Halloween!

Winter, it appears, is impatient to overcome Autumn in the Gers; we have already had two hard frosts with minus 4 Celsius reported and all the outside and majority of the poly tunnel vegetable plants are now only good to rip up and feed to the pigs.  Thankfully we had the best pickings before the cold hit and there are plenty of green tomatoes that aren't completely frozen to make our annual batch of chutney.

Up until 3 days ago, the day time temperatures had rarely dipped below 20 degrees and the nights, although fresh, did not require the wood fired boiler to be commissioned.  We are now toasty warm with the heating on and we are tucking into our newly cut winter log pile!

We have a great system for log cutting; last winter we cut and stored masses of roughly split logs in1 metre lengths at the end of the barn where they spent the spring and summer drying out. We haul the logs up on a trolley to the area in front of the house where we have a free standing log saw (we had the blade sharpened recently which has made it cut real well). The logs are then sawed in half (the wood fired boiler takes up to 53cm logs) and any that still need more splitting are swiftly dispatched on the neighbouring ash block before being stacked with Alpine precision under the log cover we made last winter.  Like this we can deal with probably 4 or 5 cubic metres (a "stere" in French) in a day including some help from Ben if he is in the mood!  Daddy gets the axe thoroughly embedded in the log that needs splitting and Ben then hits with all his might with a block hammer which suits his size - no injuries to date............

The claustrophobic pigs are now "as happy as" in their new enclosure - they are all much friendlier and the escapee piglets are now far more relaxed; they are even tame enough to give them a good scratch behind the ears.  

The new enclosure has two areas; divided by another fence and the cabin acts as a portal from one area to the other.  We will rest each area of land for 6 months at a time and we installed an automatic drinking fountain that we found in the barn.  The fencing which has finally been effective in retaining the pigs is made up of stretched (using the tractor) sheep fence with a strand of electrified steel wire at 10cms and 25cms from the ground.  Being at nose and shoulder height, it stops the pigs burrowing under the fence using their snouts as spades.  We hear the odd squeal when they get too close to the perimeter so we believe they will never give up the digging; perhaps we should name them Steve Mcqueen and James Garner!  We have to watch out for short circuits as we often find toads sparking away on the low wire. Oops.

We have also done a cockerel-swap with some neighbours to broaden the gene pool. So far our new cockerel has been too haughty to do anything other that strut about and make a few halfhearted attempts at playing kiss-chase with the girls.

The other day our neighbour told us the Jerusalem artichokes that had been lodging in his veg patch were ready so off we trooped to dig them out. They have to be the ugliest vegetable ever - the epitome of knobbly! We have peeled around 1kg (enough to test the patience of a saint) and made a soup of them with the Halloween pumpkin scoopings and a butternut squash.  It remains to be seen if they live up to their reputation.

Talking of pumpkins, we had a huge crop - every shape and size you can imagine and masses of butternut squash which are all now hanging in nets in the barn;

The Jerusalem artichokes are perennials so we are putting the left over tubers in an area that was previously used for a hopeless bunch of strawberry plants that we were given - at least it is relatively weed free.  They will be joined by asparagus and artichoke plants in permanent beds

With the recent frosts, we are getting the last of the harvest in - yesterday the kids helped picking the second half of the maize crop - Ben just loved karate chopping the cobs off the stems then kicking over the straw!  In a couple of days, all that will be left in the veg patch will be some recently sown winter wheat, a patch of winter field beans, leeks, parsnips and onions sets.

Autumn is the time to plant fruit trees and bushes and we have invested in a large strawberry bed (48 plants) and more raspberry and blackberry plants. They are all supported on a large 1.9m high frame and we moved the black current bushes we managed to propogate from last autumn's prunings to their permanent homes. The plants are bedded under a special cloth to keep the weeds down and to retain moisture and the drip feed irrigation installed for next year. Once all that lot along with the fruit trees we planted last autumn (4 apples, a fig, kiwis and apricot trees) are mature, we will have buckets of soft fruit hopefully!

