Eggs galore!

 

Our hens normally stop laying from October to January. This year has been different. They stopped laying in November and 2 weeks later they started again. This has left us with a large surplus of eggs. We are thumbing our way through recipe books for ideas on how to use them.

Lambs looking great

 

Our 4 lambs born last year are looking great. Note the orange colouring on their backs, indicating they've been mated by the ram.

First babies of the year

 

A bit earlier than expected but Nettle had three kids this morning - 2 boys and a girl. Kids and mum are doing well.

Mulled wine

 

12 years ago we made a huge amount of red and white wine. We still have lots of it to use up. As we are in the Christmas period, we've been making mulled wine. Very pleasant!

First Christmas trees of the season

 

Christmas Day has now passed but on Boxing Day we took delivery of our first discarded Christmas tree of the season. Clearly someone was in a hurry to get rid of it. Ant and Florence are currently chomping their way through it. Since then a couple more trees have arrived. Great for feeding the goats and heating my house!

Windfall

 

We had a storm recently. A few trees and large branches were brought down in the nearby village.. Unfortunately the Council beat me to a rowan tree that was still covered in berries. Fortunately we found branches just waiting to be collected and fed to the goats. They particularly liked the ash branches.

Late arrivals

 

Ethel, one of our oldest sheep (she's 7) had three lambs last year and she successfully raised all of them. This year, the Texels all lambed in April, all except Ethel. Our conclusion was that she was somewhat exhausted after raising triplets which resulted in her failure to conceive. Last week, we rounded up all the sheep and while checking them we spotted that Ethel was enormous and her udders had bagged up. Not only was she pregnant, she was very pregnant.

Sure enough, this morning to gave birth to a boy and a girl. The lambs are a good size and all are doing well.