Team Westyard

It has been a great start to the month.  A few gloriously wintery sunny days and the soup pot became redundant. Instead we opted for a tasty salad with some very local ingredients and the lowest food miles I can achieve.  One of our hens is laying enormous eggs, and after last weeks lunch we found out why.  Two words:- Ouch, and Thank You.  It must be good luck to have a double yolker like that!

Lower East:- before

After the excitement of the hedgeman last week, it was almost matched a few days later by the arrival of another enormous beast of a tractor with a mulching topper attached.  

When we bought the property one of our most productive fields was in a dreadful state.  The brambles and nettles were nearly over my head and it was almost impenetrable on foot.  The field lies to the east of the property and is divided across the centre.  The top half (Upper East) is fine and that is where our ponies currently graze.  They have a small strip fenced off that will move according to their nibble rate.  Lower East is where the problem is.  

After much discussion and beard rubbing, the suggestion was to 'top it' as low as possible.  The tractor man arrived and spent the good part of a day trundling up and down slowly, cutting and mulching as he went.  The results are absolutely staggering. 

Lower East - after cutting

The worry is, what will nature do?  I am learning fast that grass is not just grass.  Sounds simple, but to achieve a good grazing meadow takes quite a lot of management, effort and cost.  We may have to plough in the spring and roll, seed and other technical things.  

Lower East:- after 

What we have avoided so far is spraying with chemicals.  While we are not wholly subscribed to an organic lifestyle, I do try to avoid chemicals on the land where possible.  So far, so good.  Time will tell.  Nature will prevail and we await her results in the spring.

Rescue arrived for me at the beginning of the week in the form of my parents.  I had asked them to come down to help.  I was feeling under pressure to manage the show single-handedly with the departure of the Ologist back to deepest West Africa for another month.  With the addition of another family member to the household (my father in law has now joined us permanently), my workload increased quite dramatically.  Not to mention the emotional demands.  It is interesting; the needs of a 5 year old and an 85 year old are quite similar.  The emotional requirements, catering and household admin all fall to me.  Its only one extra person but it threw the balance of our daily routine into a spin.  This is a situation we knew was coming, and have willingly and actively planned for, but it happened before we were expecting it to.  I felt like I was permanently running just to keep up.  Not a position I enjoy.  

The farmhouse has an annexe intended as a Grandad flat.  However, as fast as we are moving with the local council to get all the red tape and hoops jumped it wasn't fast enough. Trying to get a builder in this close to Christmas is near on impossible as everyone in the county wants their bits and pieces finished off in readiness for visitors at Yuletide.   So for now the F-in-L lives with us in the farmhouse; we have enough space - its just a bit primitive on the bathroom front.  Our builder has come up trumps and managed to present us with his right hand man and a plumber so we have a nice walk-in shower being fitted right now in the family bathroom - the other two showers are over bath dribble pipes and almost useless.  At least by the end of the week Grandad will no longer be forced to have a bath, something he hasn't done for about 50 years, favouring instead a quick shower.

Anyhow, back to my rescuers.  My mother has taken over the catering, a most welcome move.  We have delicious hot suppers every night and the same amount again for the freezer.  My father has been helping me split wood - our big achievement this week was starting the tractor - having been given exact instructions over skype one night from the Ologist.  We managed to get the log splitter working (it is a tractor attachment, therefore to make it work we need the tractor running) and have been making trailer loads of wood for stacking in the barn.  There are a million other things they are doing to help.  Its what family is all about really.  Having lived away from our families for over 10 years it is so nice now to be so close.  And great for me they are so willing and able to help.  I feel blessed and grateful (thanks J&R) and have taken off my running shoes.  Phew.

December the 5th was an exciting day; the rams arrived.  We now have two rams in with the ewes.  They will do their best for the next few weeks.  My lovely old ridgeback has really impressed me.  I have been taking her into the fields with the sheep to train her not to chase them.  So far she has shown little interest, at least not to chase them...the sheep droppings are another story but I won't labour on that one!  So here's the thing, these dogs were bred to coral lions so that the hunters could shoot them at close range.  They are brave and fearless and protective of family to the death.  In the space of a few weeks she is now helping me herd the sheep from one pasture to the other, listening to me make noises I used to hear on a programme when I was child....One Man and his Dog, anyone remember?  Well that's me now.  'Geddown.....whoaaaa.....HUP, HUP, HUP.....'  It is mildly hysterical as she has no idea what I'm saying.  I have no idea what I'm saying.  But the desired result is achieved with minimal effort.  We brought her back with us from Cape Town, at great expense...but she was part of our family and we couldn't bear the idea of parting with her (there was no quarantine thankfully).  It was worth every cent - just to stand back and watch my laid-back, sun worshipping, beach loving African dog herd sheep in the Devon countryside.  Go Girl!