Sunday 20th May

It's been a wet week, so the fertiliser that was spread last week should be well and truly washed in by now.

Tim's back is on the road to recovery and he's at the danger stage. It feels O.K so "I will get on some work", but that's the last thing he can do as the muscles are still very tender. He did suggest doing the concreting this weekend, but a week at work has changed his mind.

On Saturday Denise spent the morning gassing moles for a fellow smallholders Jo and Dave. Boy were there moles deep. Denise's metal rod to find the mole runs is 3ft long. On several occasions it disappeared right up to it's handle, and she ended up face down in the grass. Tim knows better than to laugh!!!! The gassing had to be done in between the short rain showers. Doing it during the rain is not recommended as the gas pellets are activated by moisture!!!! Once finished it was a quick trip to see the nephews to deliver some DVDs for their hols and return the cat baskets to the Cat Protection League. A hectic day

Today we went to look at some Wiltshire Horn Sheep -owned by some fellow smallholders, Sue & Keith- which are bred purely for meat as they shed their fleece/hair in the spring. We always enjoy meeting fellow smallholders you can always learn something new from each other, and the Wiltshire Horns seem to be the sheep we are looking for to fill our meat waiting list. They have 7 ewe lambs for sale at weaning, which we will probable purchase subject to a meat tasting tomorrow night.

The hay racks we bought a couple of week back in the farm sale have been moved into place so that the ewes and lambs and our male alpacas, Ghilli & Grommet, have some hay to eat. Seems strange to still be feeding hay when the grass is growing so well, but for the lambs the fresh grass can cause bloating and scour, they need the hay to add roughage to their diet as do the alpacas.

A rather bazaar job done this week was Denise collect poo samples to send to the vets so that they can do a worm egg count to see if we need to worm our animals. One lot went to the vets but a 2nd sample was needed to send to the lab. Denise left them in the milk crate at the vets on her way to work. What on earth the vets must have thought is anyone's guess!!!!! The trouble is until we know the results of the worm egg count it is restricting us moving the animals around, because if they want worming, they need to stay on their existing pasture for 2 - 3 days after they have been treated for worms and then moved to new pasture. Should be sorted out over the next couple of weeks.

It's the bank holiday next weekend and we will be getting ready for the alpaca shearer and doing so scything of the woodland. Hopefully the weather will be good to us.

Denise