Full moons and frisky wrens

True to form, there was a rush on over the past day and night - the full moon does something to the ewes, and the lambs come thick (!) and fast.  At one point we had six giving birth, not quite synchronised contracting, but as near as damn is to swearing.  This was also inevitable, given that Irene and Daisy left on Monday.  30 to go, and counting.

Over the next few days, we'll be walking sheep up to the higher fields ... with the normal high drama that ensues as ewes misplace lambs.  Poor Sonny gets so confused, beaten back by angry mothers.

On the home front, I was hanging out laundry and a wren alighted about a metre away.  He proceeded to sing to me for a couple of minutes, shake his groove thing to entice me, and finally flew off in disgust at not being able to arouse my ardour.  Who says life isn't surreal enough?

As requested, some photos from the past week or so. 

 Everyone loves the lambs!  Running out of space...

...it's time to let out the calves - who immediately enter the bovine olympics...

While Irene macs-up the wee ones (and Daisy cuddles a bruiser of a lamb...ouch on that birth!)...

...Ian does his best to get everyone out into the fields so that we have space for the next round....

...and everyone ends up happy in the sun, munching on grass...

...although some are just too tired to enjoy it...

This year we've been going great guns with wet and dry adoptions.  Ideally, all ewes will end up with two lambs, so one of a triple and any orphans (where mum has not enough milk) are adopted onto mothers who only have a single.  Dry adoption is a pain - the ewe goes into a neck brace to hold her in place for a few days, while the lambs can drink and end up stinking of her.  It mostly works, but some sheep are just ornery and refuse to take an interloper.  Wet adoptions are far more successful - but you have to be on hand as a single gives birth.  Covering her head so she can't see what is going on, as the lamb is born the poor adoptee (whose legs are temporarily tied together) is smothered in birthing gunk (technical term) and then shown first to the mother.  She's then stimulated inside to think she is giving birth again, and the 'real' lamb is presented. 

Tame lambs waiting for adoption.  "Pick me!"

We managed to get all of our spare lambs adopted this year, much to our relief...but not so fast young man...as Farmer Rob's tame lambs from the other farm need to come over.  

Daisy and the tame lambs take a trip!

Attention lads!  This is your new barracks and you will all do what I say!

Or maybe you'll ignore me and go to sleep.

Some may be more challenging to love than others...

Never a spare pen when you need one

Just in the nick of time, Irene and Daisy turn up to help with the flood of lambs. It appears to be a conspiracy this year to wait until we are just leaving for a meal or cup of tea before starting to give birth. Or to wait until no empty pens are available.  As fast as we can get them out into the fields, the next batch is ready for ringing and numbering.  

A full house.

Of course, while all this is going on, everyone needs feeding as usual and tame lambs need topping up with milk.  

Mmmm, cake.  Our favourite.

Sweetpea gets a drink (ok, I know I'm not allowed to name them, but phooey).

Despite breeding sheep, we appear to have started some sort of zoo or circus programme, with...  

...wallabies (ready for ringing!)...

...leopards...

...and some kind of rabbit.

To get in on the act, the dogs try out as clowns...

It can't come soon enough

I am sooooo pregnant!

And we're off ...

Ian M went to Cambridge for a week, so of course lambing started with a healthy triple. An email from Ann to Ian made its way to me, only to be met with a "bugger, not already!" Only two weeks to go until the real deal gets underway. 

Laine put on her old clothes and set her shoulder to the wheel to help with some final shearing and the day-to-day routine of clearing out and bedding up. However, she has to work harder on her sheep gravitas as they took scant notice of her pushing and pulling. Resorting to measured persuasion didn't work either. 

"I would like you to go in here, now, please." 

The cows are going back out into the fields during the day, while all of the sheep are inside and being fed morning and evening – udders are swelling, bellies are pendulous, but none of this stops the mad dash and scrum for cake and oats. Beware the fool who stands in their way – he'll be knocked down as they swarm past. 

Inevitably, there are feet to treat and the rare eye problem. Not content with just eating silage, the ewes push their heads right into the bales to get the best bits – and silage is slightly acidic, leading to milky eyes (sheep) and chapped hands (humans). Both are easy to cure. The occasional ewe has a prolapse, while the occasional farmer has to push it back in gently and attach a strap to hold everything in place for the duration. The relief is palpable as she is able to pee again – usually not waiting until we are out of the way. 