Finally, we have started renovating the mill room; it is a big job but we are in need of a second living space as the kids are growing up fast and living in just a kitchen is tough; especially in winter.  Last year the electrics were installed and a new floor laid down over the canal so now it's time to fill and plaster the walls, renovate the millstones and tile the whole of the ground floor - gulp. We hope to have it done for Christmas but deadlines like that are set to be broken so we'll see how it goes.

 

Where does the time go?

It has been quite a while since our last post which we are sorry about however life on the "farm" has been busier, more crazy but more fulfilling than ever and there are only so many hours in the day.

We have enjoyed a summer of visits from lots of family and friends (some of them house sitting during our holiday in July and others coming to stay) and we hope everyone enjoyed themselves and we would like to thank everyone for their ideas, inspiration and help around the place. You now know when to come and when to stay away depending on what you like to pick and eat! Also, apologies to Josine our Dutch cousin after her little niece renamed Rosie the pig "Rosine". What that's expression about working with children and animals.....??

Meet Rosine

Readers of previous posts may recall our lack of water in the mill leat due to a broken sluice gate.  Thankfully just before leaving on holiday we managed to get the new sluice gate installed with the help of our neighbour Didier and our house sitters Karen & Denis.  A few weeks previously, Al had ordered a new 3m long metal plate and took it to a local agricultural engineer to have it drilled to fit the lifting ratchet and welded with re-inforced bars.  The old sluicegate, which was cut into pieces to get it out, served as a model to fabricate the new one and then Al scratched his head for a while to work out how to lift it into position.

Various tree pulley systems were proposed as well as simple muscle but we value our health and those of our friends so we finally decided to rent a 13m telescopic forklift to get the plate installed and after getting down and dirty with a large pot of grease (to prevent rust of course) it slid into its frame with little resistance.

Up a bit!

 About 1 hour later a veritable tsunami headed along the mill leat washing flotsam and jetsam with it and by the following morning, the canal was full again; just in time for the serious business of irrigating our crops - phew.

The weather has been the usual hot and dry of July and August - but thankfully our drip feed irrigation system has been keeping the veg patch in full growth.   Everything grows like crazy with the 40 deg heat and beautiful sunshine and despite a few glitches, we are generally pretty happy with the vegetable production.

Since our last post, we have been harvesting fruit and vegetables non stop, notably;

Sundried tomatoes

• several hundred kilos of tomatoes which we turned into passata, ketchup and sundried tomatoes.
• plums and damsons which we turned into jam and bottled plums.
• french and runner beans - all now blanched and frozen. We are nearly sick of the sight of them.
• borlotti and tarbais beans - all now dried and stored in paper sacks
• garlic and onions - these were a bit disappointing as we planted them too late but they are now hung up under cover to dry.
• beetroot - all now in the freezer
• courgettes - frozen, pickled, BBQ-ed and the monsters that were missed were stuffed with pork
• aubergines - they enjoyed the polytunnel. They ended up mostly in Moussaka and tapenade
• cucumbers and gherkins - eaten fresh, pickled and enjoyed by the pigs too. These plants turned into a jungle in the polytunnel.
• red hot chilli peppers - drying outside - looks like a Tex Mex round here...
• sweet peppers  - so far eaten fresh but we may preserve some too
• lemon verbena and mint - we are drying it like mad to keep us in herbal tea over the winter
• potatoes - attacked by worms but the damage is more annoying than serious; all bagged and ready to see us through the winter
• peas - a pitiful harvest (too hot in the summer) although the kids enjoyed shelling them. 
• peaches - very small but 12 crates harvested - destined for bottles, jams and getting the kids sticky 
• apples, pears and cherries - disappointing harvest this year perhaps caused by the harsh pruning that was necessary last autumn. 

Red and yellow onions drying before storage

Garlic hanging under the carport

The animals have been keeping us amused (?!) lately with several escapes.  A couple of weeks ago, a wild boar broke down the gate to the donkey and sheep field overnight  - the animals got spooked and a silent stampede ensued which lead to a day of frantically scouring the local fields and woods for the mini herd..  We sounded the alarm via smoke signals (well we just spread the word via neighbours which was a bit embarrassing) and through the grapevine we heard they had been seen at 0430 that morning at an irrigation lake around 6kms away. A farmer eventually corralled them into his yard and got word to us.  After a little struggle, the sheep went into our trailer and Al walked the donkeys back to the mill.  On the way home he met a couple who asked if he was on a pilgrimage!

