Catching one's breath......

Blimey is it May already? Mid May??? ..... Gosh.

When I last wrote we'd had 3 lambs and though I'd had no sleep, we Archers were broadly happy and healthy. This heath check extended to humans, sheep, alpaca, chickens and cats. Check.

On Sunday 13th April our last, and most huge, of our ewes decided to lamb. Snowy waited till I'd had a full night of broken sleep before lambing at 9am Sunday morning. She popped out two lovely boys with minimal assistance from me. Fab.

Two days later and the 11yo noticed an issue: The 1st of Snowy's twins was turning into a goat. His ears were flopped by the side of his head, giving him a very kid goat appearance. He was also on fire with a fever. Even with an injection of antibiotic he didn't really improve and so my sleepless nights continued as I napped on the couch in the kitchen, a small sickly lamb beside me. (In a dog crate I hasten to add. I'm not THAT soft!..... )

Having sworn I would not raise cade lambs this year, I was saddled with one! The children convinced us that buying another cade lamb would be best, so that this little one wouldn't be lonely in the stables. All of a sudden I was a full-time carer again, milk maker and mucker-outer for two babies.

May I say that some lambs' table manners are appalling.

With plenty of milk, a cool environment and advice from the vet, the little chap made it through, though of course, by now his mum had rejected him. I was the new Mummy on the block.

Anyhoo, I'm pleased to say he's all better now, he lives with the flock, sleeps in the hay box in the field shelter! and potters around with his purchased pal.

The pal lamb we purchased was a baby girl but the 11yo, (clearly the brightest in the Archer clan,) has since noticed that it is a boy..... It's tricky this farming malarky.

Sex-change cade followed by sickly cade....

H&S Advice: How NOT TO feed a strong cade lamb.....

H&S Advice: I rest my case....

Painted nails are a MUST!

Doubly proud.... Pink's babies

 

It is now 23:37 and I've just been awoken for my 12th consecutive night shift, having passed out slept earlier this evening from 7pm. Actually I feel rather refreshed after my four and a half hours. Our house guests of last weekend, Erin, Fen, Cate and X, were bemused by my nocturnal activity. Erin, a friend who writes the blog 'Cross The Pond, pointed out that I was operating in a similar fashion to Thomas Eddison [get me!] who allegedly thought sleep was for the weak, believing more in power napping. I found this interesting article on Eddison's opinion of sleep here on Brain Pickings. 

I must admit, that the house is calm and quiet at this time of the day, no one needing me to feed, muck out, cook, clean or water them but I do crave a little more shut-eye. On Wednesday I didn't even manage my early evening nap and went through from Tuesday night till the wee hours of Thursday. Mind you, it was worth it.

Wednesday: A good, bright, warm day where I managed to clean the house, see to the animals and take a picnic (with sproglets + guests) to a rural wildlife reserve where a craggy rivulet cuts a sway through miles of clay (significant.) In fact, while the children shrieked with delight slightly up steam of me, (out of sight but not of hearing,) I snoozed, dribbling into the grass. The sun felt hot on the back of my jeans - lovely.

I was rudely awoken by a tribe of dripping, pygmy, spa types who'd overdosed in the mud treatment room! It was terrifying. The mile or so hike to the car, across gorse and fern; the girls in swimming costumes and colourful Crocks, carrying their wellingtons and jeans, the boys in squelching boots and wearing their, by now, cardboard jeans, was interesting.

Later, having Googled how to fix the washing machine by emptying the filter of silt and mud, we designed home-made pizza and the kids settled to watch a movie. I cleaned up and waited for Hubby to relieve me of duties so I could sleep. He was due home from a meeting at 9pm.

Before Hubby arrived I'd managed to herd the children and their guests into their respective bedrooms. I took the opportunity to walk up the drive to check on the pregnant ewes in the stables. Pink, my cade lamb of two years ago, was definitely showing signs of lambing.

By the time hubby arrived Pink was pacing and her water sack was visible. Hubby left me to fix his dinner. By walkie-talkie I described each gory labour stage, while Hubby attempted to prepare and eat his pizza. Funny but he seemed reluctant to hear every detail.... [Lou: Smiling evilly - I'm overtired OK!]

Anyhoo, by 10.30pm we roused the children and they came to the barn to see Pink, (slightly aided by me as I could only find one little lamb foot initially,) give birth to her first lamb, a bonny baby girl. Mum and baby immediately bonded.

