Hello again

I have been thinking about coming back to blogging for a while now - so here goes. At first thought there seems surprisingly little that is new since August. We shall see.

In August we had our new arrival. His name is Herbie. We wanted a heifer - but never mind another bullock! This is him just born. He was all hunched up for a few days but has straightened out now. It must be very constricted inside Ebbie and he took a while to unfurl!

Not long after his baby bro was born poor Spring went to the abattoir. I cried when he went. Not because I was overly fond of him but it seemed such a shame to cut him down in his prime like that. He was in fantastic condition and looked so healthy. I can tell you though that he has made fantastic eating. I would not say this if it weren't true - the steaks we've had have been the best I've ever tasted. He has done us proud. Since he's been gone the others have passed their TB tests, had their feet trimmed and Ebbie has had a visit from the AI man. So quite busy on the cows front.
The sheep are also doing well. At the moment Aries our ram is on loan to a friend's small flock - and doing his business with no trouble. We have 4 of our ewes in a neighbours field helping to deal with the grass that their horses don't eat. The girls are getting through it and the neighbours are quite taken with the sheep too. No they can't keep them I want them! In September we went to Kingsbridge show again. http://devonheaven-tracy.blogspot.com/2007/09/kingsbridge-show.html I watched the sheep judging. I think I would really like to show a couple of mine next year. Watch this space.
That will do for today. Back soon.

Bon voyage

On Tuesday I went up to Heathrow and saw my lovely girl off on her travels. She flew out to Thailand on her own to meet up with her boyfriend. She arrived OK 12 hrs later. Please have a good time and stay safe.

My neighbour watered my pots and baskets for me while I was away. They all look really good. Here is the one by the front door.

The white hydrangea in the front garden is from a cutting Mike took from the first garden we had together. He grew a plant from the cutting and we dug up the plant from our old garden and brought it here. It must like the spot its in now as it looks as good as ever.This Astilbie is looking good. It came back from the dead after I bought it, forgot to plant it straightaway and found it weeks later in a bag in the garage.
Today was A level results day. Mike's son Ed got some good grades and so did Robyn, his girlfriend. Well done you two.

Holidays

We have spent the last two weeks in a lovely Villa in sunny Spain. What with getting ready to go, being there, returning to work and seeing my girl off on her travels to Thailand then Australia I have had no time to blog. The holiday was great. An excellent, relaxing family event. We did enjoy it.
There was lots of this and this........and this....There were some lovely days strolling leisurly around.and then we came home to this! Happy days.

A quick catch up

We have had a mixed couple of weeks. The other Thursday I found a new lamb waiting for me up the field. He is a healthy looking ram lamb born to one of our lambs from last year. The new Mum is coping well. One of the earlier lambs has had a nasty dose of fly strike. She is much better now, thank goodness.

Last weekend was my lovely girl's 19th birthday.

We went out for a meal on Sunday. Her boyfriend has left now for a 4 month lads holiday to Thailand so she will be a bit low.

My hanging baskets looking and smell good and my clemetis in this pot is flowering nicely.

I am enjoying my job but am having to wrestle with myself not to spend all of my wages in the garden centre before I have got them. I have been only mildly succesful at this!

Why do we do this?

Happyone http://happyoneswalk.blogspot.com/ asked me yesterday what I felt when the animals had to be killed. Honestly - I feel bad but not devastated. If we couldn't do it there would be no point in us living this way and the animals would be just pets. So I steel myself and get on with it.

What has really hit home with this business though is how young these animals are when they are slaughtered. The consolation I have is that I know our animals have been well cared for and are treated as individuals and not just as a number as they must be on commercial farms.

I will be having a new experience this year. This will be the first year we will kill lambs we have bred ourselves. The sheep are my favourites and I know all these lambs personally. We are already looking at them and deciding which will go. I feel choked about this. How can I choose?

A few years ago my husband did some relief milking on a dairy farm. This was a fairly small farm and the animals there were well treated but even so the calves were taken from their mothers very soon and the mums were milked hard to get every drop of milk - the dairy farmers are on such small margins. While he was there he met another milker who had worked at a local farm producing organic milk. You know how we are told organic is good for us? Well these cows were given only feeds approved by the soil association and so were organic. But they had never seen a blue sky or felt the sun on their backs, they were kept in barns and had never trodden on grass. That cannot be right can it? And we are charged more for that milk in the shops!!

Our children sometimes object to eating this food but this lifestyle must be an experience they will remember. It certainly teaches them a thing or two - how food is produced and the process of reproduction is something they are clear about! They also get a lot of pleasure from the animals and appreciate them.

These are some of the reasons we do this animal keeping but who knows I may become a vegetarian yet - don't tell my husband!

Work and Play

Another long gap between postings. I am enjoying my new job but it does take up my time! On those days I am working I get up by 5.30 am that I can get the field jobs done by 7.00 and have time to get ready for work. It is nice being up the field that early, so peaceful. I love it. This does mean I have to get to bed early on the nights before. I like that too! I have never been a late night person anyway so now I have the perfect excuse to get to bed early.

In some spare time I have had I have been reading this and really enjoying it too. A second world war version of a blog!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/reader/184668000X/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link

I have done some more work on the garden - not enough to show yet though. I have also started knitting some Christmas presents!!! It is a complicated pattern I haven't attempted before so will take me a while. I'll show later.

Two of our pigs have gone to the abattoir. They were a good size, 92kg and 79kg of meat. Some of this will go to family as we couldn't eat all that! I was not sorry to see them go. 4 large pigs are not as much fun as 2. The 2 girls we have left will grow on for ham and bacon.

As it was Father's Day on Sunday we decided to go fishing again. My son brought a couple of friends but unfortunately there was only one tiddler caught. It was good fun though. Look at the other families that were there!

Flowers and worries

We've been having some lovely weather the last few days. My hanging basket's up. I hope it fills out as good as last year. I can already detect the faint smell of petunia as I go through my front door.I took these pictures from my bedroom window today. The arrow points to our field. I keep a pair of binoculars on this windowsill and so I can have a good look at the goings on whenever I want to.

Here is a zoomed version of what I can see.

Poor Diesel is feeling sorry for himself this evening. Today he has been castrated. We were going to leave him intact but Rosie has been in season this week and last and we have been driven mad trying to keep them apart so he's had to pay the price for his youth and enthusiasm! I'm sure he will be happier in the long run.

While I was at the vet I picked up our Blue Tongue vaccines. This disease is becoming a real threat so we will vaccinate the cows, the goats and the sheep. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7008901.stm Now that worry is soon to be under control we have another to take its place - a new bird flu outbreak in Oxfordshire! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7435760.stm