A couple of 'strapping' lads. 

Some oats end up in the yard after feeding, where lovely mixed flocks of chaffinch, yellowhammer, sparrow and greenfinch do their best as a clean-up party. The occasional pheasant is a B52 among spitfires. Back at home, a visitor to the garden keeps an eye out for tasty blue-tits on next door's feeder. 

Post-prandial rest.

Ultra sound ultra-sound

A moment of lamb-free peace and quiet has descended on the farm, although you'd be hard pressed to appreciate it given the howling gales and driving rain (which quickly disappears, to be replaced by blue sky, hail, drizzle, then snow in a seemingly never-ending cycle to ensure you are never dressed appropriately).  The remaining lambs from last year have gone off to the other farm for a final fattening-up before taking the express trailer to the abattoir at Launceston.  [Don't you just love that word – abattoir?  Direct from yer real French for "to knock down"…sounds so much nicer than slaughter house (apologies to the squeamish, but where did you think your chop came from?)] 

Today's main job was to have the ewes scanned to find out what lurks inside – and the good news is that we're doing better than last year:  67 singles, 220 doubles and 33 triples (with 13 no-shows who need to buck their ideas up for next year, otherwise it's mutton curry all round).  So 182% lambing – potentially a maximum of 606 running around by the end of the season (plus similar at the other farm).  Our Exmoors are doing ok, and my little black-face lamb from two years ago who had a completely black brother is having twins … my very own black-sheep-of-the-family breeding programme.

Mike who does the scanning whips through hundreds of sheep at an amazing pace – ewe goes into crush, scanner rubbed underneath, contents noted and sheep marked (blue = single, green = triple, orange = empty), sheep released – and repeat 333 times.  And it's a cold day in Hell when Mike makes a mistake (although to me it looks like something out of an Alien movie seen through fog).

On the home front, the greenhouse has decided that it prefers next-door's garden and is piece-by-piece moving itself across the hedge.

It's nice to be needed (mostly)

Time for that essential cup of tea in the morning.  Creeping downstairs, the dogs barely raise their heads to acknowledge my presence – they know the routine, two cups and then it's fair game to kick up a fuss once they can hear proper signs of movement from above.  The first chorus of needy animals – Cody shaking his head to tinkle his tag, with the occasional deep bark demanding attention; Joey's approach is to sit and whine, while Sonny paces up and down the bottom three stairs, yodelling what I am convinced is a medley from the Sound of Music that just needs a tad more practice; Fred remains supine – occasionally stretching with the same sound an old accordion would make if a fat man sat on it.

Bundled into the car, off we go.  Dogs walked (whatever the wretched weather), it's on to the next instalment of demands at the sheds.  Calves bellow for their morning cake, while cows bellow for the cake they don't get to have and because they have picked all of the nice bits out of the silage..."Quite frankly, I'm not going to eat all those stalky bits".  The bull sometimes joins in, just because.  Inside stock dealt with, onwards to the fields.

By this time of year, the sheep are pretty bored with the poor grass and mob the tractor when a bale of the wet and aromatic second cut silage is brought to the rack.  We have to fight our way through the throng to unwrap their breakfast, and I get the feeling that if they had shivs, someone would be knifed by now.  Usually placid and innocent they may be, but sheep can be single-minded and mean when they want.  There is one on top of the bale by the end, eating her way downwards while her flock-mates jostle each other below.

Some of the sheep even get cake – the small flock of ewes that need feeding up a bit because being a sheep is hard work, the rams (who now have nothing to do, not a jot, until September), and the remaining less-than-abattoir-weight lambs -  such a chorus of pathetic baaing and bleating rises up when the quad appears, followed by a scrum of animals that seem to have forgotten temporarily that they are supposed to be scared of people and dogs. 

Then back home to start 'office work' at 9am – and after the afternoon chores (which every three days involves moving a considerable amount of cow poop around), pretty much most of the above yet again.  Winter farming is hard work, but without any real feeling of progress.

Still, Saturday was a beautiful day so we played hooky after the grazers were all sated and took the dogs to Dunkery Beacon for a walk.  Amazing views across Devon in one direction and the Bristol Channel to Wales in the other.  Turns out that as the crow flies, Cardiff is almost up the road.

"Who is the handsomest of them all?"