It’s been a horrible day.

No; that doesn’t quite give due weight to my hand-wringing anxiety followed by the deep, deep sorrow that I have suffered during a few short, traumatic hours…..

And I’m sure many people will sneer derisively, when they learn that the dear friend & faithful companion I lost today, was one of our lovely goats. 

But I’m not (perhaps facetiously) nicknamed ‘The Lonely Goatherd’, for nothing: tucked down here in this isolated little valley, I often don’t have the pleasure of human company for days; not that I crave it nor even essentially miss it, I am neither a city nor even a ‘townie’ person & relish the tranquility we enjoy here. 

Once you truly get to know goats, their captivating personalities & antics literally take over your life.  On witnessing our herd’s anxious requests for reassurance at their concern that a Milkforce member was unwell, our vet today observed they appear, ’demanding’.  And she’s right: what they ‘demand’ to know, is exactly what you’re doing; how you’re doing it; when, precisely, you’re doing it - & whether they too, can join in. 

These are highly sensitive, emotional, individual & intelligent animals: & you always, always, have to be one step ahead where goats are concerned….not that I necessarily am; as they’ve successfully ‘outfoxed’ me many a time.  And I have learned from - & been immeasurably enriched by, those experiences…..!

So let’s turn to Assie.  Whilst during the past couple of years she has, frustratingly, provided the Cariadfach Herd with only male kids; she has willingly attoned with an abundant yield of top-quality creamy milk; enriching our cheeses, yogurts, gelato….& even on occasion saving other small caprine & ovine lives who were in need of urgent nutritional sustenance that their own mums, simply couldn’t provide.

Not only was Assie a prolific member of the Milkforce, she was also a delightful, polite lady.  She never took a nifty nip of exposed flesh or a cheeky chew of loose clothing or a stray wisp of hair, when you weren’t looking; she was anxious to learn & assimilated information swiftly & with obvious delight; & she was always careful, polite & obliging when it came to milking.  Happy & keen in her work, when she jumped on the milkstand she would invariably greet me with an affectionate nuzzle, prior to plunging her head in the feed bucket.  And on leaving the ’stand, I would always be persuaded to provide an affectionate cuddle, before she returned to her chums.    

  This morning, however, she didn’t join the others at the communal breakfast bowl, preferring instead to lie quietly beneath the hay trough.  When I called to her, she moaned softly; I was in the pen & at her side, in a trice.  I managed to persuade her to rise fairly easily; but as soon as she did so I noted wih dismay that she clearly had chronic diarrhoea; & apparently a muddy discharge from her vulva.  This was an unpleasant surprise as she’d kidded on 7th April, several weeks ago & had apparently fully cleansed; with no problems in the ensuing interval.  And only the previous evening she’d raced into the parlour with her characteristic enthusiasm, licking clean her supper dish & produced a good yield of milk.

I immediately called the veterinary emergency line, with the vet on call arriving within about half an hour.  Her careful examination revealed that Assie’s rumen appeared to be functioning healthily; however her temperature was worryingly low.  The internal examination demonstrated that the discharge was not smelly; so any infection did not appear too severe.  Nevertheless, Assie was clearly quite weak; & the fact that she’d evidently deteriorated very fast, was worrying. 

The vet injected antibiotics & anti-inflammatories straight into the vein, with instructions I was to follow up the initial dose with two days’ worth of successive antibiotic shots; & to keep Assie warm & well hydrated.  Responding to another call during what was a busy weekend, she hurried off; & I prepared a warm, comfortable bed in an isolated stable furnished with some willow branches in an attempt to stimulate Assie’s failed appetite, & a bucket of warm, molassed water with electrolytes to replenish the liquid, sugars & salts her body would have lost through scouring.  I put a warm goat rug on her, in the hope it’d help restore her core temperature; & after ensuring she had a good, long drink left her to settle in. 

