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!

Lluniau o Bridget

When Bridget was here the other day teaching me all I ever wanted to know about electric fencing, she took a couple of pictures that she's just sent over to me, so I am putting them up here to give you a bit of an interlude from the picture lull -- although I did speak to the camera shop this morning and they have promised my camera will be ready by Friday, so fingers crossed!

Firstly we have the sheep -- you will notice there are only 10 of them in this picture -- it's before lamb number five was born -- so you'll have to wait a bit longer to see a picture of him...

And this is the pond where the ducks are now living (but sadly no duckies in this photo...)

So fy ngheiliog yn cysgu!

The past couple nights I have not been sleeping well and consequently was awake in the early hours of the morning and can report that the cockerel crows precisely at 2:45 in the morning. Doesn't he want any sleep???

In other news, I need to ring the camera shop this morning and find out what is going on already, but hopefully the camera will be back in my hands tomorrow as I have loads of things to photograph and share! Sorry for the delay...

Dim cywion...

As of day 27, the broody hen had eaten one of the eggs and pushed the other three out of the nest, so last night we finally opened them up and one of them was just an egg, but the other two did have the beginnings of chicks in them -- why she decided she didn't want to hatch them in the end I've no idea... Hopefully we will get another broody hen soon and give it another go.

Mae wyna wedi gorffen!

We have just had our fifth lamb about an hour ago, so that's it, all done, no more lambs to come! Nearly 10 weeks lambing for just five little lambs! :) Five painless births with no assistance from me and no deaths... Couldn't ask for anything more...

Anifeiliaid

Dai and Del love their new home on the pond! They were so ecstatic Sunday morning when we let them out and they were straight into the water. Unfortunately we are now unable to lock them up at night as they won't come out of the pond when we want them to, but hopefully they will be safe behind the electric fence.

New Girl is still sitting on four eggs -- perhaps there will be chicks tomorrow morning? Fingers crossed!

Am starting to get annoyed about not having the camera back yet -- will give the shop a call shortly and find out what is going on...

Wyn

So Bridget was up here yesterday helping me set up the electric fence for Dai & Del (more about this later) and she said that she thought that my one remaining ewe who hasn't had a lamb yet will have a lamb -- and today when I was feeding the sheep I saw her udder, so I agree that there will probably be a fifth lamb! Yikes!

Hopefully the camera will be fixed next week as there is lots to take pictures of...

Oen Pedwerydd!

So I am walking up the field this morning counting the sheep as I go, and if they're lying down, it's hard to see them until you're right on top of them because they hide behind the tall reeds, so as I get closer, they stand up -- and suddenly I realise I've counted 10 sheep. So I recount, and what do you know, there are now four lambs! Of course, the daddy of this one is also last year's ram lamb, so it (haven't checked its gender yet) will be for the freezer, but both mother and lamb seem to be well. The lamb is small but running about vigorously already!

For a few weeks now people have been asking if I think either of the two remaining ewes were with lamb and I said that I thought they weren't but I have now been proved wrong! I am not making any predictions about the last ewe, so don't even ask!

Lluniau!

Right, we had the camera back for a few days, so I took lots of pictures of what's been happening... Firstly, the shed -- we've put the roof up, so it looks quite like a little house now!

Lots of things are growing -- the strawberries in the greenhouse are ripening and I've got enough for a bowlful every few days.

The tomatoes are starting to flower:

The blackcurrants are fruiting:

As are the gooseberries:

We have planted out our runner beans:

And here are the ducks, back in their little run where I know they are safe at night... We are currently clearing an area up by the pond where we can put up an electric fence so they will be safe and have access to fresh water at all times -- but until that is ready, I don't want to risk them going walkies again!

NEWYDDION

Panic over -- ducks are fine. They bedded down for the night under an old black currant bush and they have now been caught and put back in their enclosure until we can build them a more secure run...

Ble mae hwyad wedi mynd???

