Diary

More lambs all over the place this week, we have taken quite a lot down to the hay meadow. They are transported one ewe and her lambs at a time in the quad trailer, a little ewe taxi. I love going down there on an evening to give the ewes their dinner. The lambs at that time of day are full of frolics, jumping about, climbing and racing up and down the field, burning off energy before bed time. It must be spring if the lambs are jumping.

 We are moving some of the ewes about at Stone Raise and have discovered some interlopers. There are two Swaledales lurking in the flock. I think they have joined for the good eats and the treacle. The trouble is someone will be missing them. We ring a few people who have rent-a-sheep in the area to find the owner. These are hill sheep that are brought down to the lowlands in the winter and graze on dairy farmer’s land who have their cattle in all winter.

Christmas was still a busy time on the farm. This year the boss is going to London so I’m looking after the animals. I get all the feeding done in record time so I can enjoy my Christmas lunch without worrying about having to get all muddy in the afternoon! It’s a good few days and I also get chance to go see my family back in Leeds (after a disastrous car failure we get there in the end). So what’s in store for us this New Year?

We are having a grand tidy up at Wallacefield in the barn. I know its traditionally spring when you do a clean but it needs it now. There is a pile of old-ish hay by the entrance and the bags of grain need putting to the edge in an orderly fashion. We tidy up mounds of baler twine, which gets everywhere, wood and random bits of metal. We disturb a rat (not good) and find a vole (he can stay!)

Some of our new shearlings have decided to escape and reclassify themselves. They have jumped out of the field with all the other ewes and the tups and have got into the field with the lambs and cull ewes. Come on girls, you wouldn’t want to be in that field if you knew what they were destined for. Are our boys that bad? Perhaps they need to do some more wooing.

We are creosoting all the gates at Wallacefield. There are quite a few wooden ones and it’s a nice messy job. Trouble is one of our tup’s, James likes to use the gate as a scratching post. Having carefully watched us paint it he then ambles over for a lead/scratch. We only notice later when we go past and there is a suspiciously striped Suffolk in the field. Silly boy.   

It’s the Houghton Village flower show this weekend so we had better enter some things. I’m not much of a flower person but photography is certainly my thing so I enter some pictures. I also take a big risk and enter some of my amateur jam, plum, orange and cinnamon. Susan decides to enter some apples, one of our ridiculous marrows, the marmalade and some redcurrant jelly. It’s a bit of a dead loss for me, I don’t win anything.

The quantity of rain this weekend combined with the imminent harvest means I’ve decided to move the pigs today. They have made a nice muddy mess so now its time to move them up in the shelterbelt to a new patch. This is why I got electric fencing, to make moving them easier. It’s still quite a strategic task. I have to keep them contained whilst setting up the new area adjacent to the current patch.

Whilst I was baling hay at the weekend the rest of the gang were weaning the lambs at Wallacefield. Today we are going to check through the ewes to see if they are all okay, if there are any mutton in the flock. It’s a sheep MOT, the three T’s; teeth, toes and teats. We need to make sure none have bad udders; they need to be able to feed their lambs.

We have got some hay but have another five fields to cut. This week Susan decides to go for it so we cut two at Wallace Field and two at Houghton. I even get a chance to have a go with the mower in the dark on the big Houghton field, it’s an impressive bit of machinery and the big Massey is somewhat smoother than the little old one which has a door missing and a fairly suspect seat (but I love it!) With four fields lying it is going to be a busy week.

I’m taking a big step this week; I’m getting some creatures of my own. The one product we don’t have at Hadrian Organics is pork and I’ve had my eye on pigs for a while. This week the plan goes into action. I’ve found a suitable area for them, I’ve done the sums and consulted our Soil Association inspector. I have requisitioned some electric fencing, posts and an energiser (thanks Susan and John respectively) and bought a battery from the scrap yard.

This morning I am given a reminder of why I love my job (as if I need one). Finally Helena has decided to have her calf, and thankfully I’m about to see it. She has picked her spot and is giving it a go. It actually takes quite a while and there is a lot of standing up and lying down and walking around in circles which goes on. Then there is feet peeking out. I have to resist the urge to go closer and have a look, this is not like lambing a ewe.

Its Open Farm Sunday this Sunday. The Croft has done every one since it started and a bit of rain isn’t going to stop us inviting people around the farm. We do quite well this year and there is only a little shower in the afternoon. We have all sorts of activities going on during the day including guided walks around the farm which take in Hazel and her new calf Kimberley and the stubborn Helena who hasn’t calved yet.