Anxious about the clearly unhappy goat, I drifted back to the stable every fifteen minutes or so; wishing to check her progress but at the same time unwilling to disturb her.  Whilst she didn’t seem particularly better, she at least did not appear to be getting any worse; so I took a short lunch break before returning to check on her.

During the twenty minutes that I was absent, Assie died.

Broken hearted, I gently stroked the sad, still body & said goodbye.  I notified the vet, who was clearly as shocked as I was at what had happened; she certainly hadn’t expected her to die as only a short while before, Assie had been up & about.

The final indignity was having to load the body with the help of a kindly neighbour, into the truck so that I could take her to the Veterinary Investigation Centre for Post Mortem the following morning: something I would have done anyway, but which is a legal formality in the case of any goat over the age of eighteen months which dies unexpectedly.

It was all such a shock, though; we’ve never lost a goat before.  You build an extraordinary rapport with these beautiful, sensitive, intelligent animals: goodness, I work intimately with them, milking twice per day; catering to their every need; & of course I am their faithful, comforting midwife for each & every birth.  Subsequently the relationship we build with these wonderful girls is deep & loving: people seem amazed that I know each (apparently identical) goat by name; but hear them bleat, & I’ll tell you who she is & what she’s saying; hear them slurp from the water bucket even, & I’ll tell you who is thirsty.

And tonight, there’s one less slurp, one less bleat, one less expectant, happy face in the queue for the milkstand & supper….& one more friend, absent; who has so enriched our lives with her quirky affection & whom we’ll miss, so very much.

 

Sorry folks,

just as yesterday wasn’t about things-tilling-soil so this too, isn’t a Clash of the (whippy-sworded Zorro) Titans; more “bah, foiled again”….or should that be, “baa”, actually…..?   Hmmmm.

Frankly, the wethers are getting increasingly frustrating: whilst MacDougal behaves impeccably, they get themselves into all sorts of trouble; & today was no exception.  Bilberry - the biggest wether - has thwarted my painful hacking back of all brambles, tangles & traps in their vicinity, by starting to stick his head through the now-clear fenceline; only to find he can’t get back again.  Sheep - being the witless creatures they are (well, that epithet certainly applies to our wethers, anyway) don’t attempt to pull back from the obstacle they pushed through; rather, they continue to barge forward & hence compound the problem.

So as the light started to turn the colours in the valley from monochrome to the tentative tints of Spring, I made my way up through the orchard & into Caravan Corner start my ’rounds’ by checking on the wethers, however not expecting to find anything out of the ordinary since Bogbean’s sad & stupid demise.  But right at the gate, there was Bilberry; his head firmly wedged in one of the uniform squares of the sheep netting.  It took all my strength & almost half-an-hour’s determined tugging, to extricate him without resorting to cutting the fence apart - which of course put me behind for the rest of the day, not to mention the ensuing indignant bawling from the caprine end of the Ffarm, demanding their tardy breakfasts. 

So I was at least hopeful that once Bilberry was liberated, that would be that; however on wandering up the orchard to admire the stunning sunset flaming its final glory over the mountains & to show Boo - who was visiting for a couple of hours’ necessary Welsh revision - our lovely lambs, I noted with dismay that Bilberry was, once again, wedged in the hedge.  Despite our best efforts Boo & I failed to extricate him; so Tony - who had just arrived home after a long & gruelling two-day Operational Performance Check on the Airbus simulator at West Drayton - came to our assistance.  It took a lot of effort, but we managed to get the errant wether out without too much damage to the fence  - & certainly no harm done to the robust sheep. 

Tony resolved to immediately transfer the wethers into Parc Tu ol Ty along with MacDougal the ram; but although as ever MacDougal happily obliged, the wethers obstinately stayed put in spite of our best efforts.  We left the gate open for them to find their own way out, overnight.

