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| << September 2020 | October 2020 | November 2020 >> |
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1st: Harmony Just love how the rhea all gather under the heat lamps. It's all very ordered and the younger ones always seem to be in the middle.  |
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2nd: Sparrow!! Think it's safe to say she has not gone into a deep decline now she is 'Puppy Home Alone'. Stonefly is, as we guessed she would be, a fabulous best friend to her already!!!  |
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3rd: Little Helper Our little helper as we cleaned out the geese stall!!!  |
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4th: Show Off In recognition of the terrible weather just now, we opened up the top of the old barn to the goats: it's the driest and warmest part of the building and Barrington was so impressed, he gave us a bit of a 'table top' display (otherwise known as showing off)!!  |
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5th: Not great! The weather really has taken its toll on the rhea, we have had a really rough week or so with them and have lost a fair few - we are blaming the weather but it could be other things as well.. basically, we don't know but a lot of the younger ones have become legargic, weak and wobbly and then died!! We have lost a few slighly older ones too. Our losses this season, including the sniffles we had back in August, are now almost 50%.It's has been very disheartening but we are doing all we can to look after those left and continue to enjoy these amazing birds!!  |
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6th: Tucking In! The goats, finding an hour or so when it wasn't raining, to tuck into brambles pulled up/ strimmed from around the greenhouse, (courtesy of Andrew who is valliantly trying to tame our garden).  |
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7th: Meeting Sparrow Sparrow meeting Neptune and the goats!!! She also was introduced to the rest of the alpacas (very interested), sheep (ignored her) and adult rhea (ran away..). We loved taking her round all our fields - even though when we carried her she was a right wriggle monkey.   |
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8th: Like mother, like daughter We adore these two - Muckle and this year's ewe lamb. There is a ram lamb too who is the spitting image of his dad!!  |
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9th: Napoloeona the 3rd All our Crowlitzer girls get called Napoloeona - this is Napoloeona 3rd!! It all dates back to when we raised some one year from poults and kept a 'male' back to be our new 'Napoleon'! Said male was in fact female and the rest, as they say, is history!! Napoloeona 3rd is looking in great condition and her markings are looking especially good this autumn!!  |
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11th: Never tire Slowly walking up the hill for breakfast - elegant, unhurried and beautiful. We never tire of watching our rhea.  |
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12th: Officially winter For the last four years, the start of winter has been signaled by when we have to bring the cows in (2016: 12th Dec; 2017: 22nd Oct: 2018: 26th Nov; 2019: 2nd Nov). We no longer have cows and so this year, winter officially begins when we have to move the poultry feeders and drinkers off the grass and onto the hard standing and mats (before the 'M' word takes hold!!) We have to tell you that here on the Relaxed Smallholding, winter has begun, as today, the mere TWELFTH of October, said drinkers and feeders were duly moved!! It's going to be a long one!  |
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13th: Amazing dad White Toe really knows how to be a great dad - and there are another eight under him!!! We may have had some serious bad luck with deaths in our chicks, but White Toe continues to do his best for those still under his care! This is why we love our rhea (well, one of the many reasons...).  |
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14th: More mums and daughters Another delightful mother and daughter: this time Mrs White, who this year, after seven years of giving us twins, gave us a single ewe lamb. She's a cracker though with a huge thick fleece and markings from both mum and dad. We may well end up keeping her after shearing next summer as we want to keep at least one of Mrs White's offspring, before she herself gets too old to breed. It's the same with Mrs Brown, except she didn't lamb this year for some reason (she looked pregnant and even bagged up but produced nothing). We very much hope she gets into lamb this autumn. She and Mrs White are now ten so are getting to the stage where breeding from them may no longer be viable - we hope we haven't reached it with Mrs B already!!!  |
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15th: Early morning A cracker of a day: almost wall to wall sunshine, no breeze and blue skies that lit up the autumnal colours and shades. This was first thing as the rhea danced their way out of the barn to feast on the early morning offerings. Rhea always look happy and never seem bored. And touch wood, aside from one our youngest white chick who appears to be have virtually severed his right foot from his leg (!!), all are well and we have had no deaths for a week now!!!  |
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16th: FECs Mega chuffed - these are our FEC results from today: Sheep 0, Lambs and Goats 100 epg - eggs per gram (so low) and NO sign of fluke in any of them. Since the cows went in Feb, we have had to reply on just the geese and rhea to help clean up the pastures, they are obviously not doing too bad a job!!! (that and low stocking rates and rotation). This bodes well for lambing and kidding next year as the land hopefully won't be too flooded with worm eggs waiting to hatch in the spring!!!  |
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17th: Spuds!! Digging potatoes.... with a little help!!  |
