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| << August 2023 | September 2023 | October 2023 >> |
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1st: Chicks This Shetland chicken is such a fab mum - she leads her chicks all over the poultry paddock and really makes the most of all the land. Hoping for four chickens as opposed to cockerels here!!!! (LOL)  |
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2nd: Happy They are a happy flock, our sheep and alpacas. We still hear the odd cough and we get the odd bit of limping but generally they are fit and healthy. The four Gins and Chips here are all suitably chilled whilst the alpacas keep their eyes on the dogs as they sniff out mice and poo!! All deliciously peaceful!!  |
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3rd: Coloured Ryeland Coloured Ryeland - there are ten different fleeces in this rug, light to dark - quite pleased how this one has turned out!!! Now to make the second one totally different!!  |
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4th: Allotment A beautifully strimmed allotment: first time it's all been done at the same time all year!!   |
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5th: Master Muckle Checking out the view with the gorgeous Master Muckle - one of our home-grown Shetlands with the most gorgeous (not that you can tell from this photo) 'grey' wool. Always the first to go when we sell our fleeces. Love this boy - always come up for a chuckle - and as we have a couple of plastic chairs in this field, it would be rude not to sit down and give him the attention he so deserves.  |
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6th: Our own wood Logs from trees in our garden chopped down three years ago by Mike Gibson. They are all 'pine' types and fairly lightweight so won't give out huge heat - BUT it is our wood, now beautifully dried and ready for our winter fires - which today, as we sit in a blistering 27 degrees C, feels a weird thing to be thinking about!!!  |
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7th: Bees PIcking raspberries at the moment requires steady nerves as the plants are filled with bees, wasps 'and' hornets (definitely not fond of the latter). The bumble bees are utterly delightful though - this huge specimen sat on this leaf for ages and for a while kept putting its proboscis in and out, in readiness for then flying off to drink from the raspberry flowers. Thanks to all the bees and other insects, we have a bumper crop of raspberries this year. They have never had quite so many buzzing around them as they have at the moment. It's totally fabulous.  |
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8th: Softness An unknown fleece - but my goodness it is stunning: beautiful shades of brown/grey, soft as soft can be and with a delicious crimp... it's come from a customer (as a gift to her) along with her own Balwen and Lleyn so all in all, this is one helluva rug in the making....   |
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9th: Little helper
Our little (large) helper as we try to pick blackberries in the mornings - who can resist this face?.  |
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10th: A Plant a Day We have given ourselves the ridiculous task of finding, identifying and photographing a different wild plant on our land, every day, for as long as we can. Hopefully we will cover a full year, albeit with a few gaps..... Starting this month, this page will record our journey!! Today is day Six!!!!!  |
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11th: Irish V Gordons And this ladies and gentleman sums up the difference between the Irish and the Gordons... Irish: I'm in there, I'll find it, don't worry, leave it with me, I'll dig it out, I'm on it, I'm really close, I won't stop, I'm still digging...' Gordons: 'We'll just watch and wait, as soon as you're close we'll come and help, give us a shout, we're right here when you need us... although actually I may wander off in a minute cos I think I saw a wood pigeon a while back....'  |
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12th: Spiders' Webs It's that time of year when the land is full of spiders' webs. We break so many simply by walking around doing the morning rounds - blackberry picking is now full of apologies as we try hard 'not' to trash the intricate circles and lines of these amazing larders, sadly often failing. They are, simply, quite beautiful.   |
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13th: Autumn is starting |
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14th: Goat Agility  |
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15th: Otter, yesterday No words.. ... just maniacal laughter... |
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23rd: Still wanting to be a mum Jut adore how some mums stay with their chicks long beyond they 'need' to. These four are nine weeks old now and this Shetland chicken is showing no signs of wanting to leave them to 'get on with life'.  |
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24th: Expanding our mini orchard As we have discussed, the nettle growth this year has been hideous. We decided yesterday to tackle what was once our cow muck heap - underneath all that lot is fabulous compost which for several years we used on our allotment. The plan is now to remove the last of the hideous conifers and plant more fruit trees here - we have four in the area already (off camera) so this area will become a mini orchard now. We don't know about you but we always feel a bit bad whenever we get the brush-cutter/ strimmer out and hack down plants. 'Think of the wildlife' calls out a voice from within.. but all land needs a variety and all land needs managing and whilst we never see caterpillars on our nettles (which is a bit weird), we have had huge numbers of peacock and red admiral butterflies on our smallholding this year. So I think reclaiming this area is a good thing and with more fruit trees will hopefully come more bees and other pollinating insects.   |
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25th: Graduating rugs In between our 'raw' wool rug commissions we sometimes sneak in the odd Closewool/ Herdwick rovings rug or two. They make such different rugs, far more uniform and smooth. We love doing them both equally! As with the raw wool rugs, we have huge fun coming up with different designs. We rather liked the graduated Ryeland rug from last month so did a Closewool/ Herdwick version too. It's a bit more subtle this one...   |
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26th: Think it might take them a while to clear this bramble mountain... |