Happy Pumpkin Day!

This is the sum total of the food that I have made for Thanksgiving...!  :)

One of these years, I must get my act together and make a proper meal of things we've produced so that we have something on the table to give thanks for...

Am I the only person on the island making pumpkin pie today?  Probably!  :)

It's Tupping Time!

... or for those of you non-sheepie people, this is when Pete gets to have sex with the ewes to make us more baby lambs!

That's Pete in the middle there, on the left is Brown Ewe and Greedy Ewe, and on the right Black Ewe and Curly Ewe.  You may note that Shy Ewe and White Ewe are not in the photo -- that's because they didn't get with the programme and become my friends and are therefore going in the freezer this winter instead of getting pregnant.  We had to enlist a neighbour's help (and his dog) to get the ewes in so we could separate those two out -- and we don't want to have to keep doing that.  These four ewes, Pete, and the lambs will all come and eat out of my hand making handling them that much easier, so we are now breeding for friendliness!

Watch this space in five months time for more lamb cuteness!

New addition to the Sparrowhall family!

I had been thinking that our next species would be either cows or bees (I know, opposite ends of the spectrum size-wise...) but fate intervened and we have... GEESE!

Aren't they just the most beautiful creatures you have ever seen?!  In that middle pic, the male is hissing at me because I am clearly too close to him!  

They are a breeding pair so next year we hope to see some little goosies!

We gave two of Hedge Hen's chicks to the woman who gave us the geese -- but as you can see, Hedge Hen has still got plenty and they have a habit of getting underfoot when you are in the feed shed!

And last but not least -- this is one of the boys from the first lot of chicks -- we think his Daddy is a pheasant!  Will take some better pictures of him before he goes in the oven -- he is really gorgeous -- this is just a bad picture -- but the internet says that a chicken/pheasant cross (Chesant? Phicken?) is sterile so we can't have chicks with his colouring I'm afraid...