The hunting season for wild boar has just started and unsurprisingly, the boar tend to get more aggressive and bad tempered when they are being chased around and shot at so we can expect this every year. What was ironic about the whole episode was that a permanent fence had just been completed effectively encircling the animals within the river, canal and fence boundaries. An impregnable gate is now under design. In truth it has just been added to the "to do in the foreseeable future" list....

Earlier in the summer, an itinerant shearer turned up to shed the animals of their fleeces.  They really did look way too hot in 3 inches of wool in July.  Post haircut, they all looked pretty confused and didn't recognise each other.  They took a while to get used to each others new image but they all seemed relieved to be rid of their fleeces.  The wool is being gradually used to mulch around fruit trees and bushes but is not good enough quality to sell or knit into woolly hats. Watch this space - we may have a spinning wheel this time next year although the kids have told us we must be careful not to prick our fingers in case we fall asleep for a hundred years....
 

Before

During

After

The chickens have been opportunists this summer and managed to escape through a mysterious hole in their fence but thankfully they are fairly easy to round up and don't tend to stray too far.  Cooper (the border collie) who is bullied by the sheep enjoys herding the chickens so has now been renamed a chickendog. Amazingly, the pigs have been the best behaved lately.

Now that the harvesting has calmed down a little, we have plans to get back into the house and try to get the mill room habitable as a living room.  We need a second living space as the kids are growing as fast as the plants and the kitchen is feeling small.  We also have plans to create a better designed pig run with two paddocks (with the shelter split between the two) in order to move the animals from one to the other (to rest the land).  Needless to say we are going to be using blueprints from Alcatraz to ensure its escape-proof. This will give us a space to put Rosie in when she gets impregnated by a boar (in the next few weeks we hope).  On that subject, we lent our ram to a neighbour to get friendly with his ewes and the ram is now back and getting remarkably chummy  with our 6 so hopefully 5 months or so from now we will have little lambs frolicking about.  A new era of animal husbandry beckons!

Sow, plant out, weed, water, support, repeat............

Wow 6 weeks have flown by (thanks for the reminder to write a new post Graham/Dad) but the growing season is really upon us and we have had to get out and work all hours.

Following the constant rain of April, May brought very warm temperatures with a couple of 34 degree days.  Cue sowing 10 x 50 metre rows of maize and 10 rows of fodder peas as well as tomatoes, peas, beans, carrots and so on.  The warm temperatures and long days made the veg patch go bonkers - weeds included - so we had to get in there with an angry hoe and Graham/Dads merry tiller (our unpaid weeder) to give our tender plants a fighting chance. We had deliberately planted rows 60cms apart in order to do the worst of the weeding mechanically with the tiller and the kids have enjoyed helping out finding and squashing the Colorado beetles that were attacking the spuds.

The poly tunnel has also gone crazy and we are about 2 weeks (at the most) from eating our first tomatoes.  We have somehow amassed 80 tomato plants in the tunnel and out in the field which will make for a tomato mountain to make Heinz jealous.  Last summer we processed the relatively small crop we had into sundried, chutney, ketchup and loads of pizza/pasta sauce but it only lasted until January so this year we are aiming BIG.  This is a photo from when the tomatoes first went in;

Although it seems like a long wait until the main harvest, we are already enjoying strawberries from plants scrounged from our neighbours (the production will need to be increased threefold next year) and cherries off the trees that were already here.  The peach crop looks heavy (so heavy that we have had to thin the fruit or the branches will break with the weight of fruit) and the plums look great again this year but the pears and apples will not do much unfortunately as we are in the process of rejuvenating previously abandoned trees (a 3 year process).