Meanwhile Boo learned a bit more than Welsh this evening; helping us to castrate & dock the last lambs (bar Allspice’s babies of course, who still hasn’t lambed).  After we’d finished our revision - whilst gawping at the fantastic sunset at regular intervals - I managed to send some photos to accompany my latest ‘Smallholder’ article, with which I’d been having difficulty. 

Other than that - apart from treating a very difficult goat who has ‘pink eye’ & nearly breaking my arm in the process; returning little Bechan to the Kid Nursery; treating Froggie’s damaged teat; & Tony, handing in his notice with bmi, finally having had enough; all was pretty quiet, really…..!

….& before I conjure up any misrepresented images of a pair of magnificent Shire horses & an honest yokel,

can I just say that on this occasion (much as I wish I wasn’t) I’m talking about paperwork, not (alas) about this ‘green & pleasant’ land of ours. 

I did manage to finish my article for ’Smallholder’ magazine’s special Welsh/Show edition, delighted I’d achieved the tight deadline; however I then found to my dismay that I couldn’t download the accompanying photos as the computer is playing up again (typical).  Meanwhile I had to hurry through a raftload of crucial design work - for which we have an equally tight deadline…. 

After chatting to a very helpful & obliging gentleman at the Trading Standards Office I ended up having to do an emergency ‘wade-through’ of the Food Standards Agency’s Food Labelling regulations, to ascertain exactly what we can & cannot put on our packaging; & it’s a turgid & often self-contradictory minefield of legislative grenades. 

So I ended up working on it well into the night…..subsequently, sorry folks; not much else to report - other than that I’m now suffering from a stonking great paperwork headache.  And Allspice still hasn’t lambed……

Hmmmmm…….now let me see:

I thought I was a farmer.  Obviously not; I seem to spend more time doing office work these days, than anything else.  Of course, there’s still around eight hour’s worth of general chores to complete each day, but they don’t really count as the bulk happen before most people have even considered getting up for work or long after they’ve come home, have cooked & eaten their evening meal & are sprawled in front of the telly (unless, I suspect, they’re fellow smallholders). 

But for most of the day I was frantically wading through a vast mound of paperwork when all I wanted was to be outside in the sunshine, working on my veggie patch or overhauling the hothouse, both of which desperately need work.  No such luck.

I had to speak to a Business Bank Manager, reference one of our loan applications; I had to glean more information reference quantities & costs of packaging; there was a press photo session to organise; a lengthly discussion with Trading Standards; a query to sort out regarding Intellectual Property Rights; design work to evaluate & organise; & a plethora of other paperwork which just wouldn’t & couldn’t wait.

It seems that everything backs up during dismal weekends - & the deadlines are always tighter when I least need them to be.  And farming’s all about being out in the fresh air, doncha know….?!

 

Ever had the feeling it’s going to be ‘one of those days’…..?

Yup, it was.

For a start the hens only laid two eggs - hardly inspiring - but at least the ducks cheered me up with a ‘full house’ (grand total of two!).  Meanwhile Roberta Goose is still kicking eggs out of her nest; although having put a vast amount of straw into the Goose House today she sorted the nest out once & for all, & settled down at last to brood her clutch.  However I’m not certain how many eggs she’s sitting on; even if she moves off Dave makes a big thing about anyone going near his potential family - so who am I to argue…?!

Although the weather wasn’t too promising I still reluctantly turned out the ewes & lambs, as the ewes were yelling to go out & feisty little Headcase was trying to jump the Lambing Shed door.  But it was really a day to be indoors; so I concentrated on compiling my next article for ‘Smallholder’ magazine, for which there is an imminent deadline. 

Just as I was about to tuck into my lunch I had a visit from Wynn (one of the contractors), to collect the final payment for the groundworks his staff had completed.  So alas; another cold meal, on another cold & inhospitable day. 