I’m doing the strimming in the small paddocks again. To really get rid of the rushes you need to keep on top of them by strimming them all through the summer whenever they pop up. Trouble is Peanut, our resident troublemaker pet lamb, is in the field too and thinks this looks like a great game. She proceeds to follow me abou the field as I attack the rushes, thankfully she has enough sense not to go nosing around the noisy end of the strimmer but I still worry.

The Goslings are crazy for goose grass. Not surprising given the name, it’s the weed with sticky buds on that caused so much hilarity when we were kids. If you go pick a bundle from the orchard (yes we have lots of weeds/random flowers/general undergrowth in our orchard, the chickens love it) and take it to them as a treat a feeding frenzy ensues. They love it, it’s like chocolate to them, and boy does it make them squeak in happiness.

There are reeds appearing in the big field at Houghton. There weren’t any last year but they seemed to have popped up from somewhere and need tackling. Thankfully for a change this isn’t a digging job but a strimming job. The Honda strimmer is big and unwieldy and has a very blunt blade, but the boss has got a new one so I’m optimistic that I can do a better job with it. So if fill it up with petrol, get geared up in my harness and ear defenders and head out to massacre the reeds.

We have nearly used all the silage at Wallacefield. Now I know the cattle love it but it’s a massive pain, we don’t have a tractor so we pull the bales apart by hand and fill the quad trailer with it, and then take it out to the cattle. We hadn’t intended to have any silage, we normally have small baled hay and some Hayledge, both of these have the advantage of being easy to handle and move about.

I’m at Willowford and one of the Dorset’s is having her lambs. I bring them into the shed as the weather is foul, hail and wind, not good lamb weather. The second of the lambs is looking a bit limp and lifeless, it’s moving about but without much enthusiasm. We milk mum and tube some colostrum into it in the hope of perking it up. It improves a little but seems too cold so Lauren decides we should implement a trick we learnt on our lambing course, the bucket.

We have started the week with more excitement at the Croft. The other week I had a phone call from Tim Perrett at the Soil Association. I met him at a seminar during the winter and he was telling me about a project based on the very popular lambing live which was on TV the last couple of years. There isn’t one planned this year so the Soil Association have planned to do an online version themselves.

Lambing is due to start this week at Houghton and sure enough, Monday night one of our girls is early. I’ve been sent to bring the sheep up to the field just by the house so that we can keep an eye on them easily; I’m doing this by jiggling a bucket of wheat. They all obligingly follow except one which I can see a small woolly blob orbiting. I call Susan and we find the Ewe has had her lambs and one is fine, buzzing about full of beans but one is lying down but is looking about.

Anne is about a week overdue. This morning its extremely windy and throwing it down, so of course this is when the calf is born. Im doing some cleaning of ice boxes for meat when one of the boys from the Gilford centre comes running up to tell me to come quick. I head to the little paddock and Susan has got Anne and the calf in the little shed. The calf cant be more than a couple of hours old and it looks a bit wobbly and obviously hasn’t suckled.

It never rains but pours. This morning when I was feeding the ewes at Houghton I noticed one hanging back on her own when the others came to get their wheat. This is never a good sign although she looked perfectly healthy. I went to investigate and discovered the reason she looked so dejected, she had lost her lamb. She is baaing pitifully at me as if to say, ‘come on sort this out human’, but there is nothing I can do. Its 5 weeks to lambing and its defiantly dead.

The boss is away and I’ve been left in charge. This is quite a daunting prospect as things tend to keel over as soon as she goes away. Today disaster is averted though when I spot Beechnut acting oddly at Wallace field. She is up near the fence and looks like she is eating the grass through it. I go past again and have a closer look about 20 minutes later and she is still there, that’s not right. I go over and sure enough she has got her horn stuck in the fence.

Wasi’s calf June is looking a bit on the skinny side. We have been watching her for a few days now and suspect that she is not getting milk. Its time to intervene, we get Wasi and June out to Tarraby and load them up to take to Wallace Field where hopefully we can feed her up a bit. What we need (and don’t have) is a calf creep, which is a feeder which will allow June in to get to the food, but that is too small for Wasi. We put our heads together and have a scrounge around for materials.

Im feeding the creatures at Houghton. Six bales are in the trailer and two dogs are eager to assist. It’s a fairly simple process although with all the gates it does involve a lot if jumping on and off the quad. The bales for the cattle are put out in the water meadows, they are happy to see me and I have to dodge their horns as they come charging over for breakfast. Best place to be is in the trailer. The ewes are waiting too and theirs goes in the two hecks that are in the field.

