Its rollover week!

I did wonder what Ambrose was looking at as I wandered about the smallholding this foggy damp autumn morning. Perhaps he was mourning the loss of breakfast to the ravenous Ryelands. Or contemplating jumping into the field belonging to the militia, or, more likely, calculating the angles needed to, in goat terms, drop the nod on Montana who was busy licking the trough clean.

A sudden movement alerted me to the plight of Roxy, shes the barrel like object upside down to the left of the trough. Now it may seem callous pausing to picture her plight, but as this is Roxy the death wish sheep it seemed only right and proper to preserve for posterity her latest attempt to shuffle off her mortal coil.

Not sure how she managed this, the trough is too big to pose a trip hazard to even the clumsiest sheep, but manage she did and at the point of rescue was firmly wedged upside down in the gap between logs and food receptacle. Left to her own devices her internal organs would have crushed the air out of her lungs and her attempt to be the first of the flock to the here after would have been successful.

Thankfully her guardian angel, yours truly, was on hand to sort her out again, and once the world stopped spinning she boldly went in search of new ways of hurting herself.

Its never boring being a smallholder.

Who turned out the light?

There is a certain routine to smallholding, the usual jobs have to be done, the usual suspects fed and watered. But its never really boring. Sometimes it is a bind having to go and see to the needs of the critters before sitting down to dinner, or when the rain is horizontally washing the windows its a bit of an effort to leave the warm dry cottage and round up geese who should know better and have gone to bed in the safety of the goat house rather than sit in a wagon train style circle in the cauldron. They do this presumably so that each gets a good view of the fox choosing which one to have for supper.

So today while attending to the pigs, there I was measuring out 18kg of feed from Trixie trailer. I had left four sacks inside her, partly through running out of time on the morning I unloaded her, and partly as she is parked next to the pig pen it seems logical to leave few bags in there to save carrying feed down to the pigs and running the gauntlet of veracious Ryelands. Normal circumstances involve feeding the Ryelands first, as far as possible from all the other critters which gives a window of opportunity to navigate the smallholding without tripping over sheep with their begging bowls out.

As I filled the feed bucket unmolested by the Ryeland who had fallen for the above ploy, again, there was a sort of crump sound from the rear of the trailer, closely followed by a pitiful "MeheeeeeeeHHH!" I really would have helped Ferny Fern Fern from Ferntown had I not been rendered helpless by laughing. I also knew that if I helped her she would help herself to the pigs breakfast so I decided to be cruel to be kind, and left her too it. Fern must have a better sense of direction and keener sense of smell than I gave her credit for because as I carried on measuring the feed she, bucket still attached, tried to get a share.

Shear fun

Sparrows fart of the penultimate longest day was spent rounding up the Ryelands, who with their sixth sense knew something was about to happen so did what any canny Ryeland would do and headed for the hills. As ever with time at a premium things did not go well when the naughty flockers failed their breakfast appointment and were later found in ones a twos amongst the thorny gorse bushes.
They did this on purpose as they know that shearing a thorny sheep is almost as bad as shearing a wet thorny sheep. Thankfully we got the flock under cover for 24 hours and missed several deluges so when Stephani and Steve (honest) the mobile shearers (although after shearing 100+ sheep that day neither seemed particularly mobile!)pitched camp in Rock HQ's yard we were on for a couple of hours free (almost) entertainment and farm gossip while the flock got their kit off.
A sign of how relaxed we are around the militia nowadays is that we felt able to comment on Steve's shearing skills and helpfully gave him Ferny Fern Fern from Ferntown as his first victim. Ferny Fern Fern from Ferntown, a shear virgin, went bonkers, which was funny, and Steph had to assist Steve grapple the beast, which was funnier. Ferny is above asking for her fleece back.
Soon the Ryelands were deficit fleece and we took the opportunity to carry out some essential maintenance on our captives. We wormed, marked and blow fly treated them, which is why they look like a farmyard modern artwork or an explosion in a paint shop. The blue is our mark, the red is accidental leaking of essential body fluids and the pink is the blowfly wormer fluid which has to be applied externally in a cross shape. At least that's what we were told by the itinerant medicine seller before he ran off laughing.