An hour later, as requested, we roused the children again as Pink began to deliver lamb number two. Unfortunately she only presented the head of this lamb and try as I may, I couldn't slide it back in to the ewe in order to recover both of the legs for a perfect birth, the canal was just too narrow and I felt very inexperienced. I did manage to find 1 leg but the shoulders were too wide to allow the lamb to birth. After a few moments and a stunned silence from the kids, Hubby phoned to ask our nearest farmer friend to help us. [All the ewes we're lambing this year were bought from him originally and he has been such an invaluable teacher for me.]

Within minutes he was with us. He flipped Pink on her side and had the lamb out moments later. My mistake had been to try to lamb Pink while she was standing, with her lying on her side the lamb slipped out easily and was given to mum to lick. Another lovely girl. I feel sure, having watched the technique used, I could repeat this on another occasion.

This lamb struggled a little through the night. I stayed to make sure all was OK. In the end, maybe an hour later, when the lamb was badly shivering and not attempting to stand like her sister, I intervened. I made up a little bottle of warmed colostrum and fed it to her, keeping her close to my body warmth. Next I wiped her in the birthing fluids that dripped from Pink's backside in order to disguise my smell and lay her next to her sister in the straw.

The result: two happy girls today and one happy mummy. Phew.

Snowy: You're next!

 

Rock and a hard place....

Yesterday we grafted. We mended fences, contained lambs and sheep. Emptied an old field shelter of its floor boarding and sheep droppings, lined it with straw and set down some equestrian matting. At the back of the shelter Hubby put up a grid system with various heights to hang the heavy feeding troughs for the alpaca. All this work is prep for winter; a place where the alpaca family can shelter if the weather turns really bad. By all accounts, alpaca would rarely be taken into a stable, always preferring to be out in the elements so the field shelter is a half-way house.

We praised our morning's work over a lunch of tuna and olive bread followed by juicy peaches but it was soon time to see what other jobs needed doing.

I deigned we should move a hefty mountain of Shropshire stone that was sat in the alpaca field, fearing the ladies might hurt their legs on it. Hubby suggested I might actually be 'inventing' work and went off to find a real job while the sproglets and I began to fill the trailer with the cumbersome pieces. Close to the end of this real job I managed to put one heavy stone down, dislodging another. The second stone then rolled onto my ring finger. The pain under my nail is now amazing. I presume I'll have one of those revolting blood blisters, though as yet there is no sign thanks to my Barbie pink nail varnish! (Well, it is summer!)

One thing we have learnt over our past 4 years here is that gates need to be shut. Yesterday we managed to add to our workload by forgetting this. As Hubby and daughter drove Dizzy Discovery down to a lower paddock, they passed through our largest field housing more than 100 borrowed lawnmowers. Unfortunately they left the gate open. The ewes and lambs figured this was surely an invitation to follow and duly poured through the gate. I was in the alpaca field which has free access to this lower field and, fearful that these sheep might stampede Shadow, our baby cria, I ran like Mo Farah to close the gate. The 10yo had the same thought and we met at the gate, heading the sheep off just in time. Phew!

That, it seems was the easy bit. We then spent the next 20 minutes dashing about like sheep dogs, trying to drive the flock back to their big field. Hilariously, once we had completed this task we realised that our cade lambs were among the throng. In truth this didn't really matter, they could easily graze together but the 10yo called their names and from a sea of faces Coco, Bino and Oreo appeared. They happily followed us back to their patch where their was less competition for grass.

If I look back at our move to The Larches on the 28th August 2009, I had no real expectation for learning and yet in 4 years we have learnt so much. When we arrived at The Larches with a 6yo and a 4yo, we'd never even owned a pet as a family, had only gardened on a micro scale and had no clue how to mend a gate or fence. Look at us now, we've moved from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence.

On the 28th of this month will will have completed our 4th year at The Larches. If it wasn't for our lovely neighbours we'd still be in the dark ages regarding sheep, land and horticulture. Bless them for being patient with us and bring it on year 5!

The half-way point of the holidays..

It has taken me longer than I expected to get over the loss of little Queenie. The children seemed to bounce back just a few days after we lost her but I brooded and often sat on the bench overlooking her grave. My sister sent me St John's Wort. It's working. (Ta sis)

The other three cade lambs are now huge. Where once they would bleat a delightful hello, now they cry out for us with deep baaas as we pass their latest electrified enclosure. Nowadays these tones sound more like the voices of choirboys well past their sell-by date.