After an amicable ‘chewing of the fat’ & my chewing of the congealed fat of my cold repast, I did my lunchtime check of the grazing stock & found that Bilberry - our largest wether - had got his head firmly wedged in the sheep netting adjacent to the caravan, very close to the same spot where poor Bogbean had met his demise.  What is it, about that area of hedge?!  For some reason it seems very popular with our apparently kamikaze sheep.

So after a great deal of grunting exertion on my part I managed to successfully complete a solo extraction; however whilst this is the first I doubt it will be the last time, I carry out such a blackthorn-barbed operation.

The aain concern of the day however, was little Bechan; the kid I’d snatched from the jaws of death when her mother Apricot gave birth a few weeks ago & the poor little thing had emerged into the world without even the strength to take a breath.  Since the she’d come on in (literally) leaps & bounds - until, it seems, today….

She only had about 150mls of milk at breakfast, & drank even less as time ticked on.  Concerned, I brought her into the house to spend the night with Corrie the Cade, & Frog’s discarded daughter Blodwyn; but although she still refused any milk she did have a high old time with her new pals, bouncing all over the sofas & playing ‘chase’ around the coffee table.  So I don’t think there’s too much wrong there, fingers crossed…

 

As has been mentioned increasingly in the news of late,

there’s a growing concern about the real possibility of a world food shortage.  Apart from noticing that the monthly grocery bill has starkly increased, the cost of feed for the animals has also rocketed by over £1 per 25kg sack in the last six months - quite shocking, & another reason I hope Winter is soon beaten back by the fresh, vital shoots of Spring - so the animals can enjoy a healthy dose of ‘Dr Green’ as soon as possible. 

But many staple commodities - cooking oil, lentils, rice, maize, soya & wheat to name but a few - are soaring in price so much, that many already impoverished parts of the world are literally sinking even further below the ‘breadline’.  For example, between March 2007-March 2008 the global price of corn rose 31%; rice rose 74%; soya went up by 87% & wheat, up by a staggering 130%.  This is attributable to a number of factors, such as:

• poor harvests owing to extreme weather conditions;
• a rise in the demand for food by importing countries;
• low stockpiles;
• an expectation of price incease leading to hoarding;
• & a long-term lack of agricultural investment (you’re telling me).

 

So what does this mean for consumers?  Well, Stonehead recently highlighted some appalling statistics regarding the current attitude to food in the UK.  Apparently we Britons throw away a staggering £6.7 billion’ worth of food per annum, 40% of which is fresh fruit & veg which could have been eaten.  Per day, this includes:

• 4.4 million whole apples (almost one third of those bought);
• 5.1 million potatoes;
• 2.8 million tomatoes;
• 1.6 million bananas;
• 1.2 million oranges.

 

So in the UK people will doubtles grumble if the cost of their post-pub Friday night take-away meal goes up in price; whilst still discarding around half their potion of pilau or egg-fried rice, chucking it in the bin on the way home without a second thought.  The UK alone imports over 400,000 tonnes of rice per annum of which 40% is basmati - the price of which has risen over the last twelve months, by 120%.

But rice is the staple food of over three billion people worldwide.  Flooding, cold weather & urbanisation have depleted global stocks to the brink of famine.  India has banned exports of all but basmati rice; but whilst it says there is no crisis, over-use of chemical fetilizers & poor soil health will inevitably lead to increasingly lower crop yields.  And Bangladesh faces its worst famine since 1974: hundreds of poor families survive on only one meal per day & spend 70-80% of their income on food alone.  The Philippines - the world’s top importer of milled rice - is currently in crisis: once self-sufficient, over the last 20 years the country lost almost half its irrigated land to rapid urban development.  And of course, the domestic demand has risen as the population has grown.  The recent food riots in Haiti & Indonesia spell out the desperation of the escalating emergency. 

Whilst Thailand’s rice price has risen by over 50% in the last year, less rice is now consumed by the indiginous population as the Thais’ overall prosperity has increased, allowing them to eat a wider variety of foods.  And it’s a similar situation in China: the population are consuming more meat & dairy products although rice exports have nevertheless been restricted - which has had a serious knock-on effect for North Korea, which buys rice from China at very low prices to cope with the country’s frequent food shortages.  Japan exports little rice as farmers are heavily subsidised, getting up to four times the market value for the product to protect the nation’s food security.    

