NEWS PAGE
It looks set at the moment to be a repeat of last year with summer being a wash-out. However, when the sun does come out, the countryside is beautiful, green and lush! And when it is wet - it is still beautiful!
Muck heap with a view!
Well... the hens started laying in January and the sheep have started lambing in March! I began the lambing season with potentially 40 ewes to lamb, I now have 16, of which only 4/6 have still to produce their babies. How, you may ask? Being milking sheep, the people who are likely to buy them are happy to have them when they have just lambed or shortly before lambing. This year, I had to have the sheep blood-tested for the Blue-Tongue disease before they could be moved as the man who was buying them lives in Lancashire, outside the BT surveillance zone. They all passed their test and the results were unusually quick to come back, so within a week of my advertising the ewes for sale they were winging their way up to Lancashire! Life is now rather more controllable and the sun is shining.
My son pointed out to me the other day that I had not updated my news page since October! He was quite right of course and my only excuse is that there is so much going on - not only on the farm, but in the village too. Check the village website www.chapel-lawn.co.uk to see how much we are doing!
Since October I have planted some hedgerow, been catching moles, selling some sheep and trying to back my young stallion. Also, of course we had Christmas and the New Year and some more very wet weather in January.
This month has been miserable, with the constant wet weather getting right into the sheep's coats and making them constantly cold and wet. I have been bringing them in each night for the past fortnight so that they at least have half a day to stand and lie somewhere dry. The horses have also been in - all the time at the moment - to save the grass, which only turns to mud if they are left outside. They soon get used to being in and provided they have plenty of hay to chomp on are happy to be out of the wind and rain.
One advantage of bringing the sheep in is that Teg, the young sheepdog has been able to hone his gathering and working skills so that, although I don't like to tell him that the sheep want to come in anyway, he appears to do a very professional job. To be fair to Teg, I couldn't manage without him now.
My new hens have started laying, one on Christmas day, the others are starting now. Having lost all the previous hens to to a badger raid early last Autumn, I have replaced them with five egg layers - speckledy, black and red ones and some hamburg bantam hens and cockerels. They have been moved into a stable nearer the house, where it is very unlikely that a fox or badger will be able to get them. The vegetables, though will have to go out where the hens were - there to be ravaged by rabbits and pigeons I suppose! Oh well - that's life!
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