The calm
It’s been a long old time since I last wrote. There are now 64. 15 in lamb as I type, 25 wethers mostly consisting of the Icelandics with a few Icelandic x Shetlands, 6 new Gotland ewes, the original Shetlands and then the ‘commercial’ flock.
The rain fell a lot, and now we have finally had some beautiful sunshine, the fields have dried up considerably, the grass is growing and most of the bad feet are back to normal. I so enjoy doing feet I think I’d to be a pro foot trimmer.
We lost Mrs Keith this time last year. I was heartbroken. She was carrying triplets but prolapsed so badly nothing could be done. Our vet Jo came out to put her to sleep and Proper Shepherd very kindly came and took her away. There’ll never be one quite like her.
Log splitting assistant Mrs Keith
Gotland backsides
Tiny, Marylin and HP all had twins. The Icelandic’s we bought in lamb had been previously scanned as singles but we ended up with two sets of twins and a set of triplets. One lamb sadly died but the other six are great additions to the fibre flock.
HP and her Valais x twins. If their fleeces come of nicely at shearing time they might make beautiful rugs. The jury is out at the mo!
Stevie, terrible pink eye, hence the name is one of the Icelandic lambs. He came out with great horn buds and now has a fine pair of horns
We got some pets which have grown on nicely. They’re super friendly, annoyingly so sometimes and super curious. They do a lot of running and jumping and brighten up any gloomy morning.
Part of the motley crew of pet lambs
Gary tying hurdles on to the gates so Goofy & Daffy, who were found wandering around one of our neighbours gardens, can’t escape any longer. Goofy’s mum had one enormous teet so we milked her and took Goofy off her so she became a pet and Daffys mum hated her, so these two are now very bad partners in crime!
Amanda Lockhart came to photograph shearing. We spent a perfect sunny evening, Proper Shepherd putting us all to shame doing the hard work. Check out Amanda’s Instagram page, her photos are beautiful.
Proper Shepherd shearing Chopper @amanda_lockhart_photography
Victoria commenting on how soft Teds coat is, he’s only a part time sheepdog! @amanda_lockhart_photography
The lambs grew up over the summer, Gary bought a tractor, we collected 20 fleeces from Rebecca’s beautiful Forever Flock to add to our fleeces and set to work making rugs, bench runners, benches, boot jacks and coat hooks for the Riverbarn Summer Fair and Fonthill House Garden Opening.
Magpie vetting Gary’s window cleaning! She never really grows…
The shed was full again.
Pony, Little Bear and One Nuts finished fleeces drying in the sun
The fleeces and wood go so beautifully together we’ve now joined forces and become Flock & Furnish which we’ll get going with over the summer months. Website incoming when I get my head down and get on with it.
We were lucky enough to host Salisbury Young Farmers in June. I was SO nervous, I kept saying ‘I’m sure only a few people will turn up’ trying to convince myself no one would come but the cars kept on coming and I could feel myself becoming more and more terrified at having to speak to people on a subject I always feel I know nothing about. Imposter Syndrome at its best. It was a lovely evening and a total joy to have them all with us, to show them the flock and how the rugs are created. We managed to squeeze about 20 people into my postage stamp sized workshop too!
Salisbury Young Farmer
Salisbury Young Farmers
Proper Shepherd came to shear all the ewes, some of the fleeces went to a friend who knits and has a gang of knitting friends (a ‘cozy’ apparently). She arrived one day armed with a knitted brown and white beanie which I love wearing.
The Riverbarn Summer Fair.
A few bootjacks and a gorgeous bench Gary made.
I’m super grateful that my rugs are on display thanks to John at SJH Carpets in Tisbury. There’s a good footfall in the High Street and its only a few miles from where I make them. And the girls in the shop are fab!
