We gave each of the lambs and the big ol’ ram their 1ml shots today - the ewes will get theirs tomorrow (from the unopened bottle in the fridge).

The vaccines have come just too late to allow us take a couple of our ram lambs to the Oswestry Show this weekend - can’t move them out of the zone for 60 days. Maybe next year for showing as shearlings. Then again - at least they are protected now.

It didn’t take much persuasion - our friends knew someone who breeds Gloucester Old Spots, so we did a bit of fencing to the old chicken run area at their place. Our friend (with us acting as chippies/roofers mates) constructed a palatial pig ark out of old tin roofing and some spare timber- and a few days later the piglets arrived.

The pigs have been making themselves at home in a hurdled off area for the past few days (they seem to have doubled in size in a week), so today we strained some barbed wire around the bottom of pig paddock fence and let them loose.

The plan is that in six months, we both get ample bacon/pork/sausages/hams - and our friends get a newly rotovated vegetable garden ready for next spring.

This time he ran in from the left and confronted me - then launched a direct assault. He caught me square on the kneecap - I managed to get a boot in and he scarpered. I didn’t think much of it, until later.

By mid-afternoon, my knee was starting to ache, and by the evening it was stiff and painful - it had swollen to resemble a cricketball in colour and shape…with a small puncture wound at the centre. I started to consider that perhaps the cockerel was working for the Bulgarian secret service - a’la Georgi Markov.

Twenty-four hours after the unprovoked attacked, I am now pretty much immobile - can’t really walk or drive. The doctor confirmed a case of septic prepatellar bursitis….or infected housemaids knee. The treatment will consist of painkillers, strong antibiotics and some freshly-made chicken soup (once I am mobile enough to catch me a cockerel for the pot).

The official advice from the man from the ministry (DEFRA) on flystrike prevention is to:

• Dag to reduce soiling and/or remove dirty wool around the breech (yep - no dagging needed, nice clean behinds)
• Reduce the incidence of soiling by avoiding nutritional upsets causing scouring and
  having a sound worm control strategy (check - no scoury lambs, nice pea-sized firm black droppings)
• Tail sheep (we tailed all our lambs in the first few days)
• Avoid breeding from sheep that are habitually struck and/or tend to soil themselves
  due to their conformation (hmmm - tricky to say as all our ewes were new to us, but no obvious soiling issues)
• Dispose of carcases quickly (I didn’t notice any carcases in the locality)
• Reduce the incidence of footrot (Footrot free this year, so far!)

We used Crovect on the entire flock five weeks ago, and knew that they needed a fresh treatment this week - but the flies got there first. Since finding the outbreak on Monday we have clipped back with handshears and treated the infected areas with Crovect, but it wasn’t stopping new infestations appearing

Andy came over this evening and sheared them back with his electric shears and Kate treated them again - this time there is no hiding place for a single maggot.

On Andy’s advice we are going to change our prevention strategy to Dysect on the breeding ewes and rams (including lambs we are keeping) and Vetrazin on any lambs going to slaughter. He has been using this method for 15 years and has minimised flystrike. The problem he has with Crovect is that it is only effective where the spray hits…Vetrazine moves through the wool, while Dysect enters the blood/skin - both giving wider protection. One note - Vetrazine can’t be used as a treatment once infestation occurs.

In the end, we followed a ‘best practice’ course of prevention and treatment - but the lifecycle of a blowfly is such that one adult can lay 250 eggs which will be maggots in 24 hours. The ewe lambs are on the mend - and a dose of Dysect tomorrow should keep them free from strike for a couple of months - even if they do look a little odd with sheared backsides.

The new potatos are at their supreme best at the moment - sweet, waxy and slightly earthy - so a small handful were boiled and quartered.

A small bunch of red spring onions - washed under the hosepipe, and thinly sliced.

Rainbow carrots, grown in deep bins of sand and soil - pulled from the depths, washed and chopped. Left raw as they are still so tender & sweet.

Mixed baby beetroots, tops torn off - rinsed, quickly boiled, and when slightly soft, rubbed to removed the skin. The quartered and thrown in the bowl.