But inevitably, for every loser someone gains - the USA, Brazil, Argentina, Canada & Australia have all benefited from these price rises. 

Meanwhile the rising cost of crude oil & fears of climate change have seen a massive hike in the price of maize used to make biofuels, with the subsequent inevitability of inflating food charges.  And ironically the growth in the world’s population, coupled with emerging economies such as China & India mean that the up-&-coming rich naturally demand to eat more than the poor; generating a new tier of middle-class consumers buying more meat & processed food as mentioned earlier.  In fact, meat consumption per capita has risen steeply over the past thirty years: in 1980 the average British diet consisted of 20kg of meat per annum whilst in 2007 it had risen to 50kg.  This puts inevitable pressure on resources: it’s estimated that whilst it takes 1-2 litres of water to produce 1kg of wheat, it takes 10-13 litres to produce the same quantity of beef.  And with the world’s population rising at the current rate - in 1950 there were 2.5 billion of us on the planet, whilst in 2025 it’s estimated there will be 8 billion - things aren’t likely to improve any time soon….

I have been extremely mindful of avoiding wasting ANY food, since visiting Northern India back in 2000.  I’ll never forget the horrific experience I had after finishing a meal at an open air restaurant, casually observing the waiter clear the table & then throw the resultant waste onto the establishment’s adjacent rubbish tip - only for said scraps to be abruptly engulfed by a swarm of impoverished, rag-clad urchins who appeared out of nowhere to fight over our self-indulgent, overstuffed-belly detritus to take back to their families; who we subsequently discovered were living nearby in a stinking ghetto cobbled together with plastic tarpaulins draped over scraps of wood which were propped between the open sewer & the rubbish middens from the adjacent town.  It was utterly, utterly shocking: a real first-hand eye-opener of what it truly means to be impoverished.

We were naturally so appalled & disgusted with our own unfeeling, unaware, Western well-fed blinkered existence that at our next meal break we all immediately opted to forego our food & offer it instead to the children begging at the hotel gate.  But bizarrely - although they were literally starving & would have happily taken our money - most refused the food outright, because they were aware that we were Buddhists & were therefore perceived as ‘lower caste’ & too ‘unclean’, to accept food from!  The cruel irony was the majority of these tragically impoverished, malnourished children were too heavily indoctrinated & therefore too proud to accept our food, even though they & their familiies were literally starving; because in their eyes - despite all our relatively luxurious trappings of Western wealth - we are still so low in their social order as to be considered not even fit to lick the dirt from their tattered sandals. 

And unfortunately, giving money was out of the question as many families who thought their children might make fiscal profit out of begging, would deliberately maim them - breaking, twisting or even amputating limbs - to make them more ‘appealing’ to our charitable, eco-tourist sensibilities.  It’s a mad old, sad old world it seems….

…..but I’d still ask (although I appreciate I’m probably preaching to the converted, here) next time you indulge in that take-away meal - please, only order what you think will make you comfortably full: don’t waste what after all is such a precious & rapidly-depleting resource.

It was a zesty, largely pleasant day;

a brisk breeze making it less warm as might be desired in the sunshine & still enduring a very occasional short, sharp cold shower; but by & large with a sky the soaring blue of a dunnock’s egg, it made the spirit take wing.

Boo came a-visiting, after some eggs herself although of the fluffy-feathered, multicoloured hen-&-duck varieties.  She’d just been for her very first Reiki session but wasn’t too sure how it had gone i.e. whether it had improved her bad back.  However, it’s early days, of course; she’ll need a fair few more sessions before she feels the benefits I suspect: like all these things, healing takes time.  And I took unashamed advantage of my willing but ‘captive’ audience, to do a bit of market testing - some of the packaging designs have come back & I wanted to gauge Boo’s response - after all, she’s a potential customer - & not just for an occasional indulgence, but as an integral part of the menu of her forthcoming gourmet evenings.  Interestingly as I did, she went for the typeface with a subtley more Celtic feel - so it will be interesting to see what Thursday’s Focus Group feels about it.

