Banc Olive

Tuesday night I stayed up at Banc Olive and looked after Bridget's animals -- it was a lovely night, one night after the new moon.

Recognise these?

Thomas the calf, less than 24 hours old:

And, of course, Jessica engaging in her favourite activity -- bottle-feeding little April!

Bara Saffrwm

Angela brought me back this beautiful (and delicious) saffron loaf from Cornwall -- it reminded me a bit of a sweet Rosh Hashanah challah, but according to Jane Grigson's recipie, it doesn't contain eggs -- all that lovely colour just comes from the saffron!

Speaking of food, I just finished reading a really scary book called The Death of Grass by John Christopher. I originally caught part of this a couple of months ago when it was dramatised for Radio 4, and I would highly reccomend it. It was written in 1956, and either John Christopher just has a vivid imagination or else he's psychic -- it's uncannily relevant right now.

Penblwydd Hapus i Fi

Yes, last Sunday was my birthday, and I am now a staggering 37 years old...

Spotted this lovely rainbow on the way to the Cawdor for a lovely meal with T who also gave me the most beautiful book in the world...

Also got from Angela & David the most clever bowl in the world -- it has got a foot to help it keep steady when you are beating things! I will most definately be cooking with it tomorrow...

Clychau'r gog

The white bluebells are here again and I heard the cuckoo yesterday, so spring must be here.

In other exciting news, from this coming Friday (24/4) my homemade bread will be available for sale in Pinc, so if you're in Llandeilo on a Friday morning, check it out!

Newyddion -- Bron...

I know I keep saying exciting things are coming soon, and they are; you will just have to wait a little longer.

The above photo was taken seconds before the sun came up properly. I was getting ready to go to work and stepped outside and saw that. Nipped back in, grabbed the camera, took the photo. By the time I'd put the camera back inside and gone back out again, the sun was up properly and that lovely pink glow was gone -- that's a bit what my life feels like at the moment -- the sun will be up shortly -- but I am not going to say anything now and jinx things so you will just have to wait a bit longer.

The peacock has come to visit again today -- not quite sure why, but he does seem to like spending time over here at this time of year. It's a lovely day so I am now off out to hang my laundry on the line.

Amser

Something to reflect on as the clocks change:

"Imagine the Earth devoid of human life, inhabited only by plants and animals. Would it still have a past and a future? Could we still speak of time in any meaningful way? The question 'What time is it?' or 'What's the date today?' -- if anybody were there to ask it -- would be quite meaningless. The oak tree or the eagle would be bemused by such a question. 'What time?' they would ask. 'Well, of course, it's now. The time is now. What else is there?'"

-- from The Power of Now by Eckhard Tolle

The Age of Stupid

I went up to see this film in Aberystwyth last Friday night and I highly recommend it. It will make you think.

Gŵyl Dewi Sant

Happy St David's Day... Daffodils are not out yet -- I have seen some open in other places, but not here at Bwlchyrhyd -- but I have finally succeeded in seeing last Wednesday's new moon (I guess it's not really so new now, but...)

Bara

What are you doing tomorrow morning? Fancy buying some of my home-made bread? Come along to the Country Market in Llandovery this Friday and every Friday thereafter...

Glanhau

Have been doing some tidying up and getting rid of junk -- what a difference it makes!

Paun

What an auspicious day -- first a visitor I've not seen in a long time, and then tonight hopefully I will see the new moon...

Mwy eira!

Sorry folks, but for as long as this wonderful weather continues, this blog will continue to feature far too many gratuitous snow photographs!

This was Saturday morning and was a lovely bonus as I hadn't realised snow had been forecast overnight...

This was about lunchtime today -- no new accumulation today, but snow showers are so much nicer than rain showers -- and you can barely even see the top of the mountain -- lovely!

AND, there is MORE SNOW to come! Yippee!

Y Tywydd

Still rather wintry up here, although the lane is now largely cleared. However, and I don't have a photo of this I'm afraid as I was in the car and didn't have my camera with me, but I was driving home through Salem this evening and I actually saw daffodils by the side of the road, in full bloom -- shocking!

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.