The snow has arrived!!!!!

Here we have Mr Snowman. Whenever it snows I just have to build one. It's the child in me it takes over!!!

A picture looking up the valley towards Jessica's:

Ben with lots of snow and ice all over him. He did look funny!!!!!!!!

Jon feeding the rams, the dogs are having lots of fun in the snow.

In the foreground we have Fred with Whitey behind her and Mrs Sorrowful at the hay rack.

The sun was on its way up this morning, this was at 07.40:

The white fluffy flakes have now landed on Banc Olive and it looks beautiful.

Eira

Wow -- if I thought I was happy yesterday, that was nothing... At some point in the middle of the night I woke up and it was quite bright as the moon is about half full, and I could see that already there was more snow, and now there is even more. This photo was taken about an hour ago from the top of the field looking down the Cothi Valley -- and it's snowed even more since then -- I am sat here now looking out at my footsteps across the yard and they are rapidly getting covered over!

This was taken about 8:00 this morning just as the sun was trying to peek over the edge of the mountain:

Hapusrwydd!

Sunday Morning

After checking the ewes this morning I just had to get a couple of pic's of the sky.Is this the lull before the storm ( Red sky in the morning Shepherds warning?) We will have to wait and see!!!

Lambs

We have had more lambs born this week. Some of them are really small so I have been bringing them into the house for some colostrum. They are that small Willow the Jack Russell looks huge against them. To keep the lambs warm I put them into the Rayburn bottom oven of course its only warm not hot. Some of the lambs are very rattly on the lungs, once they get over that they seem to go on and live. We have lost a few.

Stôf pren

Finally got around to tracking down the manual for the wood stove, and considering how much time and effort I put into getting it, I thought I'd stick it up on the web for anybody else out there who might happen to have an old Efel Kamina wood burner sitting around. I am reliably informed that there are next to no spare parts (with the exception of the glass panes) available...

Defaid a gwlân...

Not much to report here really... Hefin put his sheep back in the field again and has now (since taking this photo) taken them out again... I still can't get used to seeing white sheep up there!

In slightly more exciting news, remember ages ago when I sent my wool off to be spun into knitting yarn? I got it back in November and this hat & scarf are my first two finished objects!

January lambs

We now have the ewes in the shed and they have all been vaccinated and wormed pre-lambing. This was in fact two weeks ago. We had our first live lambs born on Sunday 18th. We had a couple of ewes lamb with premature lambs the lungs are not developed so they don't take a gasp of air , which is really frustrating because your trying your hardest to get the lambs to live and they just don't. So when they come and alive you just sigh with relief that is a wonderful feeling.

Pris is

In the interests of moving things along, I've lowered the asking price for Bwlchyrhyd, so if you were interested before but thought you couldn't afford it, have another look...

New Year 2009

Hello to all who have been reading jessica's blog tis my turn now. Hi i'm Bridget at Banc Olive and i thought I would start off at the beginning of the year rather than finish jessica's.

4th Jan Jon is spreading farmyard manure on the hay fields, due to the frozen weather. Well as for me I moved the Texel ewes closer to the yard ready for lambing the commercial ewes will soon be lambing so we are in for some late nights. Oh and it's been snowning at last.

Nadolig Llawen!

I know, it's been over two months since I posted here, so as a rather pathetic Xmas present to anybody who is still bothering to read this blog, here are some very old photos that have been lurking the camera for some time now.

I didn't make a big Thanksgiving dinner this year but still had to do something so cooked a pheasant that my neighbour gave me and made a pumpkin pie (and of course roasted pumpkin seeds!). In a way, pheasant is really a more appropriate bird for me to be eating at Thanksgiving than turkey as they are what lives semi-wild on my mountain, whereas even the most free-range organic turkey I could buy would still be farmed...

Ages and ages ago, I planted some melon seeds in the greenhouse, and I did actually manage to get two of the world's smallest melons -- quite tasty, but only a very few mouthfuls!

Now that the sheep are all gone, I've let the next farmer up the lane put his sheep on my fields -- it looks very odd to see white sheep at Bwlchyrhyd!

And this is the very small apple harvest -- I know these apples look a bit odd and manky, but they were SO incredibly juicy and delicious!

Off to make some root vegetable soup now. I think there will be some exciting things happening in the new year, and I will write about them here when they do. Also, Bridget has finally got her computer back from the shop, and as soon as I go down there and show her how to blog, you will have news from Banc Olive as well -- and Bridget will be starting lambing before long!

Nos da a blwyddyn newydd dda i chi!

Tân

Yes folks, that's right, you saw it here first... After not using the wood burner in the lounge for the last three years because I was advised by a plumber that it was dangerous, a friend came round the other day and had a look at it and said that it looked fine to him -- he has got a nearly identical wood burner to this one. So he helped me get it going, and voilà -- fire! So I will be nice and toasty warm this winter...

Following on from my previous post -- here's a taster of things to come -- my hens and ducks integrating nicely up at Bridget's...