Carry the can

I suppose I would struggle if a fat bloke crept up on me while I was enjoying my tea, grabbed me and flipped me on my back and gave me a pedicure. I might kick out as the assailant tried to trim my pinkies with a razor sharp pair of clippers. Perhaps, as its not the first time its happened in my life I might just remember that whilst this sudden physical intrusion was a bit of a shock, nothing bad ever really happened and once its over my feet felt much better and I could walk properly. But I'm not a sheep, so for whatever reason Springtime, one of our mental Ryelands, proud mum of two thrashed around like a thrashy thing on a thrashy day from Thrash town, utterly determined that the phantom pedicurist should fail in his quest to give her well trimmed foot rot free hooves.

Tracey my beautiful and oh so very patient wife asked if she should get the blue spray. The blue spray is what we use when an animal is cut, badly, its an antiseptic spray. Springtime continued to windmill her feet around, spraying blood, and I fought desperately to get control of the beast and my temper so I could carry on clipping. As the majority of the blood we were looking at was mine I saw no point in fetching the magic blue spray. As I closed the shears Springtime in a real Ninja move substituted her hoof for my left knuckle and I cut a very fetching V shape before noticing the cunning sheep's move. Springy carried on her dying fly rehearsal while I carried on clipping hoping to finish before I bled to death.

By the time I had rigged up a rudimentary tourniquet from a dog collar Springy had forgotten her "ordeal" and got on with the important things in life, like eating, see above, while I did the Johnny Rambo bit and got my sewing kit out. Who says shepherding is easy!

Intruder alert!

There was a disturbance in the pig pen so I went to investigate finding all five cowering in the corner. The cause, a huge flesh eating Ryeland lamb that had somehow managed to find a way in.

The life of a smallholder, never dull!

Finally!

Last night was, for the time being, the last night of interrupted sleep at Rock HQ for a while as Easter has finally condescended to give birth. She delivered at 9.10 BST a strapping ram lamb called Ivor, who alongside his cousin Levi will be brought on and sold as pedigree Ryeland rams later in the year, thus ensuring Crispen has done his bit for the Queen and contributed to the gene pool of this ancient breed of sheep.

Mind you given the trouble they have caused since their arrival at Rock HQ I can see why they are unpopular amongst mainstream farmers, the single large lamb takes twice as long to mature as commercial stock and giving birth to such large lambs is an eye watering experience to watch so it must be excruciating first hand. No wonder they delayed it for as long as possible!

Easter is an extraordinary ewe, she has all the mothering instinct of a Dyson Hoover, which she is ably demonstrating in the clip above. Instead of communicating with Ivor in the low grunt sheep use solely for talking to their lambs Easter is busy stuffing her face with the fresh hay put down to make it cosy for her labour. Last year she gave birth to twins, unusual for a Ryeland, and she refused to feed them. We didn't realise this was happening until it was too late so the lambs missed out on the vital colostrum milk feed so one died and the other, Daffodil, now thinks she is a dog after being bottle fed and running with the pack instead of mixing with her own kind. She is the one in the picture a few posts below stealing the biscuits from Poppy.

Ivor is doing well despite Easters limitations and we made sure that he had a substantial feed before we left them to it to start the days chores.

Spring cleaning! The only drawback of the season as far as I am concerned! The workshop hadn't been touched since last December so was way past a clear out. Pass the broom.

Head to Head

If leaning over the stable door staring intently at sheep's naughty bits were an Olympic sport then I surely would be in 2012 team and definitely in the running for a medal. I have even taken to arming myself with a torch which is aimed with uncanny precision as soon the reluctant Mum to be presents a free shot at her bits so I can attempt to gauge when she will finally release my future lamb chops.