Dai & Del have vanished... :( I came back late from my shearing course last night to find that they had got out of their run and found the stream. I tried to get them out of the stream but my efforts only resulted in their going right under a tangled mass of growth where I couldn't reach them. This morning when I went out, they weren't where I last saw them, and I can't find them anywhere else either... There aren't any signs of a struggle or anything, but I have no idea where they are...

Cywion

Right, well, the last hen that we thought was broody turned out not to be, so after she ate three of her eggs we put her back in with the rest of the flock. We are now trying again with New Girl -- I put 7 eggs under her this morning so we will see what happens...

Ble mae wyau wedi mynd???

We have three pot eggs that we keep in the nest boxes to remind the hens where they should be laying. This morning when I let the hens out, all three pot eggs were in the nest boxes as usual. At about midday, Greg checked for eggs, and two of the pot eggs were gone. We have completely cleaned out the hen house in case the pot eggs somehow got buried under the bedding but they are just gone. Does anybody know of an animal that would steal them? We are completely baffled...

Pethau...

The strawberries in the greenhouse are starting to ripen -- yum!

The little lamb born Sunday is doing well, and it is (or was before I took this photo) a boy. As he's not registrable (out of an unregistered ewe and an unregistered ram) we will not be breeding from him, and we would like to avoid the situation we had last year where a ram lamb destined for the freezer started making babies!

He is still fairly small -- see Shiva for comparison -- but he is much more energetic now, and he didn't faint when I ringed him...

Cuteness! (Yes, it's raining...)

In other news, Dai and Del have now been moved to a larger enclosure and they seem to be enjoying it...

I know I have lots of plant ID questions, but can anybody ID this little bird for me?

Unfortunately, the digital camera has been playing up, so I am sending it off today to be repaired. Will try to update the blog with text, but you will have to wait a while for more photos I'm afraid...

Oen Trydydd!

Sunday morning, the ewe lamb had a lamb. She was still suckling her mommy when she first came here, and now she is a mommy herself! The lamb was quite small and wet and poorly in the beginning, but now, two days later, it is a healthy little bouncing thing. I don't know what sex it is yet, but as the ewe lamb herself is not registered, this little one is destined for the freezer.

And in other baby news, we've put this hen on some eggs, so hopefully she'll hatch them for us and then we can see how this new cockerel's fertility compares to Big Boy...

Diwrnod prysur iawn...

Unfortunately Big Boy wasn't making enough progress recovering, so in the end we decided that the best thing to do was to put him out of his misery. His wound had almost completely healed, but he never really got the hang of walking again properly. Thanks to everybody who kept asking after him...

We caught the lamb today, and I am pleased to report that it is a girl, and that we think that she might be registrable as well! Isn't she adorable?!

I know I wrote about this a long time ago, but Jimmy recently emailed to tell me that his girlfriend was inspired by my rubbish, so I thought I would say something about it again in case I have new readers who weren't here the first time. Last Tuesday (rubbish day) I was ill and Greg forgot that it was rubbish day as did I, so nobody put the rubbish out. What you see here in this photo is two weeks rubbish -- AND Greg has been home for nearly two weeks now as well, so this is two people's rubbish for two weeks! If it weren't for the fact that I put things in there that smell, I could easily fit a month's rubbish in a single bag... Bring on the fees!

AND, last year's ram lamb has started "shedding" -- so I sheared him today (with a little help from my friend!)

After: Doesn't he look like a goat?!

Wyn...

Tried to photograph the little one last night but I think this mother is even more protective than the last one was! In this first photo you see, left to right, the first mother, the first lamb, and then, together, the new mother and her lamb. I was trying to show the size difference between the lambs -- the first one being 4 1/2 weeks old now...

Here's the new mother and her baby on their own. No idea as to its gender yet, but we are going to have a go at catching it later, so will keep you posted...

The lamb got to spend it's first night under a nearly full moon...

Just realised as I looked at the clock while writing this -- the little thing is not even 24 hours old yet! :)