I took Nanuk for a lovely long walk across the fields, discovering she was desperate to make friends with the ponies; rolling over on her back in an attempt to get them to play (although of course she was on the lead the whole time).  So whilst it appeared she was making progress, when I turned homewards past the field with the ewes & lambs, Allia came up & challenged her - & to my dismay, Nanuk immediately lunged & snapped her teeth, restrained again by the lead.  She didn’t do anything more than that & in fact was only responding to Allia’s understandably aggressive lamb-protecting challenge; but it did make me realise Nanuk has so very much further to go, before I can look forward to her dutifully trotting along to heel, off the lead, or lounging around unattended on the farmyard: right now it’s just not worth the risk.  Converesly I did have to walk her back through the area with the wethers & ram; & she behaved impeccably despite the wethers’ skittish behaviour, even sitting on command when they were all running in confused chaos around her. So whilst it’s all a bit ‘Jekyll & Hyde’ at the moment, I think - hope - the sensible dog is starting to show, at long last…..

The highlight of the day had to be whilst I was clearing some paperwork & fortuitously unearthed an otherwise tragically long-lost address list of some of my old work pals: so today I got to catch up with the lovely, lighthearted, glamorous Celia who was my Boss on the Process & Organisation Review Team; Pippa, wife of jovial Welshman Nick whom I was delighted to learn has been promoted but is having to move abroad - so I sent them details of a French smallholding I’d personally love to buy myself, if we didn’t live here; then there’s Dave, who on the Team’s demise, defected to defra & is looking forward to being a Dad for the second time (impressively quick work, too!); & also Theresa, wife of Ed with whom I shared an office & all the trials, tribulations & challenges of deciding to leave an organisation for one’s own ‘pastures new’ - we both did; & neither of us, I’m glad to say, have looked back since.

So it was in bright & breezy mood, that I hummed my way through the music blaring from the radio whilst I  milked the goats this evening; after all, as loveable ole Cockney ’sparrah’ Bob ‘oskins used to growl, “It’s good ter talk….”

It proved a frantically busy morning:

firstly, Corrie the cade lamb & Blodwen, Froggie’s newborn kid, had to be formally introduced as it was already time to move Bloddie out of the bedroom (thanks in the main to the vast amounts of smelly, sticky meconium she’s shooting everywhere).  So she would be sharing the roomy crate downstairs with the half-pint little bruiser who has developed into such an entertaining (if incredibly noisy) character: at feeding time, I can now appreciate why so many new human mums suffer from post-natal depression….what an unceasing, ear-splitting racket, phew! 

But I wasn’t sure how two essentially different species would cope together - I needn’t have worried.  Initially there was some hesitant curiosity; but by the end of the day they were best of friends, playing together enthusiastically when awake; & curling up together when asleep.

After that Tony took care of the chores whilst I updated the narrative of our (epic) Business Plan; & so we were ready for Yet Another Meeting - this time, however, with a different lender. A fortnight on, & we still haven’t heard anything following our first (& apparently promising) meeting; so we’ve decided we just cannot hang around & need to put more ‘irons in the fire’.  Besides which, it is only right to fully analyse the market place - it’s not just about finding a bank who will lend us the money to start our business but also about finding one which will offer us the most favourable terms. 

So appropriately ’suited & booted’  we arrived for our meeting; which again, appeared hopefully positive - helped, I’m sure, by the comprehensive information we’ve painstakingly compiled.  In fact not only was the meeting constructive, the Business Manager was also extremely helpful & proactive on our behalf - so hopefully we’ll get some good news soon, as we now really need to get this show on the road……!

