Yesterday we were four sheep missing! Obvioulsy not Freckles or BlackKnees, who camp outside the front door from dawn onwards. I took a walk around the field and worked out that it was three lambs and a ewe. One lamb was the one that Debbys sheep are leading astray, the other three we needed to find so had a good look. You may remember that I mentioned that our weather station (which Ian is certain was from you and Viv, Jim. Well at least that is what he wrote down!) was flashing clouds and ticks which I wasn’t sure what it meant – well it meant storms and a lot of them! The weather was bad and we couldn’t see the sheep because they had put themselves into a corner in the field next to ours going towards the village. Couldn’t get them back by calling (not a suprise really) so resorted to sheep nuts, and unforunately, true to form this resulted in the other 12 sheep – plus 4 goats all crowding round the fence where we were trying to entice them through. I knew that they would not jump over the fence at that point as it would have been like them doing a crowd dive.
Ian then felt that more drastic action was taken, and was chasing them around, and at one stage flung himself onto the ewe with a view to carrying her over the fence. Given that Herdies are sturdy little sheep, this was unlikely. And of course it ended with Ian and the sheep rolling round in the mud. We gave up and went out to get some corn (farm shop shut Saturday AND Sunday
So we got back, and in the storm took part of the fence down, bought them through and then refenced part of the fence where it was weak. I don’t know how long it kept her out – but this mornign there she was back inthe other field again.
Ian wasn’t very happy yesterday, and rolling around in the field with a sheep didn;t help. He feels, since his being caught singing to the sheep and singing goodnight to the rabbits, that he may not be taken seriously as a farmer. Being seen naked in the back yard yesterday morning bar a pair of boots, a T shirt and a hastily grabbed jacket which is quite short and only has one button – at the neck, shouting ‘Tinkerbelle you are a naughty naughty girl’ by one of our neighbours might not enhance his credibility. Ian had seen Tinks outside the fence when he was getting out the shower, had run out grabbing a few clothes – but no where near enough, to get her back in. It was unfortunate that our neighbour was walking past. He is normally quite chatty. Strange he didn’t want to engage Ian in conversation yesterda! Ian is glad it isn;t the lady who walks her dog past as he thought she might report him for indecent exposure!
We are going to be hosting two horses at the weekend. Farmer Mike has two new horses coming and is doing work in his boxes so has asked if they can lodge here for a couple of weeks. This means that they will have my potential lambing stable, but if we do get an early lamb then they can go in the barn. It will be interesting to have a couple of horses here. He offered to pay us rent, but he is so helpful to us and was very supportive last year when we were lambing that it seems churlish to take anything.
Bob is subdued again. He has an itchy neck which he has made bleed, but he has also gone lathargic (even more) again. I hope he’s just a bit under the weather. Basil has also developped a limp. But it is selective. The weather has been so horrible with horizontal rain, I think that they are all quite happy with an excuse to stay inside. Its been too horrible to let the goats out today.
Ian has tiled the fire place in the living room. He was back at work today which was quite sad. Last night we finished the end of our Xmas goodies and watched Buena Vista Social Club which was the last of our library Xmas DVD’s. So it is back to ‘normal’ now.
And still no more eggs from the quails.
Ian has bought some new ram. Not of course of the sheep variety, but for the computer. It has got very slow recently and was unable to shut itself down the other night so Ian put the ram from our other computer in which helped, so he bought some more off of Ebay. I had a good experience on Ebay last week, bought a 64 mb card for £4.00 and it arrived the next day! Not bad seeing that it arrived on Xmas Eve! Of couse had I been buying it for Xmas then that would have been a different matter…. Talking of Ebay, I have put a lot of Mrs Scrub stock on for the Tsunami appeal. I am not sure how much I will raise as I am sure a lot of people will be doing the same, however it seemed something that I could do that would be of practical use.