Al went on his first successful mushroom hunt today; having found only deadly ones up to now which when analysed in the reference book turned out to have names like "False Deathcap" and "Destroying Angel".  Off he went with Didier the neighbour to a "secret" spot and came back with a large bucket full of perfect Girolles (Chanterelles) - enough for a few omelettes and to freeze the rest;

One major issue we had in mid May was one of the sluice gates that controls the level of the mill leat decided to disintegrate after a storm.  The leat emptied out quite rapidly and we spent the best part of a day with a borrowed swimming pool net hauling fish out of the canal and re-homing them in the lake.  We were expecting shopping trolleys and yet more shoes (?) but the bottom of the leat was remarkably clean although the place smelt like the tide was out at Skegness for a couple of weeks.

The sluice gate is a 3 metre high by 77cms wide piece of 8mm steel that was probably 100 years old.  One of the re-enforcement braces gave way and the steel literally folded in two and out went quite a lot of water in a very short period.  At the time Al was up a ladder above the gate whilst lowering it with the winding handle - that raised the heart rate a little!  Al is taking on the engineering repairs and has already picked up the replacement steel plate and is now trying to work out how to raise the remnants of the old gate out and lower the new one in. There is a lot of chin-scratching going on.....

Furthermore on the DIY front, we are very happy with the downstairs bathroom which is now (nearly) finished, complete with Els/Granny's old bathroom taps, reclaimed bath, sink and WC, a renovated and converted kitchen cupboard, a 4euro car boot sale lamp and a home made mirror.  Shame the rest cost a small fortune!

On the livestock front, we can report no more escapees; piggy penitentiary seems to be secure.  The semi-tame mallards have produced 6 very cute ducklings (now down to 4 as they are terrible mums and keep leaving the ducklings behind). We have to regularly re-unite duckling to mum when we spot that one is on its own; with little thanks other than duckling pooh on your trousers!  Our chickens have been periodically broody and have so far produced 6 lovely healthy chicks which will add to our layers.

We recently started hand-grinding maize to feed to the pigs. We found a grinder (car boot sale purchase of course) and began the laborious process of grinding half a tonne of maize (pigs can't digest whole kernels). Bee's bingo wings got an excellent workout but the inefficiency was evident. Al sourced a pulley system that could be attached to the trusty Merry-Tiller and we soon had a petrol-powered corn mill. Bingo! It seems quite silly milling like this when we are living in a water mill but firstly there is no water in the leat and secondly we have no idea on how to operate a stone mill; all in good time!

The little swines!

We have had pigs for about a month now and they seem to have hogged (!) so much of our time it is beyond a joke - whether they are escaping under the fence, squealing for food or attention - it has been a thoroughly testing time.  Having said that they are really quite lovely animals and their friendly nudges with their snouts are very affectionate although the circular nasal mud stains left on your trousers don't come off easily....

We went to pick up 3 weaners that were 2 months old (Gloucester old spot, large white and local black pig cross-breeds). They were hustled into a box in the boot of our car and put the car's aircon system to test all the way home - did you know pigs get car sick? Anyway....they happily went into their newly-made pig shelter within a half acre field which we had carefully fenced with 2 strands of electric fence at the recommended 20 and 50cms height off the ground. We kept them in their shelter for 24 hours again following the recommendations.  The following day we decided it was safe to release them and did so - within minutes they had braved the electric fence and sprinted off across the countryside.  Then followed our first (and hopefully last) livestock chase across open fields which was a cross between a Benny Hill and Whacky Races scene.

We rounded up reinforcements  - our wonderful neighbours downed tools and came to help (or perhaps simply to witness the English nutters attempting to outrun and rugby-tackle 15kg piglets). 9 hours later having chased them up and down the valley, into and out of woods, across fields, round hay bales, through ditches and vicious brambles we recaptured 2 of the 3 and despite many attempts to locate and drive out the third, he is still either running with the local wild boar (having a great time we suppose) or is no longer.  Lets call it a steep learning curve. We can laugh about that day now although we have flashbacks of having to stop running because of a stitch - although that could also have been due to trying to laugh and run simultaneously....

