Tuesday, 28 April 2009

Holly has a make over!!!!!

Being part Tibetan Terrier, Holly's fur grows quite fluffy with a fine undercoat that seams to get matted in her top coat. She is not keen on being brushed or combed, something in her past life has made her jumpy about being brushed, so every 3 months she visits Ann her hairdresser in the next village.
This first photo shows what she was like before her visit to Anne's this morning






This is Holly now, all neat and tidy, newly shampooed with a shampoo from Italy no less!!! It evidently makes her stay whiter longer than normal. Tim calls her "Daz Dog" as she is so white. But given half a chance she will be rolling in Alpaca Poo or anything else that takes her fancy!!!
I'm back to work tomorrow, full time, so normal blogging with resume this weekend.

Monday, 27 April 2009

Round up on other stuff we've been doing














As promised a photo of the veg area near the shed with it's wood edging that Tim has been able to put together. You can't really see much but at the far end is a row of Broad Beans, behind the square of summer onions is a row of garlic. The rest are rows of beetroot, parsnips, onions and shallots. The canes mark the rows for me so I know where they are and can how the weed that grow in between the rows. There is one design flaw, the bed is too wide, so once all the produce is out of the middle of the bed, Tim will put a path down the middle, so that I can reach both beds without standing on the soil.

The next two pictures are of the seed growing in my two greenhouses.














In this greenhouse are trays of broccoli, cabbages and leeks. All grown in the Root Trainer system, so hopefully they will not need to be disturbed until ready to be planted out in the main veg plot.














The second greenhouse has red cabbage, sweetcorn, tomatoes and butternut squash seedlings along the back with dwarf french beans, bulb fennel and sprouts seedling in the second row of root trainers, and 4 different heritage varieties of tomatoes in the very front set of root trainers. The tomatoes are a bit hit and miss at the moment, I think this is down to the fluctuating temperatures we're having a the moment. One day hot the next cold.

The Resident Vandal was here last week to help with lambing, but as the lambing was quite slow, he and Tim managed to get part of a side of the large barn, between the two telegraph poles repaired. It was always wet in this particular corner of the barn and outside the corrugated sheeting was hardly held on and every time there was a high wind we kept expecting it to get blown away. But the lads have repaired it using existing corrugated sheeting we had recycled from another barn we took down some time ago, and we bought a couple of sheet of clear corrugated plastic to give more light into this area barn. It's a job well done. We now have an area of the barn we can safely use and less water is getting in. Slowly but surely we'll get this big barn more and more water tight!!!
And finally, it must be summer, it's raining today, not that I'm complaining as the veg garden could do with it, and the swallows arrived last weekend to take up residence in the roof of the big barn.

Sunday, 26 April 2009

We have finished lambing!!!!!

This morning when we went to check on the remaining ewe yet to lamb, we were greeted with the Layla and her twin ewe lambs.
As she was the final ewe to lamb, right on time, so that's it, we've finished lambing for another year.
We've had 36 lambs (20 ewe lambs, 16 tup lambs) from 19 ewes, a lambing % of 190%, the best we've had. All lambs are looking well and growing strong in this fine weather we are having.
We weighed all the lambs within 24 hours of being born to see how much weight they gain over the coming months. The next time we will weigh them all again is in 4 weeks time when all the sheep will be vaccinated against Blue Tongue, it will be interesting to see how much they have all put on especially the Jacob X lambs.

Saturday, a day of singles

Beatrix was the first to lamb on Saturday morning, a tup lamb, and note the colour, he's all white, except for the panda eye markings, known as a "yuglet" in the Shetland Sheep breeding world.










Early Saturday evening Berniece gave birth to this unusually marked ewe lamb, she too has "yuglet" markings, just like her father, Hector.

Late night lambs

Very late on Friday night (11pm) Lucy gave birth to twin lambs, a tup and a ewe.
All three are doing really well and are already out in the fresh air in the small paddock by the side of the barn. Tomorrow they will be joining the growing number of new mums and lambs out in the field at the back of the house.

Friday, 24 April 2009

Our first single lamb

On Wednesday evening Amy had her lamb, a singe tup lamb. He had to have a little assistance coming into the world, as one of his front legs was tucked under his chest making it slightly difficult for Amy to delivery him. Thankfully Scooby was on hand to help flick the leg forward and out he popped.
We checked the last 6 ewes to make sure they were all in lamb and 2 we were unsure about are not in lamb, so they have been put out with the rest of the sheep, no need to keep them in getting extra feed. So that means we are down to the last 4 ewes to lamb and this morning we were able to dismantle one of the lambing pens to create extra room in the barn.

Monday, 20 April 2009

2 sets of twins and help arrives

When we checked the barn this morning we found that Lilly had given to birth to a set of tup twins. If you look very carefully at the lambs you will see that one is brown as opposed to black. Both lambs are fit and healthy despite being born 2 days early. But Lilly has got mastitis in one teat, so I will have to milk her out in the morning. Scooby milked her out this evening and gave her a shot of antibiotics.





Mid morning the Resident Vandal arrived to help, or is it hinder, with the rest of lambing. Not long after he arrived this morning, Amber gave birth to a set of twins, a tup and ewe lamb, and again if you look at these two lambs, one is a dark brown colour, at long last a change from our usual black and white sheep.




As today has been fine and sunny, most of the new mums from this weekend have been out in the paddock at the side of the barn. The young lambs have enjoyed the sun and their mums have been eating the grass with relish.