Tuesday, 23rd April 2013

Am: Am early start this morning as my house-mates car is in the garage for it’s MOT and I have said I will take him into work and collect him again later. After dropping him off I take a hot drink back to bed and knit for about am hour. I am making a baby hat for my new niece which is going to look amazing when it is done but seems to be building up so very slowly. After I get up again I go and start the days chores of feeding and checking on everyone and between me and mother we get most things done in a reasonable time. I spend an hour or so cleaning out one of the goat sheds which is not currently being used. The weather is glorious, it has to be the hottest day of the year so far and it is bright sunshine. The bees are making the most of it and are out flying busily.

Lunch time: At about mid-day I go back to my house to have some lunch and spend the afternoon in my garden.

Afternoon: It’s still really warm out and it is lovely working outside. I sort out bits and piece and start planting out potatoes in old flower buckets. This year I haven’t bought seed potatoes but have some bags that were sprouting and reduced in the supermarket (Shetland Blacks and Exquisa) and I’ve added a few others from the veg shop to these (Benji and Maris Piper) and have been sent some free Rocket and Piccolo Star. I only manage to plant half of the Shetland Black’s and maybe a third of the Exquisa but it is a good start. Then I carry on into the back garden and plant out the garlic I have had growing on in pots, the blackbirds here seem to love garlic and onion sets to I have taken to planting them in pots with a cover over and then planting them out when they have got going enough for the birds not to be interested.

Late afternoon/evening: After collecting my house-mate from work I go back to finish off the goats for the day. My sister is there when I get back with her baby, it’s the first time she has walked home since the baby was born and we spend some time in the kitchen before having to go off and look for some sheep that have been reported out in the next village. It’s almost 100% certain they’re not any of ours as ours are all in as there has been an outbreak of Scab mite and the free roaming animals have all had to be brought in for treatment. Ours have all been treated and we are just waiting for everyone else to before ours can get back out on some grass. There’s no sign of the sheep so after half an hour or so of driving around we go back and I finish the goats for the day and go home.

At home the Green Party candidate for the council elections drops some leaflets off as I’ve said I’ll post some through letterboxes locally. It’s still really warm outside so I carry on pottering in the garden and then sit out whilst the sun goes down and watch the bats as they start flying in the dusk

In like a lamb

This weekend has been trying, but pleasant. It’s amazing how much more energy and how less tired I feel now I finally know what is happening at work. I woke up on Saturday and couldn’t wait to get out of bed and started on my weekend, I haven’t woke up and not felt tired for I didn’t know how long. It happened again on Sunday, even though I’d been out until after midnight at one of Rhys gigs. It was a completely different story when I woke up this morning and thought about going to work, I couldn’t think of anything better than to be able to stay in bed for a few more hours.

The most trying part of the weekend has been the broken vehicles, first my mothers van broke down on Wednesday night and then my van on Saturday morning so now we are all relaying on my brother to drive us round in his ‘pride-and-joy’ of a car and fit in fixing both our vans at the same time. And what’s wrong with them isn’t small, so I gather, but I don’t pretend for a moment to understand what is wrong with either of them; I have a brother who is very good at understanding these things for me after all.

Whisper had twins on Saturday morning, all by herself and without any help but she hasn’t bounded brilliantly with them and doesn’t have enough milk either so they are having bottles and hopefully her milk will come. Luckily we had some cholosterum saved from the goats in the freezer. Ewnice had a single Sunday evening, again all on her own without a problem, I found her when we went to bring in the ewes and lambs that had been let out to enjoy the sun, she wasn’t best happy that she had to come in with everyone and certainly wasn’t going to share the shelter in the polytunnel with  anyone other than Whisper who was already there, we learnt the hard way the year before last about shutting ewes and lambing into the polytunnel when they just ate or walked their way out of the new skin, so now they are just left with a pen for shelter in there or they can come out and sleep in the garden. This morning we had a lovely badger-face girl born, and Mophead’s sister very sadly had a massive (and I mean massive, and I’m use to big lambs) stillborn lamb but only after about an hour of me and mother trying to pull it out while the vet was on another call and then at least half an hour of the vet trying after she arrived. I think this is our first ever stillborn lamb, which is sad but considering we have over twenty ewes and have kept sheep for over five years now isn’t at all bad but still a very sad milestone to reach. Needless to say she is very sore and up set but has had antibiotics so touch wood should be fine. She knows what has happened and didn’t even look round to see the lamb when it was born and only called when we bought her in for the other sheep until she managed to let herself back out with them which is where we’ve left her as that is were she seems ‘happy.’ Flatlamb lambed this afternoon while I was at work, one of each. A black boy and a white girl, one was born with one of its front legs back but that was all the help she needed.

Other than that I have spent time in the garden this weekend, me and Rhys have planted all the Mimi potato and I sowed some spring onions and generally pottered. We hopefully have two allotments which will be ready in a couple of weeks so I wasn’t really sure what I should be doing in the garden at home. So long as we get the allotments, and I don’t want to put all my eggs in that basket until the field has been ploughed and we have our plots pegged out, it will be best to grow things like salad, etc at home and everything else on the allotment but I don’t want to fill all the space just incase…

I have finally named my kid; he is Hakim which means wise. I picked out a few other names but as he is already beautiful and strong then this one seemed to fit best, he’s already proven on more than one occasion that he isn’t the brightest ever (but very male) so his new name should help him. At the moment he is on a course of antibiotics and hasn’t been able to walk very well because of probable ‘joint-ill’ which is something lambs and goat kids get through their ‘cord’ before it is treated, which is why it’s very important to get it done as soon after they’re born as possible. I’m sure it doesn’t help that when he has a wee he then lays down in it to have a sleep (he’s still in the kitchen by the Rayburn) so often has a wet tummy from it (idiot.) He is recovering nicely and up and about well now. He’s still very greedy and is getting noticeable heaver very quickly.    

I started making some more mustard, I thought I’d try making some with some red wine vinegar instead of white wine to see what it turns out like. So far all is going well but it is still too soon to tell if it is any good.

My Silver Dorking hen is laying an egg everyday now, and my middle-sisters call ducks have started laying. I’ve bought a new incubator, not that I need a new incubator it was one of these things that I couldn’t believe how cheap it was going to be on ebay and talked myself into needing it, we’re both looking forward to it coming and hatching some eggs in it.