The piglets have now pretty much realised that we are their food supply and that it would be sensible to stick around.  They have continued to try and escape and we have had to condemn them to a kind of piggy Alcatraz for the moment with various perimeter fences, electric wiring, extra stakes and re-enforced corrugated iron sheet for walls.  If anyone tries to tell you a pig is stupid beg to differ as they are pretty damned conniving and persistent! At least they don't smell - something positive we have learned!

As we had lost one piglet, we decided to find another pig and we purchased a 5 month old (Tamworth and Gloucester Old Spot cross) female around 2 weeks back that we have named Rosie while names for the others have yet to stick.  The females (Rosy plus 1) are keepers for breeding so we are happy to name them but the sole male (without equipment) will be eaten next winter  

Other than the pigs taking up vast swathes of our time, we have been a little frustrated with the wet April weather.  Thankfully we sowed much of the veg plot before the wet weather but it seems only the spuds, peas and broad beans are really doing much yet but all in good time (we are told). We have yet to acquire the sacred virtue of patience. 

We should have constructed our poly tunnel during the dryer March weather but we have at least finally got the thing up and the tomato, lettuces and various other plants we had attempted to get to germinate seem to be enjoying the balmy temperatures. Hoeing, planting and watering in a sauna is a shirt off job (for Al at least - although Scarlett seems to think she can also enjoy this liberation from clothing as soon as Daddy strips off!).  We had our first storm today and it survived its first test - phew.

During the wet weather we did crack on with the downstairs bathroom and we are happy with the results so far considering the undulating walls and dodgy plumbing we discovered..  Another weeks work and the bathroom will be functional again but we are now prioritising the food production as we can see a few hungry gaps in the future if we don't.  Who needs a bath anyway?

Spring time at the mill is quite magical as a myriad of plants and trees take their turn to blossom, leaf and bear fruit of one kind or another; a spectacle we missed last year as we arrived in June.  The ducks have paired off and are sitting on eggs, the swallows are back from Africa and the trout in the lake are thriving on the mass of insects and tadpoles. 

Whistle while you work!

Since we last posted, a years worth of weather has come and gone and as we write it is 25 degrees outside, bright sunshine but still cold enough overnight for a light frost to whiten the new grass and spring blossom on the peach trees.

February was a cold month - we had 3 inches of snow, temperatures as low as -18 Celsius and it lasted around 3 weeks.  We thought we had left all that behind in Chamonix but thankfully we were toasty warm in our house with the log-fired heating so it was only tough outside.  The mill leat froze to around 6 inches thick but no-one fancied skating except our resident ducks who seemed a little confused by their new ice rink.  The livestock seemed to be fine and we only had to feed them hay while the grass was covered in snow and break the ice on their water a couple of times a day.

 

During this cold snap, we started new renovation projects inside the house.  Firstly we replaced the entire structure for the mill room floor (while it was around -10C outside and almost that inside) as the old floor was solid oak 4 inch thick boards that were a bit rotten on the ends (they are now destined to eventually become a dining table).  We chiseled out slots in the stone walls and set new treated pine timbers onto concrete pads  and fitted cross members.  Because this floor hangs over the flowing mill stream (balancing on 3 inch wide timbers while 3 metres above a flowing stream was not in the job description!), we thoroughly insulated between the beams then placed a vapour barrier and agglomerate boards onto the beams to create a base to tile onto; when we eventually put down our reclaimed terra cotta floor;

Later in February we enjoyed a visit from Grandma and Grandpa (Graham and Ruth) who were a huge help with pruning fruit trees and burning gargantuan piles of branches (debris from firewood cutting) on 4 large bonfires that we kept burning almost all week.  The kids enjoyed a special campfire dinner of baked spuds in the embers with campfire songs led by Grandpa. Ging Gang Goolie etc...........

Granny (Els) came to visit shortly after and benefited from the higher temperatures (planting potatoes), the insatiable desire of the kids for their bedtime "Henrietta" stories and a Mother's Day trip round an agricultural fair looking at bulls the size of elephants and tractor parts that could bore the most geeky of tractor freaks (Al and Ben you know who you are).