With full time jobs, lambing can seem to go on and on however few ewes we have, so in October we used CIDRs. This enables us to synchronise breeding and therefore lambing. We’re then there all the time if anything goes wrong. Like a proper shepherd! Victoria came to show me what to do and after a consistent stream of innuendos it was over. 12 days later we sent 10 Icelandic and Shetland ewes over to Ana’s ram Moss who is hunk of an Icelandic ram. I can’t wait to see what the ewes produce. We scanned in February and have a mix of triplets, twins and a single. We had five go to a crossbreed ram. We’ll see what those produce in a few weeks.
I took my Dad to Devon to see Rob Hawkins who worked on the farm when we were children. He and his wife Anne moved to Devon but Dad and Rob hadn’t seen each other for some years. Anne gave me this photo and I can only think that the photo is really of the machinery and we were just in the way!
Me, Tyra, Kestrel and my long suffering brother Will on our parents farm in 1978. He’s so zen and I’m an so wired, I was probably quite an annoying little sister. He’ll say I still am!
Sometimes we forget to leave where we live as everything we need is right here but sometimes you need the wind in your hair and the tang of salt in the air.
Lovely sunny days over Christmas
I take so many photos so last year I had some calendars printed off and they actually sold!
A rare photo of the two of us, and sitting down too! Rosemary, who took the photo is one of our favourites. Her cottage is stunning and she is an avid gardener and you can’t help peer over the wall and see what she’s been propagating. If she’s there she will always have a natter. She has been watching the ewes from her garden these past few weeks enjoying them relaxing in the field in front of her garden.
There was an abundance of stunning sunrises over Christmas. The dogs and I went on lots of walks around the lake at Fonthill. This field will be bursting with Fonthill lambs come the middle of April.
Quite a few days started like this too - a hugely satisfying job.
There are forty or so Red Poll cattle in the field at the bottom of our garden. We’ve had one in the garden already. Our neighbour had 7 last week where they’d pushed the gate open. This fence may not stand the test of time…
Sooty and Orla, two of our pure Icelandic’s enjoying some hay during a cold snap
I helped Proper Shepherd on scanning day. I took a flask of herbal tea that tasted of dishwasher tablets, a bottle of water and an apple. I was under instruction to tell Victoria how many lambs one of her ewes, Quail was having. I picked her out of the crowd and PS piped up and said ‘she’s be even happier if you had an apple!’ so there went my only source of food for day! And she scanned with twins.
I took this on one of the Christmas walks. Scout has been my constant companion these past 11 years. I will be heartbroken when she’s no longer with me but for now we still enjoy long walks even if getting up afterwards takes a little longer.
Mole Valley Farmers ran a lambing competition. If you spent fifty quid on supplies you'd be entered in. I won. A hay rack, super useful, I was thrilled as you can see from the photo, ha!
Urgh, the rain. This is Daffys fleece which looks mouldy and some along her spine just peeled off and you can see the re-growth underneath. This will only be good for a rug with a hole in the middle!!
We left home again much to Scouts surprise when we opened the back up to show her the sea!
Dear old Hosanna. Due triplets this year, She’s one of the OGs. I’m so looking forward to seeing who has what and keeping everything crossed that we don’t have too many problems.
Ted and I went to school a couple of weeks ago. I can’t get Ted off the sheep until he is tired enough to listen to a stop. Jed Watson showed me how to show Ted who is boss and he now comes back to me which makes for a far less stressful end to a gather. He did however run off to the sheep this evening whilst on a walk so I now need to work on that!
More stunning starts. I wrote on Instagram the other day that if I didn’t enjoy lambing so much I would just have this gang here. All the boys together. They are so chilled, they are easy to gather, they’re lovely to work with Ted and they smell good!
Two of last years wethers, Stevie and his sidekick who is yet to be named.
Lambing begins on March 29th. Tiny looked like she was going to lamb at the weekend but thankfully didn’t, she seems to be back to normal now but we are keeping a close eye on her and everyone else. We’re keeping everything crossed.
