Twpdra

Right, so I can't get the lamb autopsied as the VLA isn't accepting any carcasses or samples at the present time, so I have no way of finding out what he died of and trying to prevent it happening again in future, and the local Animal Health office says that I can't even move the carcass to take it to the incinerator so I'm supposed to just find a quiet corner of my farm and leave him there to rot. Yeah, that sounds nice and safe and healthy...

Mae un o'r wyn wedi maru...

On Thursday morning, Greg spotted that lamb number 3 was breathing oddly. We kept an eye on him, and 24 hours later when there was no change, I phoned Bridget who gave me some antibiotics and penicillin. The penicillin brought his temperature down from over 106 to 103.9, but he never recovered and died yesterday morning. We want to get him autopsied so we know what he died of, but we are now waiting to hear back from the vet as to if the movement ban applies to dead animals as well as live ones...

Clwy'r Traed a'r Genau

Turned on the radio when I got up this morning and the first thing I heard is that there's been an outbreak of foot and mouth disease on a farm in Surrey... Good thing we got the lambs inspected on Thursday as there's now a nationwide ban on livestock movements... So now we just have to wait and see what happens next...

But yes, both lambs passed their inspection, and are now officially registered Balwen lambs!

We had a bit of sunshine this week (which is now gone) and things are growing a bit. Tomatoes are ripening and beans are slowly growing...

Greg's birthday was Wednesday and we went to Castell Carreg Cennen and then afterwards for ice cream at Heavenly -- yum!

Apologies for not having posted in ages, but we have had WWOOFers here since last Tuesday and we have been keeping busy! Pete and Alyssa have been doing lots of work and I will post photos when it stops raining...

Pwy yw hwn???

Some sad news to start with -- I went out Saturday morning to feed the ducks -- and Dai was dead. No idea what happened -- it wasn't a fox or anything as he was completely uninjured, just dead. Poor little Del has been distraught and lonely and missing her Dai, so this afternoon I went out and bought her a new friend -- introducing Dewi:

I got him from Sandra Barnard, the treasurer of the Call Duck Association, who conveniently lives just a few villages over from here. I put him down on the bank of the pond near where Del was and he was straight into the water after her...

Dewi's the one on the left. He's a bit smaller than her, but he's also younger than her I think, so perhaps he's got a bit more growing to do.

Speaking of growing, this is lamb #3, the little wet dish rag I thought was going to die:

Lamb #5 (with his mother) has also grown quite a lot:

And here's the ram lamb, looking nice and manly...

Things are sort of growing the garden as well -- the courgettes have finally started to flower, but the plants themselves aren't particularly big, so I'm not sure how much fruit we'll get. This time last year, we were already starting to eat the courgettes...

Mae hi'n wedi bod heulog heddiw!

Lots of tomatoes but still all green...

...unless this one is starting to ripen? I can't tell if it's just my imagination or if it really is!

Talley Fun Day was last Saturday, and they put down a load of wood chips to stop the grounds of the Abbey becoming mud. In exchange for a donation to the school, we are now the proud owners of a giant pile of used wood chips! This photo shows the pile AFTER I finished putting wood chips around all the fruit trees & bushes...


They make the garden look vaguely tidy! :)

I spotted this little one when doing my daily slug slaughter -- is it a lizard???

We've got two plum trees on the property that pre-date us -- the summer we first saw the house (2004) they had plums on but there have never been any since -- until now!

And the rhubarb is establishing itself well:

Also -- in exciting news -- I sent Cyndy some of the wool from the ram lamb some time ago and she has spun it now so if you want to see what Balwen yarn looks like...

Ffrwythau

Things are sort of growing -- but the weather is just so miserable that it's hard to feel like summer... These tomatoes need some sun to ripen.

The basil is coming along nicely and tastes summery.

We do have fruit, but again, I would be so much happier if we had the weather to go along with it.

These made a lovely gooseberry crumble -- I meant to photograph the finished crumble as well, but it got eaten before I remembered!

The birds are winning the war to eat the raspberries... :(

But we have now netted one of the strawberry beds, so we won't be sharing those!

Mae'r hwrdd wedi mynd

Right, well, today last year's ram lamb went off to be slaughtered. He will be in the freezer by the end of the week...

In the trailer:

This is this year's first ram, who we are hoping to register on 2 August at the Balwen Inspection Day:

The whole flock together:


I finally managed to get a close up shot of lamb number 5 -- look at those markings! Adorable, but not at all what he should look like...

And this is the hillside opposite us, where they have been harvesting the wood:

Mae hi'n bwrw glaw...

It has been raining miserably all day. I am wet and the chickens are wet, but the ducks don't seem to mind!

It's June, but it feels like October, so I am making Mrs Beeton's boiled breast of mutton for dinner...

Y gwynt

It's been very windy here -- so windy that we lost the top of this tree yesterday...

Mae'n flin 'da fi...

Sorry -- I have had the camera back since last Friday -- nearly a whole week -- and I haven't posted any pictures yet! What can I say -- my only excuse is that I have been too busy taking photos to post them...

The first big event was that we sheared the sheep:



Afterwards Greg realised that he should have made a film of me doing it, but you will have to wait until next year for that now!

Before and after: What a difference a fleece makes!

Now I just need to find the time to learn how to spin and then I can make all this lovely stuff into yarn and knit myself a jumper!

The sheep are very happy now that they have been shorn and aren't so hot any more.


Here are all the lambs (plus last year's ram lamb and one of the ewes):

This lamb, lamb number one, I have high hopes for. Check out his adorable little horns!

And the photo you've all been waiting for: Lamb number 5! Look at how much white he has!

We killed two chickens the other day, one of ours and one belonging to our neighbour, and they were both hens in lay, so I got the unborn eggs:

My mother tells me that when she was a little girl her mother would cook the unborn eggs for her and she considered them to be a great delicacy -- but all she can remember about how Grandma cooked them was that she thinks she just put them in the pot with the chicken. So I did that, and I got this:

I put them in a salad and they were quite nice -- like hard boiled eggs cooked in chicken stock instead of water -- but I am surprised that my mother has such fond memories of them so many years later. Perhaps I am doing something wrong? Has anybody else cooked unborn eggs?

The strawberries in the greenhouse are coming along nicely and we are getting frequent if small harvests. The outdoor strawberry plants are covered in strawberries, but they are all still green!

We recently bought a rotary dryer -- for ages I'd been saying I wanted to line dry clothes but had nowhere to string a line -- and then I spotted this in the store -- so now you have no excuse! All you need is something like 3 square yards of space and you can dry your clothes outdoors and save electricity and money...

Somebody's found the warmest spot in the place to lie in!

And last but not least I leave you with this slightly gory image -- I didn't plan this, I was just taking the bits of chicken out of the pot and my tongs grabbed the feet and they startled me!