Bridget

Sorry, I know I haven't posted in ages...

Not much news now. All the sheep have finally gone, and there are now no animals at Bwlchyrhyd.

To keep you entertained and informed in the interval, Bridget will be posting news of my chickens and ducks here, as well as anything else that she thinks my readers may find of interest, and I will post news when and if I have it.

Regular service to be resumed when I have sorted out my life and reinvented myself yet again... Watch this space.

Pethau

Sorry for not having posted in ages. I have actually been away in America for a few weeks, but here are some photos from before I went -- nothing particularly exciting really -- just winding things down in the hopes that a buyer will come along soon...

These are the two baby cockerels and one of them is now in the freezer and the other in our tummies...

These three hens went across the lane to Bart and Mandy, and the rest of the chickens (as well as Del and Dewi) have gone to Jon and Bridget's, so it's a bit quieter around here now... Will try and take some photos of them all in their new homes if I get a chance.

And this is my rather pathetic tomato crop this year which Bart has been tending for me in my absence...

Er Côf Am Shiva

I will hold you in my arms forever sweetie pie.

Llwydi

So I have been making my own bread for several years now, and I've never had a problem with bread going mouldy before. I have always used Allinson Dried Active Yeast except for a few times when I have made sourdough bread. Anyhow, the other day I knew I was out of yeast and I was in the shop and was in a bit of a hurry so I bought some Hovis Fast Action Yeast. The bread is reasonably tasty, although much less "crumbly" and better suited for slicing and sandwiches than my normal bread -- but now, I have just noticed -- it has gone mouldy!

I have had bread that got dry and hard and stale, but I have never had home-made bread go mouldy on me before. Suffice to say, it is stored in the same conditions as usual, etc. So I go to investigate and I notice that the yeast I bought contains "a blend of dried yeast and bread improvers." Methinks the improvers are the cause of the mould. Anybody else have this experience?

Ac eto...

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Hefyd:

Sori, sa i wedi teimlo fel ysgrifennu lot yn diweddar...

Sioe Frenhinol Cymru

Two exciting things happened yesterday at the Royal Welsh -- Bridget & Jon got an 8th and a 9th with their Texels which they are quite pleased with...

...and, more importantly, I got to see the little ram lamb that we sold last autumn! He is all grown up now!

Da a drwg...

The bad news is that the hen has vanished as have most of her eggs. No signs of struggle or feathers, so not sure what got her, but she is definitely gone... :(

The good news is that Shiva is still well enough to be catching little mice -- okay, I suppose it's bad news for the mouse, but it's good news for Shiva, and she's the important one IMO!

Ar Werth

We have decided to sell Bwlchyrhyd. If you're interested in buying it, please contact our estate agent.

Diweddaru

I just spotted the little bantam off the eggs so went over and had a look -- she is sitting on 11 eggs!

Yr Iâr

I know this looks like a photo of a bunch of reeds, but if you look closely, you will see the little bantam hen in the middle of it. She vanished on Wednesday night, but was back Thursday morning for food -- and then vanished again. Yesterday I spotted her outside and went out and followed her -- I can only assume she is sitting on eggs as she hasn't moved from this spot since. Fingers crossed that the fox doesn't get her...

Gwlân a nyddu

I have been saying for some time that I am going to spin the wool from the sheep, but, to be honest, I haven't got the time. There's now 6 fleeces from last year plus 8 from this year, and they take up a lot of space.

Spinning is going to have to wait for another day. The wool is getting sent off the the mill to be spun and to come back as yarn for knitting in 3-6 months...

Gwydyr

The big exciting news today is that I finally managed to get glass cut for the windows for the shed:

In other news, Denzil, who used to live here, came by with some things from his greenhouse -- so I think I will be spending tomorrow transplanting and repotting things!

The peacock came to visit AGAIN (but I am not complaining because he is so beautiful!):

And, this one is a bit sad -- there have been some blackbirds nesting in the clematis on the front of the house, and we've been watching them fly back and forth and feel their little chicks -- and this afternoon, Shiva killed the daddy blackbird... Bad Shiva... AND, she has shown no remorse...

Cneifio

Yes, it's that time of year again... Unfortunately, it's a bit harder to take photos that show what's going on with black sheep than it is with white sheep, but here I am, in action...

And the sheep, now all fully shorn, and looking like goats again. Check out Rhodri on the left (with the horns) -- he looks so much more elegant now!

Diolch yn fawr iawn i Bridget a Jon am helpu!

Scrabble (yn Gymraeg)

From the New York Times to S4C (fast-forward to 4:20)...

(I was hoping to actually put the video here, but unfortunately technology defeated me, so you will have to click the S4C link above, and download it yourself -- but if you are using the new version of RealPlayer, you will have the option to save it to your computer -- because it will only be up on the S4C site until next Wednesday! If anybody out there knows how to convert a *.ivr file to something useful, please get in touch...)