These two fat Ryeland sheep, Rita and Rosie are currently head to head in a race to the finishing line to give birth. I have spent another hour watching intently for signs of life, the lambs inside them are so bored at their confinement they are trying to push their way out in a homage to Ridley Scott's Alien. They are already two weeks overdue and if they don't burst in the next 24 hours they may even continue for another week as the ram will have missed their cycle last autumn.

I take heart in the fact that I am not the only one struggling with the timing of lambing this year. One of the first farmers to help us from over Painscastle way is running late and does'nt know why. Like many farming families today his wife works full time off the family farm and he contracts himself out to various bigger farms to supplement their income. Time and timing is an essential element of this sort of life. His wife took two weeks off from her job to cover lambing and they only had 12 give birth over that time. Since she went back to work they are having 12 a night! He is the only man I know at the moment who looks more tired than I do.

Karma

The picture above sums up how I feel, after 9 nights in a row of checking the goats three times a night at 11pm, 2am and five am, getting up at half six and doing the morning routine before work I feel like I might wake up with an unfinished tale and the keyboard stuck to my face.

Juliet has hung on and failed to deliver the goods and so we got ready for work slightly earlier than usual because I am delivering some training to some newbies, have to be there on time and all that. Just as we were setting off The Technohermit rang.

Now its a clear sign that at feeding time if any of your animals are missing they are either lost or in trouble. The Ryelands seldom miss their appointment at the trough so this morning when three were missing the alarm bells rang. A quick search of our side of the hill proved fruitless and as it was vital I was actually at work for once we called off the search and tried not to worry.

Mad Keith had spotted one of our sheep on his side of the hill on its side and bleeding, he thought it was giving birth and thankfully phoned us. Rene was press ganged into doubling as a makeshift ambulance and Roxy was found just up the hill from The Technohermit's abode. Now I am a firm believer in Karma, had we not befriended and helped this pensioner who has lived in the same spot he first dug it out of the hill in 1964 he would not have thought, perhaps, to tell us of Roxie's distress.

And she was certainly distressed, an hour and a half later after much traumatic pushing it was clear that it was all going horribly wrong and a strange aroma was emanating from her behind. The only way to resolve it was to give her a hand, literally, so the poor animal was subjected to a few minutes of my amateurish fishing around in her insides and slowly I pulled out a very dead lamb. From the smell and condition of the poor mite it had died a while ago and nature was taking its course with Roxy spontaneously aborting it. This solved the mystery of her giving birth today as she was about three weeks early and had showed none of the signs that she was due to birth and had no milk.

She was by now in a right state so we injected her with antibiotics and made her as comfortable as possible, and I am happy to report that after a day of sleeping heavily with Tracey watching over her (she took the day off) she is munching on fresh hay and looking very much healthier. Had we not been able to fetch her and help her out she would have died on the hill, Sheepskull lane on our bonsai mountain has that name for a very obvious reason.

I am however, not happy to report that since getting home Meg looks pretty close to lambing and now both goats are oozing goo from their nether regions and looking like they are in a race. I think its going to be a long night. Thank God its the weekend!

Its good, but not that good!

You might think that Apollo is kissing the ground after surviving some hideous ordeal, or perhaps he has found his god and is praying, maybe some horse royalty is passing and he is paying homage or that the grass is so good, so tasty it has momentarily rendered him unable to stand.

None of these would be accurate.

He shares his stable with four Ryeland lambs at the moment and they, in their desire to become the best provider of next years lamb chops, often fall to their knees and scoop up as much food from the trough as possible.

Apollo has been watching this and has adopted the technique of speed eating into his repertoire.

The grass is good, but not that good!

On tonights menu!

Our sheep are not spoilt you understand, I didn't spend ages picking up Bramely apples for them, carry them across the mud and drop them off for their dinner. So on tonight's menu they have grass, hay and apples.