 

An up-&-down, busy sort of day…..

….which began abruptly, at a quarter past midnight when odd sounds emanated from the Baby Monitor - a goat was evidently in the process of kidding!  My first thought was that the only goat due to kid today, was Froggie: who last year had endured such a difficult, traumatic & painful labour owing (apparently) to her narrow hips, that it couldn’t possibly be her as this madam was not making an iota of the fuss which she typically does.  However, to our suprise, it was indeed her; so poor Tony was scarce out of his work uniform, having just returned from Damascus before it was time to roll up our sleeves & attend to Froggie’s exertions. 

But by the time we reached her, she’d already popped out a sweet little female kid, with thankfully no more to follow; however, she seemed just as surprised as we were; & subsequently showed no interest in her little one whatsoever, making no attempt to clean her despite our best efforts just wanting her due bucket of warm, molassed water & extra ‘munchies’; so we left her to it & quietly took the kid into the house to sort her out.

Frog kidded last year just after Wolfie did, on our wedding anniversary; fortuitiously also St David’s Day; & after Wolfie’s apparently effortless exertions & perfect, twin boy-&-girl kids, we were delighted - as these were the first-ever kids born here to our foundation herd.  However our joy was short-lived when Frog went into an horrendous labour. Some time after 3am we managed to stagger to bed, exhausted, after having to assist in two excruciatingly difficult births. 

Mind you, whilst dear Froggie really is also ‘two sandwiches short of a picnic’ her two kids more than made up for her apparent lack of brain; she didn’t like them, didn’t want to feed them - but they would literally lead her a merry dance - taking it in turn to goad her whilst the other one would grab a nifty drink from the milk bar; whilst the other would quickly swap over before she realised what was going on!

However, her lack of interest in her kids; plus her problematic self-suckling; plus being a ‘poor doer’ means her future as a professional milking goat, has to be under question.  She does produce a reasonable amount of milk overall - certainly ample for an average household plus some to spare for cheese or yogurt-making, or whatever; but to be honest she’d be better off living on her own, as she is always being picked on by the other goats & just doesn’t cope.  And alas, she really is aptly nickamed as she truly is, ‘mad as a box of frogs’.  So I suspect that if anyone wanted a house goat, she’ll be up for grabs before long….& despite her quirkiness, she really is a lovely-natured girl with an extraordinarily diverse vocabulary, for a goat!  I’d certainly miss her.

We retired to the house cradling the confused, wet little kid; & as is becoming routine took her up to the bedroom, placed her gently on a vetbed in front of the fire, after which we dried her off, treated her navel & made sure she got a goodly dose of colostrum which Froggie had generously donated in her daughter’s cause.  So (once again, thank you Frog) somewhere between 2am & 3am, we tumbled exhaustedly into bed for a couple of hours…

I carried out most of the morning’s work whilst Tony slept in after his eventful day, yesterday; after which he joined me for the fun job of introducing some recently-lambed ewes (plus Allspice, who will kill herself I’m sure, if I leave her in any longer) back in with the rest of the flock.  It’s always fun to watch the new lambs meeting their friends, & tearing round the field for the first time, leaping & tumbling as their long, springy back legs keep on overtaking the front ones! 

However despite this apparent pastoral idyll, it seems the Grim Reaper is never too far away; imagine my dismay when doing the rounds to check the wethers & ram, when I discovered that Bogbean hadn’t made it through the night, having died after getting tangled in the brambles yesterday, beneath one of the massive beech trees below Caravan Corner.  Perhaps he just didn’t venture back to the water trough as I’d hoped he would….?  He had certainly appeared fine when I’d checked on him at twilight yesterday evening, & none the worse for wear after his ordeal.  Dehydration; delayed shock - who knows?  Suffice to say however he was stiff as a board when I found him - but completely untouched by night-time scavengers, thank goodness. 