The last of the broad beans, straight out from their pods and blanched for a minute to soften. Each bean still had their green outer coating, no need to peel.

One small cucumber from the greenhouse - peeled, deseeded and diced.

Three fresh eggs - collected from the henhouse and boiled for a few minutes (in with the pasta, then fished out) until the yolks were set but still slightly soft, peeled and quartered.

A decent sized bunch of basil, parsley and mint - finely chopped and added.

Finally, the warm chicken torn into pieces, and the pasta with a good coating of peppery extra virgin olive oil was added to bowl - well seasoned with salt and pepper - and eaten with lettuce (again, from the garden) & bread…and big cold glass of vimto (not the fizzy stuff, the old fashioned type you dilute).

…yum…! Not really a recipe - more of a feast of opportunity.

PS: OK, we didn’t eat the chard in the picture (waiting until it gets a little bit bigger) - but it looks so good I couldn’t resist the photo opportunity.

PPS: Kate did most of the culinary stuff - I just pulled stuff up, etc.

Ok, so what has been happening.

We have increased the size of the Brownlow flock a few months back by purchasing in five new Southdown ewes. They all look like they are in really good nick - decent feet, decent teeth, not too fat or thin. So we are up to a breeding flock of 12 ewes. We also have five ewe lambs and eight ram lambs.

We had a bit of flystrike affecting the ewes back in early May, one poor ewe (Flora) got hit badly - it was a case of not using any prevention (Crovect) in early April, long grass (which greenbottles love to hide in), and not getting them sheared soon enough. Bizarrely, a pour-on of neat Jeyes Fluid over the maggoted invested area and temporary shear sorted her out in the short term. She ended up with a very scabby bald head for few months, but she is now well on the mend with her fleece coming back nicely. She is also on a diet - as we think the fact she was overconditioned caused her to overheat more than the others making her a perfect target for the flys. It’s all learning for next year.

The ewes are all sheared now - Andy and his brother came over and did the business. I may run to doing a shearing course at our local Agri college for £45 and invest in some secondhand shears for next year - with only a small flock it would be handy to be a bit less reliant on others.

Last years ewe purchases (the ones that have survived the winter and lambing) are all looking sound - no foot problems now…compared with last year when they were all limbing, and they have all got down to a decent weight (which also helps with the feet).

The ram lambs have been weaned - and we have moved them away from the ewes, and they are running with another acquisition - a new two-year old Southdown ram. For a number of reasons, we knew that getting hold of a decent tup in the autumn with the right bloodlines could have proved tricky, so we plumbed for purchasing one. He is a docile boy - but we are keeping a close eye on his condition as we don’t want him getting fat - so he is on a small area of pasture kept separate from the ram lambs by electric fence. The ram lambs get the fresh lush grass and the old boy gets the rough grazing.

The ewe lambs are still with their dams at present - but they do need to be weaned at some point…no rush yet, as we may look to lamb a bit later next spring (to allow the grass to come back a bit more for the lactating ewes)

So that is the sheep update…more to follow in the coming days on the business of vegetables, hay, hens, ducks and pigs (yes, pigs!)

In the meantime life outside has been continuing apace, especially as the house has been overtaken by plasters, electricians etc. Inconvienient in a way, but the upside of being unable to do much in the house 9am till 4pm Mon to Fri for 10 weeks, is that the land, fencing, animal housing, greenhouse, water butts, and garden have never looked so well kempt. 

We now have 1 new ram called Jacobs, 5 new ewes, 2 kittens, 3 ducks, 2 new hens + 2 cade texel crosses and a rescued bunny who is now living the high life. The garden is a riot of colourful edible goodies and with 2 sites to manage life is pretty hectic.

Hopefully I’ll manage to take and upload some pics this week and look forward to checking out websites and finding out what everyones been up to.

For the last three weeks we’ve been busy in the greenhouse propagating seeds, ready to fill our new raised beds, the first two weeks were frustrating with nothing showing it’s head, but this week even with a few days of hail and snow, our little unheated glasshouse stayed toasty, so much so that almost overnight trays full of seedlings appeared. Artichokes, tomatoes, courgettes, cucumbers, peppers, lettuce, leeks, sprouts, and herbs

I don’t know about anyone else, but for me there’s nothing more relaxing than being in a nice warm greenhouse, rain pouring down outside, with a nice cup of tea, a deckchair and veg book to hand, contemplating the next packet of seeds.

