The swallows are back swooping across 13 Acres, linnets and goldfinches pull apart the dandelion heads on the bank behind the house, and this morning a buzzard and raven were aerial fighting for something tasty as they careened past the window. We are always thinking of ways to encourage wildlife...but not all wildlife is welcome, as was evidenced by my foul language on finding out that mice had eaten all of the planted bean, corn and squash seeds in the greenhouse. It's bad enough having slugs chomp through tender seedlings. Pending finding the mousetraps, the most vulnerable edibles are balanced precariously on a wide tray hiked up on breeze-blocks. I am giving the rabbits in the garden the evil eye too, reminding them that their fluffy-bunny-ness will only go so far to stay the shotgun if sharing the vegetable patch rights are not balanced out with responsibilities. I have yet to decide on how tolerant I am going to be of the mole - he very well may find tea-tree soaked cotton wool balls dropped into his holes to encourage gently a move elsewhere.
More seriously, a rogue fox has been taking lambs here and
from our neighbour Matt. Mostly foxes
leave the stock alone, but occasionally one gets the taste for fresh lamb (who
can blame them) and can take one every day.
Matt dispatched a posse one evening, and Mr Todd will be bothering us no
further. While we like to see the occasional brush chasing across the fields,
there are limits.
Dropping off doubles in 7 Acres has become a ritual
challenge. A crazy pheasant (not Philip,
who is very well-behaved) has decided that the red quad bike is a rival and
chases it everywhere, looking pretty murderous with his spurs and indignant scarlet
face. He'll only relax when we've been
seen off down the road, and I am convinced we'll find him dead in the gateway
having testosterone-ily given himself a heart-attack.
My final unwelcome visitor was rather more home-grown. The white-faced Hereford cow out in 13 Acres
has decided that the grass is indeed greener on the other side of the fence and
has now broken into the garden twice (that we know of). The barbed wire is a mere distraction. Erecting a more sturdy fence has rushed up
the "round to it" list from low 20s to the top 5.
Some photos from the last week or so:
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| Moving the girls towards higher ground. |
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| Danaë perfects the fine art of standing in the way. |
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| Ann and Danaë bring them up the final rise to Common Field. |
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| Another group take their place on Raceground (to be lead up the hill next week). |
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| These two were born on the same day. Pity the mother of the black-faced one. |
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| Sonny is camera shy. |
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| Daisy picks out two tame lambs to start her own flock (thereby lies madness). |
Three random items:
While moving lambs the other day, they were making a hell of
a racket. Strangely, one didn't so much
as baa, but said the word baa
instead. Most odd.
Auntie Liz has coined a new word for us. ULI - Unidentified Lambing Injury. This is most helpful when talking about the
cuts, scrapes and miscellaneous bruises that you find on your body and have
absolutely no idea where they came from.
I rarely bruise, but had a stonker on my wrist with no recollection of
how and when. However, the aching Adam's
Apple was from being head-butted in the throat by a crazy ewe-lamb in the wee
hours.
Dad's telescope (borrowed for star-gazing and deer-gazing)
has proved to be a most useful remote sensing tool for lambing. Sheep up against the hedge on its own in the
Over The Road field? Simple...check it
out with the scope and head on out only if required.