March followed on with warm springtime temperatures of up to 20 degrees and we enjoyed bbq's outside with friends.  Strangely warm for early March but good for the heart and soul.  Later in March we had a period of rain when we came back inside to knock out the downstairs bathroom and start rebuilding it in a new format.  This was essential work to allow the conversion of the neighbouring mill room into our lounge.  Destruction felt good although Al hogged the sledge hammer. 

The warmer weather has brought everything back to life fairly rapidly and now at the end of March we have peach, cherry and apricot trees blossoming while the plums, various berries, rhubarb, soft fruits and apples are all budding nicely and of course the weeds are back on the old veg patch "en masse".

Despite itching to carry on with the interior renovation projects we have to concentrate on feeding ourselves for the rest of the year so we have started our spring sowing.  This involved turning our previously ploughed field (that had benefited from the heavy frosts to kill the turf) into something resembling a veg patch.  We started off by disc harrowing around 10 times in total - this chops up the clods, hopefully kills some of the young weeds that are already growing and breaks the ploughed land down to a fine tilth to favour the new seeds.  Disc harrowing comes a close second to ploughing on the tractor entertainment scale.

We then divided the plot into 4 rectangular beds (approx 15m x 45m) for four types of vegetables - potatoes and solinacae (tomatoes and the like), legumes (peas and beans etc), brassicas (cabbages and broccoli etc) and finally roots and onions.  These beds will be rotated every year to reduce the risk of disease build up and to aid fertility of the soil where needed.

We have now sown directly the following; seed potatoes (200 seeds with another 200 to plant in a few weeks), peas, broad beans, turnips, garlic, shallots, carrots, onions, parsnips, spring onions and red onion.  Inside we have tried to gain a head-start by sowing into pots (toilet roll inners to be precise) tomatoes, peppers, cabbages, melons, basil, sage, dill, various lettuce, sprouts and leeks for transplanting outside when they are established. The polytunnel isn't quite complete so all these pots are currently spread across the threshing room floor. Running the gauntlet across the rotten floorboards with a water sprayer is now part of our daily fitness regime!

As if cross-referencing all the gardening books wasn't complicated enough - when, how and where to plant everything etc - Al threw a spanner in the works and bought Bee a guide to planting according to the moon's cycle. We now have a loose system of planting when the locals plant, admiring the moon and using more loo roll than necessary to keep up with the loo roll inner demand for sowing.

We have a new addition to the family - Johnny the Scarecrow. He's like a cross-dressing Worzel/Aunt Sally as the kids couldn't agree on the gender.....

On the subject of pests, our local hunt offered their help to control the population of an animal called a ragondin which is a relative of the beaver. The locals fondly refer to them as wetland hares.  It is not native of this area and they dig large underground galleries which undermine river banks and eat masses of corn from the neighbouring fields.  They are also pretty dangerous to dogs and kids as they'll take fingers off in an instant with those long front teeth.

In a couple of weeks, the trappers caught 20 odd (one as large as 12kgs) and disposed of them for us.  All in exchange for a few jars of homemade pate (pork, not ragondin although we hear there is a restaurant nearby that turns them into pate and flogs it to Parisian delicatessens - urgh).

Talking of pate, while it was still quite cool in early March, we went off to a farm with our neighbours and selected a pig weighing a slight 140kg which we slaughtered on site. 2 beautiful hams are now curing as well as sides of bacon.  Joints and ribs stock the freezer, 24 jars of pate were made and we attempted to recreate Lincolnshire sausages.  The head, trotters and skin were all boiled up and made into another kind of pate - the kind that we generously gave away to neighbours and local hunters.  Hairy pigskin sprouting proud of jellied pate is not quite to our taste!  Although who knows we may be tucking into it next year along with everyone else - or maybe not.

Our "wild" livestock are enjoying the spring weather too - our trout in the lake are feasting on the tadpoles that are clinging to the banks for dear life. The resident ducks are pairing off (playing "touch-touche" according to the kids - tag in English!) although they have a hard life choosing whether to bathe in the lake or canal so flit between the two. The swallows are back to nest in the barn - they welcomed us here this time last year when we came to visit the mill with the kids. Lets hope they don't collide with the cockerel who still flies into the barn to roost at night.