The second of my seminars was this weekend. First we visited Daylesford in Gloucestershire, a wonderfully large operation with a very fancy shop which I felt somewhat out of place in my muddy wellies. Later it was on to Abbey Home Farm where our seminars were to take place, those of us staying over were to sleep in the green room, with its lovely roaring fire, in a somewhat school-trip themed pile on the floor.

We are trying to take greatest advantage of the grass available to us at Wallacefield, this means moving people around quite a bit. We are taking four of the heifers to chestnut field, which is always something of a mission as they generally wont cross the stream down the bank so have to go by the road. It has to be a military planned operation and I am dispatched to just after the turn off to make sure they don’t head off toward Carlisle.

The boys and girls have got mixed up at Wallace Field. The boys wanted to hang out with the girls and have jumped the fence to be with them, they cant do any real harm, they lack some essentials but could possibly do some damage trying. So we have got the three boys separate from the girls and are moving them down to one of the bottom field near the river and moving the heifers into a field with a better boundary.

The cattle have got in a muddle at Wallacefield. Somebody left the gate open and the two young bullocks have got into the same field as the four cows and calves. Not a massive problem as the cows are all in calf and the calves are all quite young, but a muddle all the same. They say many hands make light work and this is proved today as the Open Doors group are here to help and take on the task of sorting them out.

The wheat is dry at Wallace field. We have had to treat it and leave it spread out in the barn as it was too wet when we cut it. The weather has not been very helpful in September. Now the moisture is down to 19% its okay to bag. Now bagging it by hand would be an enormous task but neighbour John who helps out on the machinery front has a plan. Scoop it all up with the tractor and put it in the big trailer then pour it into the bags from that.

The new ewes we got last week need vaccinating against Toxoplasmosis, which is a nasty parasitic protozoa which causes sheep to abort. The vaccine is live so has a shelf life and must be used within 2 hours of opening it, so we pick it up from the vets and head to Wallace field. I’m anticipating getting some practice of injecting sheep, having never done it before and being on a very ‘learn by doing’ farm.

We arranged an open afternoon at the croft for Organic September. Of course the weather was foul. Mike and Debbie from Eva’s bravely pitched their gazebo in horizontal rain in the orchard to show people around and give them tasters. I pitched the BBQ gazebo strategically behind the lambing shed, out of the way. A fair few brave souls ventured out and sampled our cream teas, burgers and of course apples.

I’ve been away camping for bank holiday weekend to Scotland. As I’m bringing my equipment back to the house and the chickens come rushing around the corner to greet me, or see if I have any food (more likely). If you have ever watched Jurassic park then the way a chicken runs will be horribly familiar to you. They truly are tiny Velociraptors. I’m just glad they aren’t bigger; I can’t get the image out of my head now.

Its time for the lambs to be weaned at Houghton and Aglionby, this means separating them and taking the lambs to clean pasture, which hasn’t had sheep on this year. Obviously this is a fairly stressful time, although the lambs seem to take it better than the ewes, who spend several days vocally complaining about the situation. The lambs have gone to Wallace field and are enjoying being all together in a lush new grass field.

On Monday we had the vet to see the cattle at Houghton. We need to find out how many of the cows are in calf and at least six of them should be. So we have separated them from Jeremiah the bull and into the pens. The vet has some rather extraordinary looking equipment, a small backpack with a wire and sensor and a pair of very futuristic looking glasses; the ultrasound.

It sounds like we may have otters on our stretch of river, which would be very exciting. Irene, who works in our B&B, told us that one of her children saw an otter with some young when she went down to the river with the school. Then a good friend of ours saw otter prints and then otter poo a little further upstream. So I went down with my camera the other morning to try and get a photograph. No luck with the otter, but the mist on the river was very beautiful. Will try again.

My first week has been a busy one; there is always a job to be done on the farm. One task that always needs attention is the control of pernicious weeds! Being Organic there is no weed killer here, so sickle in hand I found myself slicing any dock, thistle or nettle in my reach under a blazing hot sun at Wallace field. Its hard work, but satisfying when a big swathe is clear behind you.

Today we managed to get the ewes clipped. It was touch and go as the wet weather has caused a bit of a backlog with the shearers and we were quite lucky to get someone to come at short notice after the sunshine yesterday. Its a great relief for us and the sheep to get the fleeces off - they were getting itchy and uncomfortable and we were worried that a sudden improvement in the weather could cause a problem with flies infesting dirty old patches of wool.

Lambing is well and truly underway now. It's hard work, but really is a lovely time of year with the grass starting the grow, the wildflowers appearing and the lambs skipping around the fields.