around fine, she does sometimes seem to walk with a slight twist in her back left leg and more recently, when lying down, her leg is always stretched out as in the photo. We don't feel the need to get her checked out as she doesn't seem to be in any pain and her mobility appears unimpaired, although have wondered about some chiropractor treatment. For the moment though, we will carry on observing...  |
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25th: Daily pickings We love the Autumn harvest when you grow your own veg, but we love the daily haul even more: just going out each morning and picking/ selecting what you are actually going to eat that day: breakfast, lunch and supper!!! It's a fabulous feeling!! Aren't we lucky?  |
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26th: Pallets Today we gave the poultry compost heap the 'pallet treatment'!! Our original bamboo screen has been slowly disappearing thanks to over zealous geese, weather and generally wear and tear and so the pallets have been brought in as replacements! In time, they will naturalize and hopefully become covered in plants - probably nettles but we may try something a bit more adventurous such as honeysuckle if we can. For the moment though, it all looks a jolly sight neater and with any luck, future 'compost creep; will have been curtailed a little.  |
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27th: Living in hope The rug may not be finished - and is destined as a floor mat in the bathroom anyway - but Mustard has tried it out for size and is now living in hope!!!!  |
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28th: Happiness is... ... the barn filling up with the winter fodder!  |
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29th: Plums Today we picked our plums. We have one tree in the 4-Fruit-Tree area (the others being apple, cherry and pear), all planted in 2017 - and this year is the best the plum has been. We estimated there were around 200 and most are destined to be de-stoned and then boiled up and stewed before freezing in batches. Plum and yogurt and plum crumble are both on the cards!!  |
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30th: Long grass The dogs love the long grass and will spend ages with their noses in the mole runs, trying to find a way into the tunnels - we do allow them to dig a bit - it would be impossible to totally stop them anyway!!!  |