In the background Maggie the Anglo Nubian cross is trying to decide whether to brave the rain and gales or set off back to the nice dry goat house, calories or comfort, a hard choice for any greedy goat!

And I didn't spend ages getting the apples, The Oracles wife gave us about fifty pounds of windfall for the animals.

Bless her.

Rampaging Ryelands

A regular reader of these pages will not be surprised by the clip here of the Ryelands spotting a free lunch and descending like locusts on a felled tree. They have voracious appetites and regularly engage in fisticuffs with other species over meal rights. Most recent examples recorded are their blatant attempts to stop the pigs getting into the trailer by filling it themselves once they spotted the bait laid to entice the pork, I mean pigs to their final destination. Last week they upped their game and took on William the Welsh Cob, a very placid and laid back chap unless you interfere with his calorie consumption, even he was driven off his food bowl as they flocked into his stable like a great woolly tsunami and refused to be driven off either by a bad tempered horse or his equally bad tempered owner.

Feeding frenzy over they focus on other pressing matters like formation pooing, this entails them taking it in turns to dump on any clean bit of path, concrete, rock or grass until a suitably slimy mess has been left which will hopefully catch their part time shepherd unawares as he approaches in the darkness of the early evening causing him to slip and launch skywards the bucket of feed destined for another species. The resulting cacophony of swearing and bucket suddenly emptying sound acts as a rallying point to the sheep lurking in the shadows.

Another favorite is for a sheep to take one for the team and lie in wait, placing themselves directly in the path of the oncoming bucket carrier. This is a high risk strategy as said bucket carrier is no light weight and by bringing him down they risk substantial crush injuries. Bucket carrier inevitably prevents total change in circumstance from vertical to horizontal by jettisoning bucket and flailing good arm in the dark to re-establish balance.

There is only one thing that distracts them from their quest for gastronomic gratification, that is the ram Crispy. This morning they were not in their usual locations waiting to cause mayhem. The gate to Crispy's field lay flat on the floor, the woolly hoarde had broken in and from the look on his face they had a wild night of it.

I expect we shall see the results next March. Time does fly on the smallholding.

The homecoming!

If only I had been able to get the camera operational quicker you would have seen this sheep running from the bottom of the lane faster than Usain Bolt when she saw us.

This is poorly sheep, see stranger from a strange land a few weeks back who turned up at deaths door in the goat house and was then waited on hand and foot by the humans at Rock HQ until she was fit enough to be turned out into the field. Once there she demonstrated how much better she was by vaulting the fence and disappearing into the bracken, only to turn up two days later hiding in the pig pen.

Once again she was fed and watered but vanished and we thought she had long gone to join the other residents of sheep skull lane.

Until this morning when a solitary sheep appeared at the bottom of the lane quite clearly watching the morning routine. I thought she was just another feral sheep looking to gather any scraps left over by the marauding Ryelands, or worse waiting to attack the haystack.

But no, like a scene out of a Lassie movie, but with a sheep as the main character, not a dog, she gave a bleat of joy (or hunger) and ran up the lane to get a breakfast.

The Ryelands didn't mind, they got a second breakfast in the process.

British summer continues!

These buckets were empty this morning, the rain from the roof of the pig sty has filled them, Rocky helps himself to a drink after racing up and down the lane.

Its been a good day though, we got a fair number of jobs done. You have to be really disciplined when on the smallholding, something I find hard, you have to strike a balance between the jobs that need doing and those that you would like to do. So whilst I would have liked to have got the brush cutter out and cut swathes of bracken down, a job that is itself getting quite urgent I forced myself to weed the garden, even more urgent, when there were gaps in the rain.

To reward myself for sticking to such a tedious job I cut down two large hazel trees that currently put the garden in shade, not that there is much sunshine at present, but when it returns part of the garden will benefit from extra light. I now intend to take much of the twenty foot high hedge down from the length of the garden, removing the hazel, sycamore and hawthorn but leaving the three plum trees currently fighting for survival. The pigs watched and then chomped through the cut down greenery.