 

Back, Sack and Crack

Last week we had a good look at the sheep's' hooves which were found to be in a terrible state and the dags were looking grim so Al got on the internet and ordered a pair of hand shears and nail-clippers.  There was no putting it off  when the tools arrived so this morning the sheep were corralled into the shelter (using maize as bait) and one by one they were tipped on their bums and they underwent a full pedicure and the sheep's equivalent of a Brazilian. We have never handled shears so carefully......

Here are the last 3 of the 8 looking nervous; they were hatching an unsuccessful escape plan at the time;

Here is one of the worst ewes' feet  with the nails completely curled under the hooves (this one had been a little lame at one point which prompted the exercise);

And here she is post pedicure;

She underwent a light pedicure to allow her hooves to get used to their new shape and will get another trim soon now we are a bit more practiced. Bizarrely the 2 rams were easier to handle than the ewes - think they may have been to a spa in the past as they seemed to enjoy being pampered.

We thought we wouldn't offend anyone's sensibilities with photos of dagging - we'll leave that to your imagination............and go wash our hands!

Trading in the spirit of self-sufficiency

If the ideal of no money changing hands be true, then our most recent trade came up trumps - the tired old Citroen AX that made it from Chamonix that has since been languishing under the car port was exchanged for 3 lambs. The trailer that brought them towed the AX away.   The little 4x4 runabout now has a new loving home but we are happy with our 2 ram lambs and one more ewe.

We are now up to 8 lambs and had our first experience of flipping them to find out if they are boys or girls and to check their hooves. They were corralled into the shelter (in truth they were bribed with maize) and we stopped and looked at each other asking how were going to actually catch them? Calling them and finger clicking certainly didn't work. Solution - Al tackled the nearest one from behind by grabbing its fleece and dragging it onto its bottom.  This technique seems to work well but it is best to grab them on their rumps as it hurts them less.   The lamb (all 20+ kg) surrendered to an inspection (how did Bee get that job?!) and was let back out into the field. The poor rams got marked with a blast of building-site spray paint  - not sure they are too pleased with their new orange-neck look. Now they all just need a good dagging (bottom trim) and pedicure and they will look beautiful!

The only real dilemma we face now is whether to leave one or both ram lambs with the ewes all the time.  With large sheep farms, the rams are kept seperate from the ewes and only introduced for a set period in order to reduce the spread of the lambing period and to time lambing with the best flush of spring grass whereas in SW France, we get strong grass growing in Spring and Autumn (and almost none in mid summer as it is too dry).  We would be pleased if the ram lambs do their business in the spring to time the lambing with the Autumn grass.  Once their work is done, the rams will be dispatched to the freezer.

Big learning curve but great fun!

White and fluffy

Well the sheep finally arrived a few weeks back and after some shocking behaviour (5000 volts electric fence to be precise) they settled in pretty well.  It took about 3 zaps per sheep for them to learn that the boundary is not to be crossed.  Having said that, their flocking instinct is so strong that one little chancer that pushed through the electric fence in a bid for freedom realised she was all alone and decided to push her way back through the live wires to be with her mates.  Honestly it is like women and going to the bathroom together! (Al wrote that bit....)

The lambs are crossbreeds but are majority Berichon du Cher which is a stocky meat animal from a region north of here.  They are all ewes and about 8 months old - they are "store" lambs which we discovered means they weren't fattened enough to be sold last Autumn. The donkeys are taking the new arrivals well and are guarding them from the local itinerant dogs (not that we have seen any) and foxes etc. We have sort of selected which two lambs we are likely to put in the freezer once they have been fattened up a little more (we point and whisper in case they understand!)  Al has got his eyes on their fleeces as sheepskin rugs would look great in our bedroom!

At the moment they are pretty happy with their pasture (we are strip grazing them over a large field) but we occasionally give them some maize and wheat to supplement their diet - this has to be done when the donkeys are out of the field being "walked". Bee usually gets the enviable job of walking the donkeys around the barn whilst the sheep are being fed - and hanging onto to the donkeys for dear life when they hear the grain bucket being rattled for the sheep......