Toes, Teeth and Teats.

Probably something all women of my age should attend to on a regular basis.  Toes, Teeth and Teats... 
Toes....having a pedicure means you are forced to sit down and put your feet up for at least 45 minutes, an hour if you are lucky, to let your nail varnish dry - a luxury rarely indulged in these days. Teeth - always important to look after your teeth.  Regular flossing and good mouth hygiene means less painful or expensive trips to the dentist. Teats - need I say more.  Regular checks for lumps and bumps is a preventative measure to avoid the dreaded.

But it's not women I refer to.  The Shepherd coined the phrase as it was used by his grandfather who taught him everything he knows to do with sheep.  

So, the three T's is what we've recently completed on our new flock of sheep.  Since they arrived at the farm we have been actively involved with them checking for all the things we need to check.  Sheep, I'm reliably informed by just about every sheep farmer I come across, have two ambitions in life.  One is to escape.  The other is to die.  I've experienced plenty of the former, and one of the latter....as our friendly Yorkshire farmer down the valley once told me, if you've got livestock you get dead stock.  

So we trimmed their hooves, checked their teeth and teats and declared them all in good shape.  Apart from one little lamb that is.  As we had them all contained we also took fresh samples to send off to the lab for faecal testing.  This is a great service and allows us to check for worms without just automatically worming.  We turned them back out to pasture, making a note to watch our little weak lamb.

A week later the lab results turned up very wormy sheep so we once again rounded them up and brought them in. Our local vet arrived with small bags of medicine for us to administer. Fortunately for us, we can order just the amount we need and therefore not have to buy commercial quantities of sheep drench that will go out of date before we've used it.

The vet assessed our flock, declared them fit for purpose and left. We then got busy catching them one by one, and administering the drench (sheep wormer.)  We had individual syringes so one by one, the Ologist measured the dose and the Shepherd and I took turns to open their mouths and deliver the meds orally.  They were then turned out to pasture but we all made a note to check on the little lamb who had lost condition.

We had called her the 'Unihorn' due to one of her horns being deformed. I know we shouldn't give them names, but it was more a way for us to identify the lambs when they first arrived rather than being too familiar. You can't get that close to see the numbers in their ear tags so at least we could see the wonky horn from a distance. Not having the experience yet to identify one from the other it was an easy trick to name them.   One other lamb we called 'Siouxsie Sioux' – she had a case of late summer fly-strike and we had to shear her back end, clear the maggots and spray her with antiseptic....it is bright purple so she looked shocking, eccentric and a bit punk. 

So, back to the Unihorn who lost condition rapidly, even after worming. A kindly neighbour came round with a bottle of antibiotics and a syringe with a needle – another 'first' to add to my list of new skills (giving an injection) – but alas it didn't work. We had her dispatched. This is the sad part of farming. She was barely six months old and would potentially have grown with our flock to have many seasons of lambing. But it was not to be.

Looking to the positive, we have a newcomer arriving in just over a week.  He is our first ram, a handsome Wiltshire Horn ram, complete with papers....and a name.  His current owners have nicknamed him 'Ed' - as in Ed would if he could.  Will post more on this once he has settled in.  I am hoping he won't intimidate our Huntaway puppy who is now nearly six months old and learning to interact with the flock.

All our planning permission has now been granted which is a great step forward towards the creation of our holiday business.  The Architect is busy with the Project Manager and the timber frame designers finalising the finer details prior to breaking ground.  It is looking likely that we'll tackle everything at once.  That is; the demolition of two existing agricultural barns and re-build of two new 'holiday' barns.  The groundworks that include a new driveway, installation of a bore hole, biomass boiler, PV panels....lots of trenches to carry ducting and cables.  We are planning to bury two telegraph poles and pipe the data underground instead.  We need a new roof on the farmhouse, and complete rewire and remodel upstairs to create two 'Bed & Breakfast' rooms.  The outside of the farmhouse will be re-rendered.  New windows and doors.  New kitchen.....the list is endless....and expensive. 


We are working with the Ologist's mantra....the six P's.  Perfect Planning Prevents P*ss Poor Performance.  Watch this space.  Updates will be posted when available.

What I haven't mentioned yet is our big muddy hole.  We cleared around our pond which lies to the west of the farmhouse and is sitting at the bottom of one of our meadows.  It has natural water feeds from land drains but like everything else here had been neglected for many, many years and as a result was choked with weed and willow.  In fact it was invisible. 

(RIGHT: an expedition last year to the pond - it was hidden in an impenetrable forest of willow, brambles and nettles.)

 

It took us four days with three men and two diggers to make one large hole.  It was an epic process and is now visited daily to check how the level is rising.  Never have we prayed harder for rain....but slowly and surely as the newly refurbished land drains start to do their magic and drain the boggy ground, it is filling up the pond inch by inch.  The jetty has been completed and we even have a small rowing boat. 

 

We have more than a lifetime of wood to burn in our woodburners.  Holiday makers, take note:  there will be a wheelbarrow outside your back door and you can find your way to the barn to help yourself to as much wood as you can burn during your stay here on the farm!