I then fell victim to one of the rules of smallholding, when a jobs going well don't allow yourself to get distracted. Pretty soon I had lost sight of the task in hand, clearing the hedge and was happily engaged in the very entertaining task of feeding the pigs windfall apples by hand. Their antics and the chase game they play around the trees whiled away the time until the rain made it too uncomfortable to stay out.

I dragged a fresh bundle of hazel up the lane to the goats and sheep sheltering under the trees by the stable. Maggie and the Ryelands tucked in with as much enthusiasm as the pigs. Only Geisha was missing the feast.

She suddenly appeared, clearing the gate across the front of Trevor's stable with ease, not with her usual grace though, more of a sideways jump with an accompanying oof sound. Trevor appeared at the gate whinnying defiantly. Geisha had obviously been helping herself to his bucket of horse feed and judging by the way she cleared the gate Trevor had given her both heels to help her out.

Its a dog Holmes!

As its the weekend I did plan to lie in a bit longer than our usual morning routine allows. I should have known our tribe of critters would have other plans. The Bernese alarm clock went off at around half five and then the dawn chorus of hungry goats bleating under the bedroom window put paid to any thoughts of sneaking back to my bed and grabbing another hour of much needed kip.

Never mind I thought, this will allow me to catch up with a few garden jobs and I can have a long and leisurely breakfast. Again the plan and reality differed greatly as Reba, pictured here, decided to take off over the hill forcing her hapless owner to abandon his full cooked English and find her.

The hill is currently covered in five foot high stems of bracken so making it impossible to see anything unless its the size of a small elephant. Much calling and silent swearing failed to produce the missing pooch. Swearing has to be silent as Tracey has a swear box, a pound an expletive towards her new dog. Tracey joined the search, we found out why our sheep have suddenly stopped turning up for breakfast, The Oracle has taken to feeding them as they look so cute. So our fat Ryelands have persuaded a grizzled border farmer to part with sheep nuts, as he says they are now his friends for life, or rather as long as there are sheep nuts in his bucket. After a light breakfast with him they then bother Mad Keith for bread so no its wonder we don't see them.

Tracey decided to go back to Rock HQ while I was ordered to go up to the technohermits collection of shacks to see if he had seen our dog. I don't know why but as I approached the ghost house today I felt distinctly uneasy, the sun shone through the leafy canopy of the trees as they arched over the path but it was noticeably colder. Rabbits were grazing ahead, not actually going onto the lawn of the white house in front of me. No one was home, as usual. For the first time since we have been here I let the stories of the house influence me and I turned back from the path and headed home. I didn't, just like instructed by the stories look back. Anyway with rabbits on the path it was clear my dog hadn't ventured that way.

She was on the hill, probably adding to the legends and ghost stories that abound in this area. There is for instance a huge black dog that terrorises the hills, if you come to Rock HQ you will meet three real live ones, but this legend has been around since the fifteen hundreds.
A local Lord, a nasty fellow called Black Vaughn was on the losing side at a battle and beheaded. His ghost tormented the locals until thirteen priests were summonsed and were so frightened as they tried to exorcise his ghost from the local church that they lost their minds. One did however manage to reduce the ghost to the size of a fly and catch it in a snuff box, which was then thrown into a big pond on top of the hill next to ours. Some local sap let the fly out of the box and Black Vaughn's ghost manifested as a big vicious black dog forever roaming the hills and scaring the locals, usually on their way home after they had been to the pub.

Some chap called Sir Arthur Conan Doyle heard this story and published it as The Hound Of The Baskervilles. Now you know.

Anyway our hound of the Baskervilles was found by Tracey sat in the conservatory covered in sticky bods and reeking of fox pooh. Obviously she had picked up the scent and set off to investigate rolling in every turd she found along the trail.

She was feeling very pleased with herself, not nearly as pleased as the cats were feeling after helping themselves to my unattended breakfast.

Wheres my sheepdog!