In the afternoon Tony wrapped him in sealed plastic sacks & bundled the sad little corpse into the back of the truck to take him to the incinerator, at a remote place high up over in the mountains - & the gloomy heap onto which he was added, shows the untimely toll of sheep farming (& especially at lambing time) in this area.  Such a needless death is upsetting & frustrating even with the cold comfort that as I check them regularly & had already hacked back what I thought were the ‘threatening’ parts of the hedge, there was nothing else I could have done.  But there it is….. 

So a day of birth, death, sunshine & showers - all part of farming life’s rich pattern.

 

Another busy & exhausting day, with the sheep playing a starring role:

(but no, Allspice STILL hasn’t lambed - yet……).

But they’ve frustrated me almost to my wit’s end with their antics.  Our resident cade lamb - little Corydalis, or ‘Corrie’ for short (after a larger-than-life character in one of my favourite books, ‘Blessed are the Cheesemakers’ by Sarah-Kate Lynch) really has become the Snowball from Hell - as he tears around the house at breakneck speed - literally - always, directly under my feet, tripping me over at almost every wary step.  But he’s lovely, such a little character; & really taking his bottles with gusto, now.

Meanwhile the majority of the flock were outside again today, enjoying the relatively fine if occasionally overcast, weather; the majority of the lambs all play & sleep together with Jelly seeming to have taken over as unofficial ‘nanny’; shepherding them everywhere (except at mealtimes, when she only thinks of her belly) & plonking herself in the midst of them, placidly chewing the cud, whilst they snooze in the afternoon sunshine. 

But Allspice has been behaving badly: again, trying to headbutt her pen door to the extent that she got herself completely stuck, wedging her head in the aperture again; & had to be rescued several times.  Then, when checking on the occupants of Caravan Corner I discovered that our ram lamb, Bogbean had YET AGAIN managed to get himself irrecoverably entangled in the hedge; & had been prone for evidently some time, as he was clearly exhausted & did not attempt to struggle particularly; although he’s used to the procedure by now & is generally quiet as I extricate him anyway.  Cursing under my breath I fetched the sturdiest loppers I could lay my hands on & gently freed him from the mass of ensnaring brambles, after which I carefully removed the detritus from his fleece.  But he was extremely weak; & couldn’t stand, although after much perseverance on my part I managed to help him up & whilst was wobbly for a while afterwards, he eventually took a few tottering steps, gaining strength all the time, & finally - thankfully - resumed grazing, much to my relief. 

I worked hard on the hedgerow for the rest of the afternoon, grateful that it was sunny & at least reasonably warm.  I cut back every offending bramble or blackthorn spike I could find with grim determination: this simply could not go on.  But the long-handled loppers are heavy; & by the time I’d finished my wrists & elbows ached so much with each determined chomp of the blades, that I could scarce lift them to finish the job.

Then I had to clear all the resulting mess; as I couldn’t have the brambles either catching in fleeces nor the danger of a cloven hoof getting a sharp blackthorn spike wedged painfully in the soft flesh between an animal’s cleats.  This was not a pleasant job: the brambles snagged nastily at every exposed inch of flesh; & the blackthorn needles scratched & plunged into my skin at every opportunity.  I was glad to finish; but left the loppers in the caravan - just in case.   Thankfully by the time I truged back down to the orchard, Bogbean was back with the rest of the flock, grazing unconcernedly as if nothing had happened; although I was concerned he might still be dehydrated as I hadn’t managd to persuade him over to the water trough.  Oh, well; he’ll have a drink in his own time, I suppose.

So it’s been a busy day, sheep-wise (or should I say DAFT, as that ruddy Bogbean truly must be; the others only needed to learn the lesson once, he just doesn’t seem to learn AT ALL & in fact has been getting stuck, wedged or lost since only a lamb). Thank goodness the goats have been quiet, for once - is this the calm before the caprine storm, though….?!