Heatwave

OMG I cant believe how long it has been since I last posted, we have been swept away in a tide of lambs both live and dead, we have lost 2 ewes, one whoes lamb had died inside her and the other had a serious rectal and uterine prolapse, we had the vet back twice to repair her but in the end we had to admit defeat in the face of her continued suffering and have her put down.
We had a tiny lamb that we had bottle fed for a week and called Judy, we had to admit defeat with her also as she couldnt stand or see, all she could do was suck, it was very sad for me as well as the children who had taken turns feeding her before school.
Today is the first day for weeks that we have had no lambs born, we still have about 15-20 sheep to lamb but today, the hottest of the year so far has been very quiet. Hopefully normal service will be resumed tomorrow.
It has been 26 c here today and I cant remember the last time it rained, certainly we have had nothing for the last few weeks, some of the fields are looking a little parched and certainly Richard would be happy with some rain.
There is an old saying that goes,
Ash before Oak you'll get a soak, Oak before Ash you'll get a splash.
This refers to which of the two trees are in leaf first and how wet the summer will be, out oak trees are in full leaf whilst the ash is mostly still in bud, it would be nice to think we will get a better summer than last year.

My brother and his family have been visiting from Australia, which has been fantastic. They have been over here for 3 weeks and have spent a few days in Venice and Paris between visiting with us lot, they came up to the farm for a few days and we shoehorned an extra 5 people into our 4 bedroom house, its like boarding school in the bedrooms, dormitories and queues for the bathroom and the army catering corps in the kitchen, but we all enjoyed ourselves.
My bro is a civil engineer so farm life is a huge novelty to his children, they all had a go on the quad bike and sadly saw a poorly lamb die in front of the Rayburn, if willpower could have saved it "Bob" would have lived for ever.

I promise to download the camera tomorrow and put up some pics, not the ones I found today of my kids mooning !!!!!!!! Those I will save for their 18th birthdays.

Election Day

Well I have voted but I wont be staying up tonight to see if we have a new government, tomorrow morning will be soon enough for me.

I delivered my first lamb last night, we thought it was dead as it was another one stuck at the neck, but it had to come out anyway. My hands are much smaller than Richards so I got the job, one of the lambs front legs was folded up stopping it from being pushed out but after we got that leg straightened out I was able to gently pull the lamb out. When it fell out it coughed and spluttered and we hung it upside down to make sure its airways were clear then gave it to a very anxious mum who took over. An hour later it was up and nursing.

Anyone who has been through labour will remember that feeling of your body trying to turn itself inside out, I had huge sympathy for the ewe and her struggles and its only the knowledge that she would have died if we did nothing that made me do it. I'm so glad she got a live baby at the end.

No pics as I was too busy....... not to mention not very clean!

Its Amazing

Sad little lamb in the kitchen slept most of the afternoon, she had a couple of feeds, the second from a bottle, then woke up at about 6pm, she leapt to her feet, jumped out of the box and went looking for a mummy.

It was hard to believe that this was the sad critter that lay in the box, frankly she was a nuisance while I was making supper. We decided that we would try putting her back with her mum and brother in the field and as you can see all is well, in fact its hard to tell which is which, she is the darker of the two and nearer the ewe.

We have had another 3 lambs today, all well and this one looks like he was born last week, instead of only a couple of hours ago.

Life and Death

My mother in law says "where you've livestock you've deadstock" and it is certainly true. We had a lamb born yesterday that was very small and despite our best efforts to warm it up it died in the kitchen in front of the rayburn, tears were shed over it.

Today we have another casualty, a twin who got stuck at the neck, her little head is all swollen and she is not managing to nurse, her mum is much more interested in the other twin who is doing fine, so we have brought the poorly one in, tubed it with some lamb milk and it's in a cardboard box beside the rayburn.

We have done all we can for now, its wait and see time, but I do feel that I should do more and I will be very sad if this one dies as well.