There are times I wish I had another dog.

Yes we have the magnificent seven, the Rock pack, the gang, the gits, and I love them to bits, even Pip the psychotic collie, but yesterday I wished we had another dog. A clever one, a well trained one, one that could help out, I'm talking about a sheepdog. Our current collection are as much use around sheep as a Burmese General is at delivering food aid.

We did a lot of work with the sheep last night, our little flock of Ryelands needed injecting with medicine to give them immunity against seven horrible diseases which include mange and bolus and all sorts of horrific sounding parasitic borne illnesses which will affect them if they don't have the injections. Now when we first bought Rita, Roxy, Rosie and Crispy I had no idea that within a very short time I would be trimming their feet, cleaning their bottoms, shearing them and administering medicines, basically waiting on them hand and foot. In fact the only thought I had put into it was that these four would produce me an unlimited supply of lamb chops.

I didn't really envisage that to get these lamb chops I would have to learn a vast array of new skills, learn a new language to discuss with other shepherds the pro's and con's of shearlings and whethers, and re read James Herriot to appreciate the complexities involved when you stick your hand inside a sheep's insides and pull out your potential dinners.

Our flock has grown considerably, we now have Easter and Springtime who are both massive Ryeland Ewes and excellent pedigree examples and we have the rogue sheep, two Suffolks April and Molly, plus a Suffolk Cross, Meg and Bill a whether, also a Suffolk who is M.I.A. on the common hopefully avoiding the piemakers. We also have a shearling from last year, Ebony a lovely little black Ryeland produced by Roxy.

Shrek, April and Ivory, last years lambs have all been introduced to Mr Whirlpool in the workshop and bits of them make periodic appearances on the dinner table at Rock HQ.

All the Ryeland Ewes have given birth this year, so Hercules, Bonny, Maude and Sandy have been out on Oak Bank with their Mums. Katy an orphan lamb is on the lawn along with Daffodil the Ryeland lamb abandoned by Easter at birth. Yesterday was the day for immunisations and separating from their Mothers, an easy task as our sheep are so tame they run towards you when they see you with a bucket.

Usually.

Sensing something was wrong last night they gave me a wide berth. Eventually I managed to coax them all to the food trough and inject them as they gorged on sheep nuts. I checked them all for maggots, a hands on messy job but necessary. They were clear. Now came the task of separating them. This went well until we got to Hercules. The first three we were able just to pick up from the trough and put in the goat house. Not so for Hercules, once jabbed twice shy he was off running as fast as his woolly legs would carry him aided and abetted by Ebony.

We needed to get all the sheep off Oak Bank, to let the grass grow back but also to break the parasite, egg, worm cycle, the ground needs to be left for 28 days to let the eggs die, otherwise the sheep just eat them up off the grass, the eggs hatch, the parasite infects the sheep, the sheep takes a dump passing more eggs onto to the grass and the cycle repeats.

We managed to get all the sheep out of the field except for Ebony and Hercules. It took ages to get them back into the bottom corner of Oak Bank where they would hopefully go through the gate and Tracey would intercept Hercules. He was quicker than she was and shot through reuniting himself with his Mum. Fifteen minutes running around later and after much sweating, swearing, threats and wishing for a sheepdog to round them up for me I managed to rugby tackle him to the ground and carry him to the others in the goat house. Taking the lambs from their Mums might seem harsh but it will allow the Mums to gain all the condition they lost in giving birth and producing milk. They have lost over a third of their body weight and look in a poor state.

Final task of the evening was to inject Daffodil and Katy. This was going to be so simple as they are hand raised and overly friendly. As they are more used to me carrying a bottle of milk rather than a hypodermic and responded as such. Jostling me, jumping over each other and pushing to get attention. This didn't matter, not until Daffodil hit my right hand as I tried to insert the needle into Katy's back left leg.

I injected my left index finger, despite the pain I consoled myself that at least I wouldn't get mange for the next twelve months.