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18th: Views One of our absolute favourite views... with Yeti's gate and all 20 sheep and alpacas in shot!!  |
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19th: Willow for the goats Today we headed down to the bottom of Oak field (bottom 3 acre) and chopped down the collapsed willow trees in the corner. It looked a bit bare when we had finished and the fence needs some attention but the willow will regrow and, most importantly, we now have masses of food for the goats. The quad totally came into its own as we dragged several branches to the top of goat field, and watched as the goats came out to feast.  |
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20th: Spot the puppy!! Somewhere in there is a puppy who is learning that the whistle means 'come back to me and you may get a treat'!!  |
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21st: Not Guilty Seriously, I have been nowhere near the sheep shelter getting covered in straw and eating poo - look: clean tongue!!!!  |
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22nd: Busy Day A busy day cleaning water troughs, dagging Mistress Muckle and rhea watching - this is Rescue enjoying a thoroughly good preen...  |
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23rd: Autumnal Definitely Autumn now - the bare trees are the Ash. None have been that good this year, not as much coverage and early in dropping their leaves - sadly, we suspect Asb Dieback!  |
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24th: Garden It's Autumn in the garden too - and this year we absolutely must clear out the pond!!   |
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25th: Weaving We are moving forward with our weaving. David is now starting a scarf project on our newly acquired table loom using bought-in wool - we are seeing this as way of seeing how the whole process works whilst we get to grips with processing and spinning our own Rugs and Fibre. Jack's peg loom rug now has five strips of colour - from five out of our six sheep. The cats are already lying on it - a not-so polite way of saying 'hurry up and finish'.  |
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26th: Massive move-around We had a massive move-around today and all because our new ram arrives tomorrow. So the ewes are now in Oak Field eagerly awaiting his arrival; the lambs are in Fruit Field trying, with the help of the alpacas, not to miss their mums; the adult rhea are in Swallow Field (not a patch on Oak so feeling a tad miffed) and the geese are now in the Goat Field, annoyed they can no longer lord it in the poultry area but looking forward to the extra space... and the goats? They are still where they were in Goat Field (where else) and just as content as they were! White Toe and the rhea chicks also haven't moved but we have promised them the run of Fruit Field when the lambs rejoin their mums in 5 weeks... Happy stock and another lovely Autumn day!!  |
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27th: Meet Patch Patch is a Jacob ram lamb who is set to spend the next five weeks with our two Badger Face and four Shetland ewes, the aim being to introduce a different set of fleeces into our spinning and weaving plans. Patch is kind of a dog's name but as we treat most of our animals like dogs, we figured it suited rather well. Previous rams have always been called Mr Brown and it seemed a bit of an insult to call him 'just' Mr Brown!!! Patch was also the name of John Noakes' first Blue Peter dog - Jack was just born when he made his debut!!! Yes she is that old!! 🤣 (but only in body). John Noakes was hers (and plenty of others) favourite BP presenter.. . ... but we digress. HUGE thanks to Lisa V Hutchins for this very handsome boy - our girls are going to be very happy with this year's husband who, after he has done his job, will be booked in for a quick trip to the vet so he can then become our 'forever' boy and each year, add his own fleece to our growing collection.  |
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28th: In the dry It's been vile on the weather front here in North Devon today (and continues tonight).. but consolation is always to be had by sights like this: animals in the dry, in straw-filled barns, basically chilling without a care in the world (and with the obligatory chicken in the background, one of the many who has zero concept of the words: 'this is not your barn, this is the goat barn, get back to the poultry stables where you belong..').  |
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29th: Slotted right in Patch has settled in so well, we now have a very cohesive group of six ewes and a ram. We haven't put a raddle on Patch as the one we have is just a bit too big so this means we won't have precise due dates for lambing next year. Due dates are a bit hit and miss mind you so we are not too worried about that. The other issue is of course we won't see that all the ewes have been covered but our plan is to leave them all together for five weeks (two cycles) and then, in truth, if Patch hasn't covered the girls by then, or if he has and they don't become pregnant, then another 17 day cycle probably won't help. So lambing next year will be full of surprises - hopefully!!  |
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30th: Youngsters Three of our seven young poults, fifteen weeks old and spilt into two cockerels and five hens - great numbers. They are cross breeds from a mixture of eggs but all these have Maran in them by the looks of it. We are hoping the females start laying by Christmas - fingers crossed. They are all quite tame and reasonably happy to be handled and we are looking forward to raising a few different coloured chicks next year now we will have different cockerels in the mix.    |
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31st: Grateful We strawed out the field shelters for both the ewes and the lambs and alpacas today. We also topped up with hay, not that the ewes seem to be etaing much - the grass in Oak Field is obviously proving palatable still. This is Venus' grateful face, whilst Ceres merely looks confused!!!  |