Wildlife not always welcome

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:

Moving the girls towards higher ground.

Danaë perfects the fine art of standing in the way.

Ann and Danaë bring them up the final rise to Common Field.

Another group take their place on Raceground (to be lead up the hill next week).

These two were born on the same day.  Pity the mother of the black-faced one.

Sonny is camera shy.

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.

Blacktail Lodge lives up to its name

Vermin control took an unexpected turn in the sheds recently.  This year we've been reasonably (reasonably...) pest-free and we now know why.  Out from the straw pile ran a rat, with a stoat (blacktail) hot on its heels.  A squeak and a brief struggle later, off trots said stoat with dinner.  We've seen him (or her) several times since, including under the porch - and fingers crossed we have dancing kits on the patio later in the year.  Other visiting wildlife has included linnets and goldfinches, and a big water beetle that made its own way to our new pond (and scared the bejeesus out of me when I accidentally picked it up thinking it was a stone).

New pond with intrepid pond-maker

Lambing is progressing well, and now that Irene is here, all is ship-shape. 

Number 1 goes out into the fields

This is my ballywick!

Tame lambs waiting for a new mum

The night shift is usually Ann's domain, but we have all had a turn.

A good night goes as follows: get up at 03:00, go to the sheds and check everything is ok, top up a couple of needy lambs with milk, and come back at 03:30.

A less good night?  Get up at 03:00, go to the sheds and check everything is ok.  Find two newly born doubles mixed up in the top shed - two ewes, four lambs and no idea which goes with which.  Try various combinations until everyone stops bleating. No spare pens, so cobble together two more out of the dregs left.  Find two doubles in the middle shed, with an extra lamb.  None are triples, so search for an additional mother while the sheep keep walking around and around the feeder to get away from you.  Find another lamb under the silage, and finally mother starts bleating.  No free pens.  Put one set in with the straw, evict an older family and install a new one, and set up a makeshift pen by the alley.  Meanwhile another ewe starts lambing.  Deal with her, evict another family, and install.  Check the lean-to shed - all is quiet, but everyone needs water.  Drive the quad over to Cleave Shed to find another two doubles.  Chase everyone for five minutes to catch and pen.  Copper sulphate the navels (to avoid infection) and remember that everyone back at the main sheds needs copper sulphating...go back and do it.  Meanwhile, another double lambs.  Evict, install.  Feed five lambs colostrum and give some milk to the tame lambs.  Fill more water buckets.  Dust oneself off, and head home...only to hear the pained straining of a ewe-lamb in the lean-to.  Investigate, help birth, get kicked in the balls as she struggles to get away and then runs off, evict another happy family and put lamb in pen.  Chase ewe-lamb around the sheds and rugby-tackle to the ground.  Heave her into the spare pen, and both of you sit there panting.  Get her water and silage.  Dust oneself off again, and head home - to find it is 05:30 and time to get up.

Release the beasts

Sometimes the animals round here take liberties.  Gerald (the partridge) has decided that our porch is by far the best place in the world to take a dust bath, and no ungainly human wandering about nearby is going to scare him off;  Philip (the pheasant) engages in battle with his mortal foes outside our living room, with much a-squawking; and Cody (the very bad and in disgrace husky) thinks nothing of nicking a pork joint off the dining room table (and would have got away with it if I hadn't heard the tiniest of chinks of collar tag on plate).

Other critters are better behaved, and Matt's sheep across the valley sent us a message of love (if you look hard enough, squinting, out of the corner of your eye)...

We've had a run of nice days, with a cold easterly, which has dried up the ground.  So today was the day the cattle were let out of the sheds.

Sonny and the new ewe-lamb mules and black-faces look on expectantly...

And here they come...

The calves have a wonderful time chasing Philip around the field (who must have forgotten that he can fly)...

And of course, Sonny does the good neighbour thing and makes friends over the garden fence...

Meanwhile, old Big Balls has a good scratch on the first available post.  There will definitely "be words" if he ends up in the garden.

Currently holding our breaths until lambing beginning in earnest...although some are probably more excited than others...

First lamb of the year

In anticipation of lamb chops, roast joint and a nice piece of liver (with Chianti and fava beans, of course), Farmer Rob and Ian had their eye on a two-year old blind wether (castrated male) who had been happily munching his way round the other farm for a year longer than his compatriots.  Butcher Olly was booked, and the freezers were ready.  Just before the day of reckoning, said wether had a lamb - a great strategy to avoid a mint-saucy destiny!  This can mean only one of three things: a miracle of Biblical proportions; someone didn't check the undercarriage and assumed she was a he; or a bit of ovine gender-realignment surgery took place at some point unbeknownst to us.  I shall pass no judgement.  (Incidentally, had to look up fava bean to see what it was...boringly, just a broad bean.)

Lambing has not yet started here, but the sheds are heaving with swelling bellies.  The singles and late-lambers are still out in the open air, but are now being fed cake daily.  Shy and retiring ewes suddenly become emboldened...and a walk across the fields can turn into a veritable procession.