With the local village plant sale next month, I have become increasingly aware that there are many more bustling greenhouses in our village than had previously occurred to me, several of which I have visited in an attempt to pick up tips or just goggle at the array of vegetables and flowers being grown, I had always been led to believe that gardeners held their secrets of success close to their chest, but around here they seem positively bursting to share tips.

Plant your garlic in December, Onions in January, use vermiculite to prevent damping off, use old loo rolls as seed pots on a layer of newspaper, plant celeriac in peat pots with a 50/50 mix of vermiculite and soil topped with a thin layer of vermiculite, thin out and plant pot directly in soil (I am definitely trying this one). Plant carrots in drainpipes, plant tomatoes in old buckets or tins rather than grow bags as retain moisture better, parsnips like sand, use nets for supporting pumpkins, the list goes on.

We looked around further and got some advice - and found a local company ‘Dairy Spares’ who are the approved UK supplier of the MilkBar ™ feeder from New Zealand (trust NZ to produce a decent product for lambs). We got it delivered - and started to use it. It cost a bit more - but it is made for the job and comes in shocking pink to boot. The lambs have managed to tear two teats so far in two weeks but they can be replaced fairly easily and for a couple of quid, and as long as you ‘feed & remove’ it seems to be much more sturdy. We bought the three teat size (which seems to be old stock), but they do a 1 teat, 7 teat and 10 teat version - it did cost a bit more than some of the budget versions, but it should last for years.

I know after only a year of shepherding perhaps we shouldn’t be offering advice - but based on trial and error, we reckon the MilkBar™ feeder is probably a decent investment. If you’re looking for a bucket feeder for lambs or kids, we found this one durable, robust and easy to clean.

We started to grow our own vegetables and fruit - with some successes, and some failures. The greenhouse did well - with tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers being harvested all summer. Outside we managed to crop lots of lettuce, leeks and onions. We didn’t have much joy with either the carrots or any brassicas. The former was mainly due to stony soil (this year we have gone for container grown carrots), while the latter were subject to major catapillar attacks. This year we got organised a bit earlier - so we should have more on the go, including new potatoes, parsnips, chillis, and horseradish.

We also got a great crop of fruit of the trees and bushes - apples, plums, gooseberrys, blackberrys and lots of hazelnuts. We also found time to plant up raspberries, blackcurrant and redcurrants.

We got our own hens for the first time - after we had made the neccesary repairs and amendments to the old garden shed. It resulted in more fresh eggs than we could think of ways of cooking. In the depths of winter, the local fox managed to reduce us down to three birds - but we have restocked now, and are back up to a full seven bird production.

We’ve managed to end up with a decent sized flock of pedigree Southdown sheep - we now have eight breeding ewes with thirteen lambs in the Brownlow Flock. We have gone through the whole shepherds year - bottlefeeding, weaning, fattening, slaughter, tupping, lambing…everything apart from shearing (which is coming up shortly). Kate remembered her shepherding skills from 20 years ago. We had to deal with movement restrictions due to FMD and BTV. Despite the weather, we even found time to get 120 bales of hay off the fields which saw the livestock through the winter.

We still have the two resident Shetland ponies - Kaiser and Katie….black lumps of pure muscle that thunder around the fields making the ground shake. Powerful animals despite their size.

And there has been plenty of wildlife - from butterflies, dragonflies, frogs, newts, owls, partridge, redwings, fieldfare, foxes (grrr), to badgers.

There is still plenty we want to do - bring the old well back on line, plumb some proper troughs in, take some ram lambs to the autumn sales (if they are good enough), show some sheep (if they are good enough), a few ducks, access to more grazing, hedgelaying, the list goes on - but today we celebrated with a good meal of our own shoulder of lamb braised in port with carrots and roast potatoes and had a day off (except feeding the lambs and putting the chickens away).