Little Lambs

Yay we have lambs, the first was born about 9pm last night, and two more today.

So far mums and babes seem to be doing fine. We have made notices for the kissing gates warning users of the public footpath that these are lambing sheep and asking that they keep dogs on leads. So far so good.

Its not all good though as we had dead twins yesterday, not a good start but out of our control.

The children have been out to touch the lambs, and were surprised to find they are not as soft as they look, maybe their wool needs to grow a bit.

We did get a disturbed night as the flock woke us at 2am with lots of baa-ing, we couldnt see anything and it might have been a fox or badger, hopefully they wont do it every night. Richard thinks it may have something to do with the fact that there are no mature/experienced sheep in our flock, they are all just over a year old, we are all learning together!

Silence of the Jams

We get through quite a lot of jam and marmalade here in the trenches and when I have the fruit available I like to make my own. I'm not sure that it works out cheaper than shop bought but I do know what has gone into it.

We had a marmalade crisis at the weekend, as in we ran out, and R has had to have honey on his toast instead, so that was top of the list. I buy the seville oranges in january, the only time they are available, and pop them in the freezer. My recipe works from frozen fruit which saves me from spending a whole week making marmalade in one go. The only bit I dont like is chopping the peel, I have tried doing it in the food processor but its just not right so I'll stick with the big knife.

Since I had to dig in the freezer I also got out some Damsons to make jam. These came from our own tree and we had a really good crop last autumn. Again I freeze them raw in bags then use as I need for crumbles jam or simply stewed. Damsons are easy to make jam with as they have loads of pectin and reach setting point quickly. The only fiddly bit is getting the stones out, the recipes usually tell you that the stones float to the surface and you can skim them off........ not mine they dont, I usually cook the fruit till they are all fallen to pieces then cool it and using a fork and my fingers fish out most of the stones. There are always a few remaining but that just proves its made from real fruit.

End result 11lbs of Seville Orange Marmalade and 14 lbs of Damson Jam. the store cupboard is looking full again.

Beautiful Feet

Our cows are hard working ladies and given that they are not exactly size zero, their feet suffer, they get overgrown and the hooves curl up at the front like arabian slippers.

Cows have cloven hooves like sheep and goats, and sometimes they get infections between the two digits.

Both these things cause pain and a sore cow is not a happy cow, she just wants to sit down and not visit the manger and eat, no eating and drinking means no milk then we also become sad.

Richard sorts out foot problems as we go, but once a year we get the Foot trimmer to come and go through all those in the herd that need a bit of tidying up. Its very impressive, he has a specialised trimming crush which is the size of a cattle trailer, it holds the cow securely so she cant damage herself or the operator. It has motorised winches to lift each of the cows feet in turn and hold them while he trims the hoof with a knife then finishes with an angle grinder, think emery board for cows. They don't get nail varnish but if they have an interdigital infection they get purple foot spray!

After a few cows it looks like it has snowed with all the trimmings scattered around. Afterwards the cows mince about as if wearing the wrong size shoes, but by the next day they are walking much better.

Spring has been very late here, and even now we don't have much grass as the soil is still too cold. However the cows are out, and very happy to have grass to eat and sun on their backs.

The hedges are just coming into leaf and the Damson trees have blossom, the apples and plums have swelling buds but no more and since we are still getting night frosts I hope they hold off a bit longer.

The daffs were all very late but they we had a fantastic display as they all seemed to come at once, I have been driving past these on the village green while doing the school run for a couple of weeks and only yesterday stopped to take a picture, they are past their best but still lovely.

We are working up to bringing the sheep home to lamb next week, the field is now sheep proof, I have to make some notices warning dog walkers to be extra careful as there is a public footpath across the field.

The children are filled with excitement and if they don't get an orphan or rejected lamb to look after I think they plan to kidnap one.

Richard and I are worried as it's all new to us. ETA is the 8th may but probably from the 1st onwards........