Spring is here, and the daffs are up.  We are now woken at day-break by Philip the Pheasant squawking and rattling his feathers as he has made our garden his territory (good move - plenty of grub).  Gerald the Partridge sometimes joins in, and then the yellowhammers, sparrows and such.  Not long after, the cattle belly-ache for cake, and the ewes join in - there are a few minor downsides to living right next to the sheds.

And finally, the carpenter is gone (Bye Scott - thanks!)  The last bit of cladding was attached, the windows framed, and our ramp installed (a building regulations requirement, but we quite like it).  While the DIY is no way finished, it was a nice marker to pass.

Ann's diary makes a comeback

Last weekend we happily contributed our flock of yellowhammers to the RSPB's Big Garden Bird Watch, but unfortunately, the massive influx of starlings was just over the fence in the field so didn't count...

...neither did the ravens, buzzards, sparrowhawk, red deer or fox (yes, I know they are not birds...but BGBW records more than just our feathered friends). Spring is springing, and our bulbs are coming up, while along the roadside, Ann and Ian M's granddad Edwin's "Snowdrop Alley" is doing well...

On the farm, the sheep are now mostly in the sheds in preparation for lambing - time to relax, stay warm and dry, and eat good quality silage to produce healthy lambs.  Conversely, not time for us to relax.

While cleaning out the sheds, Ian let the cows and calves wander in the field - so much for "poor cattle kept inside" when all they did was hang around by the gate, and come charging back in one he was done to sit on their lovely fresh straw.  There is a lot of dung to move each week...

While we were away for the weekend, Ann took over the reins and looked after the dogs as well as the stock (brave).  An extract from her farming notes, with some decoding...

Saturday

All good today.  I had an alarm call from Cody at 4am, but I think it was on Sonny's behalf as he was out for quite some time!  Silage bales were needed in Race Ground and Gratton - I put the waste from the old bale in the shed for the cattle to pick over.  The lean-to and cubicles also had a bale this evening.  The sun had gone this afternoon, so it's not quite as pleasant. I've been picking up stones in 6 acres while the boys investigate...I could have done with Fred to help find some for me¹.  I saw a barn owl by the orchard on my way home - certainly worth putting up another owl box.  The partridges came for some shelter this afternoon when the sun disappeared.  I've enjoyed the last of the tarte tartin tonight, and a glass of white wine I found in the fridge...I hope it wasn't something special that you were saving!²

Sunday

A damp, but warm morning. The ground was really slippery on top.  Silage bales needed in Big Field, Edwin's and the Silage Pit today.  I had a really crap bale for the top shed, so there is quite a lot of rough stuff piled up after the cows had picked over it. The cubicles have had one tonight.  Hopefully I won't have quite as much to do tomorrow as I need to go swede napping!³  I heard an owl this morning towards Birch Wood as I was out with the boys.

Monday

A stunning morning today. I managed to get finished with the tractor when Geoffrey came to spread dung, and on my way round the sheep I came across David trimming the inside hedges.  Your "foreign" sheep⁴ has turned her toes up this morning, and I have left her for you.  Race Ground is all fine, but there is no water except puddles.  This afternoon I have bedded the sheep and they have had another bale of silage. I have opened the gate between 6 Acres and 8 Acres so that the ewe lambs can go back for silage. I haven't shut it again yet as I had the boys with me.  Sorry, didn't get round to cleaning out the cows.⁵

1 - dear old Fred used to carry stones around, leading to chipped teeth; no worse than Sonny, who cracked off his canine biting the quad tyres.

2 - nope, it wasn't.

3 - armed with swede net and woolly hat, Ann kidnaps swedes from our neighbours (with permission of course, although she does look pretty dodgy...)

4 - not ours - found wandering the roads with no markings and no ear-tags (tut tut), a sorry specimen if ever there was one.

5 - sensible woman.

As 2016 fades out...

No blogs since November?  Apologies...moving house, busy saving the turtle dove, and you know...just getting on with life!

So a quick update...we're finally moved in.  While home is not yet finished, we are settling down and making it our own.  Normal service can be resumed, and get this blog back onto farming.

It's dark up here on the hill, but that makes for good star-gazing.

The neighbours are curious...

Winter observations of note...the partridges don't like getting soaked and so seek shelter in our porch, huddled together looking bedraggled.  The other birds have found the feeders, and once we have some time (!) and money (!!), the mudpatch outside the front of the house will be transformed into a patio and herb garden...as much to stop people parking there as to provide culinary delights.

Meanwhile, farming goes on.  Ian M is getting into his swing now that he is on site all the time, and so far the cattle have not been noisy enough to keep us awake...even during weaning.  It's time to start bringing the ewes in closer, so we had a nice post-Christmas walk with friends to bring the Common sheep down to 13 Acres.  Slight overkill on the staffing front, but a good wander.

Jordan ignoring Rachel's Sound of Music medley, while Simon fails to reach his toes, Rob is playing on his mobile (as per), and Cathy wonders why she left the nice warm couch to spend the afternoon with madmen.

Cathy, Simon and Jordan lead the way - keeping the walk slow and steady (after all, these are pregnant ladies!)

Steaming sheep in the sunset.