Hwyad Eto

Sorry, was distracted momentarily by the lamb, but I did remember that I promised a duck movie the other day, so here it is:



And the latest lamb update is that it is doing well. I had a bit of a scare this morning when I went up to check though because I had to get quite close before I could see the lamb -- the ewe has made a little nest for it to protect it from the wind and cold -- we had ANOTHER frost last night...

Oen Bach

At the end of the first day, the little lamb seems to be doing well! It is so small -- look at that little black smudge next to the ewe!

MAE OEN GYDA NI!!!!!

We have our first lamb at long last!!! According to Bridget who (unsuccessfully) tried to calm me down a bit over the phone, the lamb was probably born within the last hour -- which means in the middle of a hailstorm, because that's what the weather was doing an hour ago -- but it seems well. It is up on it's feet and trying to feed! Yay! More news and better photos later... It is SO small -- like the size of one of the little black kittens...

Hwyad!!!

Bridget and her husband Jon and her brother Nick and his girlfriend Christine gave us the most wonderful present yesterday -- duckies! They are a boy and a girl, and we have named them Dai and Del Duck... :) Thank you thank you thank you! I was going to make a movie of them but then the batteries in the camera died so they are in the re-charger now and I will film the cute little ones tomorrow...

In other news, things are continuing to grow. Remember when I potted two cuttings from the rose that was growing over the shed? Well, it turns out that one of them is really a bramble! Doh! I must be the only person in Wales growing a bramble in a pot in the greenhouse...

The actual rose, on the other hand, is continuing to flourish. I find it really incredible that we have got all this lush green growth off this gnarled old stem...

These are some cabbage seedlings:

This is the rhubarb which is doing incredibly well:

But still no lambs yet. Everybody else has some -- where are ours???!

Dwy Flynedd

Today is two years to the day since we traded this:

For this:

I am immensely happy that we came here, and I would like to thank all the wonderful people we have met in Wales who have welcomed us and taught us things and became our friends.

Newyddion Sied

Starting to look like a shed now! Sorry about the "atmospherics" -- it was very foggy this morning!

Gwanwyn

I think that spring is finally here now! Things are starting to happen... The shed is coming along slowly:

The sheep are well -- hopefully we will start seeing some lambs next week!


The pond is full of mating frogs, frog spawn, and baby tadpoles -- so cute!


Flowers are starting to bloom, so there is colour in the landscape again...

The lettuce are now ready to eat -- in fact, I have eaten some since I took this photo and it is so nice to have fresh greens again -- I am really sick of parsnips! :)

The rhubarb is coming along nicely:

The rose that I dug up from the old shed has put on a TON of new growth so I think I should have no problem getting it to grow over the new shed once we've finished building it.

Big Boy is improving nicely -- the other day I took him outside and let him stand in the sun for a while.

I have started transplanting the cauliflowers to the raised bed outside:

And the hens are now giving us an average of about chwe wy (six eggs) a day - yum!

Variegated Vinca

Further update to my previous post: Janet's brother confirms that it is a variegated form of Vinca, commonly known as periwinkle -- so there you have it! He also says it's very easy to grow -- my specimen is currently growing out of a stone wall! :)

Bernard Matthews

Interesting article from the The Independent about how factory farming may be a contributory factor to the growth of the H5N1 virus...

Cennin Pedr

It certainly doesn't feel like it, but we are starting to see signs of spring!

Newyddion

Thanks to everybody who keeps asking about Big Boy -- he is doing much better. I tried to take some pictures of him this morning, but he looks better than the pictures made him look, so I am not going to post them, and I will try to take pictures again tomorrow.

The shed is coming along nicely -- we have finished the foundations and now need to start building the frame. Shiva has inspected the work and she approves... :)

The new cockerel has settled in nicely and is having lots of fun with his harem:

As I've already posted a picture of Shiva, I should post one of K as well so she doesn't feel left out -- why does she insist on drinking from the weirdest places???

This lovely flower is growing out of the wall near the gate -- can anybody identify it for me?

UPDATE: Tony thinks it's a periwinkle, and I agree that the flower looks like one, but the foliage on mine is much more variegated than that in all the pictures of periwinkles I can find on the internet. Any thoughts anybody?

Do they have any way of communicating with each other???

Mae'r eira wedi mynd...

So after those lovely pictures I posted on Thursday morning, it warmed up a bit, and by Thursday afternoon, it was starting to look a bit pathetic -- until we woke up on Friday morning to find that it was snowing again! It snowed pretty much all day on Friday, so here is another load of unedited snow pictures:





I know everybody needs to learn to drive at some point, but this seems an odd vehicle to choose... :)

The next farm down the road from us started lambing about a month ago maybe, and there are little baby lambs running around in the snow! They were really funny to watch because the snow was so high they couldn't run properly so they just kept belly-flopping...


The garlic is now completely gone!

Right, this is a stack of 2x4s (or, as they say here, 4x2s), so if somebody is bored, you should be able to calculate from the size of the wood the amount of snow stacked on top of it and work out how many inches we had...

Or you could try to calculate the depth based on my shoe size (7)!


Inside the greenhouse was very eerie because of all the snow on the roof:

Towards the very end of the day, it finally stopped snowing and the sun came out:


And of course by Sunday it was nearly all gone...

This is what was left last night when I went to bed:

And now even that is gone and it is raining again... :(