The holidays are progressing well. We three have been camping in Wales and this time we had fantastic weather and a fantastic site. The 7yo was amazed. After last year (where we all spent more time honing our card skills while the rain  drowned out the sound of our portable speakers..) the boy had decreed that he would never camp again and instead would go to work with Daddy. Daddy was horrified, there's only so much slave labour the boy would tolerate before asking to use the fork lift a thousand times a minute! Eventually I insisted and boy came with me, reluctantly.

I found the campsite online and it seemed decent enough. It was near Pennal in the Dyfi Valley and close to Aberdyfi beach. Gwerniago farm Camping is just what we wanted; a small site with enough space for the sproglets to run about without driving other campers potty, decent showers and not to far from the beach. This campsite ticked all the boxes and after the sprogs helped set up the tent they were off marauding with similarly minded sprogs - a weird experience at first for me, being abandoned by one's children, but one I could deffo get used to!

I was much better at packing this year. Last year I took the kitchen sink and spent my time rearranging stuff to make room for us! This year I was more organised. I took essentials and easy prep food. The children insisted on that gourmet of foods (reserved only for camping I hasten to add) Smash. Do you remember the ads in the 1970s? Hilarious. See them again here.

We took our trusty bucket BBQ but most pitches had an open camp fire already, lovely to sit around in the evening with marshmallows on sticks. Still, our BBQ is easy to cook over in pot or frying pan and the 9yo managed to prep, cook and eat 8 pancakes one morning while the 7yo warmed his tinned sausage and beans. Cordon Bleu here we come.

We had some delicious meals, made all the better for the 9yo and the 7yo cooking them. I found a book at the library which was rather fun and it gave me some ideas - The Camping Cookbook. It also gave me a laugh at times, being that Annie Bell the author, must have been cooking all the time while her friends and family had a great camping holiday with restaurant quality food! In any case my children seemed amazed that I was happy for them to cook over the fire and, supervised, there were no accidents. Suddenly it seems the children are really growing up.

Aberdyfi is amazing, made all the better by the gorgeous weather. We crabbed, beached, ice creamed and generally chilled. Such a shame Daddy was at work, he's our expert crabber!

Probably one of the best sights was the 9yo engrossed in a book. To date, reading hasn't really been something she's been interested in, she's more sporty and creative. Suddenly she seems to have added reading to her repertoire and loves to tell you of characters she loves and plots she's enjoying. I'm so pleased.

Electrocution at The Larches

There can be nothing more stimulating than a bit of electrocution first thing in the morning.

As many of you long-suffering readers of the blog will know, I’m not that good at electric fences. See here I forget their strength and hold on to the wire to pull on a wellington or else I forget to turn the darn thing off before moving it. It’s sad really.

Seems I take after my dad:

Mum and Dad came to stay last week. Mum’s the under-gardener, no weed is left undisturbed and the walled garden is now looking stunning. Dad’s is Vice President of Tea Making.

One morning, with the sproglets at school, the under-gardener, the tea maker and I, (recently promoted from both these positions to Chief Painter and Decorator,) decided to take a stroll down Home Field to peruse my allotment and dig up a few leeks.

Dad had a bad foot and was a tadge wobbly. He decided, rather than struggle down the uneven part of the field, he’d step over the electric fence erected by our neighbour whose ewes and lambs are kindly lawn mowing. He wanted to stroll down the middle section of the field.

I wasn’t worried; Dad knew what he was doing. However, half an hour later returning to the house and Pa looked a little wearier. He went for the old electric wire step-over move but misjudged it and, while laughing, (which didn’t help,) did one of those backwards kicks the snazzy footballers do... Very impressive.

He was determined to be down only briefly and almost as soon as his body touched the grass, he was getting up again. Not bad for a man of.... mumble, mumble.... and all was going smoothly till he used the wire as leverage. Bless. Mind you, he stood up quick.

Divine Justice has had her revenge of course, I shouldn’t have giggled so:

This morning, I escorted our three lambs from their overnight accommodation at the stables to their electrified paddock. Being an inexperienced farmer I can’t seem to work out how to convince my lambs, (getting heavier by the day,) to go over or under the ‘lekky fence even when it’s turned off. Instead I take them down on their harnesses and lift them up and over the wire... This really doesn’t feel like a long term plan, especially as Snowy must weigh a good 2.5 stone now. Hey-ho!

Anyhoo, this morning while doing this manoeuvre I managed to touch a knee off the wire and 'WOW! I still feel zingy now. Like father, like daughter I s'pose.

‘No, no coffee for me today thanks, I’m wired!’