Of course Ian’s birthday present is not an ostrich. However I shall take it that he was dropping a veiled hint and will keep a look out for ostrich eggs on ebay. His birthday present is Hadrian, the angora billy…

Well tonight I actually started writing my blog on my handheld with the intention of hotsynching to the pc and uploading from there. Unfotunately for some reason I can no longer connect the handheld to the PC. I’ll get it…

well, Crumpets babies still appear to be alive, although anything else which tries to set foot in the cage obvioulsy doesn’t. I put a carrot in for her earlier, and it was like watching pirahnas at work. I hope she…

Well the Mineral House menagerie increases again courtesy of Crumpet and Stud Muffin. As I see that Kate has already explained, Crumpet had been some way over her expected time. In fact Kate has redone her maths and now believes…

and I think that every mother reading this will have a certain amount of empathy for the poor buns, given that last night she and Muffin were ‘playing’ together, at a point where she was 5 days overdue. To put…

What a shock! We had Horrace, our big stud ram who fathered all of our lambs this year, sheared. And he shrunk! He is tiny under all of that fleece. Herdies are much smaller than they at first appear, I…

by putting ply wood over the windows of the chicken shed, we make their home dark, which makes them sleep which means that Kevin and Simon (and Mr Silkie) don’t feel the need to crow from 3.30 onwards. Bliss! They…

Ian says that the hill is nicely in focus! However at least it proves we do have owl!!! 

…but at this moment in time I truly believe that the barbed wire that I have run approximately along the top of the dry stone wall facing the road will prevent any sheep from breaking out of land. Admittedly we…

We’ve got a mouse problem. We knew that there was one downstairs as something has been nibbling my rice cakes – and strangely I knew that it wasn’t Ian! However there was one under the floor boards upstairs –we saw…