Mousers arrive and fertilser get spread

Our two new cats arrived on Wednesday and were safely placed in our old shed to get used to us and where they will find food and shelter. We decided to call our two new mousers Hissing Sid - he took one look at us and hissed!!! and Lady, because for the rest of the day we referred to the two mousers as "Hissing Sid and his lady friend!!!!". Then on Saturday they escaped from the shed in true Colditz style by tunneling out. All the food we put down in the shed goes and they are using it as shelter on a night. So we know they are safe. We had intended to demolish the shed, but we will now leave it standing until we are sure that Hissing Sid and Lady have moved into the barns

Despite Tim's bad back jobs still seemed to have got done. The animals have been fed, all be it when Denise leaves and returns from work. Tim has been able to give Dougal his late morning and afternoon feed as he is now of a height that requires very little bending for him to get at the bottles.

Thanks to our neighbour Colin we were able to give the lambs their first lot of Heptovac injections on Saturday. The system we worked was, Colin caught the lambs, Tim held them, Denise injected, by the time they were injected, Colin had caught another lamb. Getting all 23 lambs injected took less then 20mins. Tim did get knocked over by a couple of ewes checking on their off spring, but thankfully to no ill effect.

Tim's back is now at the dangerous stage, no longer stiff, but still aching and he thinks and feels that he can do all sorts of things, but knows if he does he could do more damage to his back.

This weekend also saw us get the first of the fertiliser spread on some of the paddocks before the rains fell late Saturday and Sunday nights. We also moved Ghillie and Grommet into a new paddock, so that we can chain harrow, spread fertiliser, grass seed and minerals in their paddock. We hope to move Hector and his minders into one of the races (handling/movement area between paddocks) as the grass needs eating down. The trouble is, the grass is so long and lush the boys will end up with "the runs" so we will have to ensure they have access to hay to help add some roughage to their diet.

So what is happening during the coming week. Not a lot it will all depend on how Tim's back improves. For Denise next weekend she is gassing moles for a smallholder friend!!!!!

Denise Newey