Happy New Year

A’right m’loverr….  and what a Happy New Year!

Wow, what a whirlwind of people coming and people eating and various sheds and births and late nights. ‘Births’ I hear you ask? In january? Yes, I kid you not.  However, lets not get ahead of ourselves, first things first and all….  Having past the twelve days of Christmas (all the decorations are down) I’m now ready to look back on the bustling festivities on the farm. It started with the usual preparations – I’ve been keeping company with Ian’s mum.

We had a feet trim which isn’t particularly enjoyable, not like a pedicure, but it keeps our mountain-designed nails in shape. A Christmas present in disguise I suppose. Then we all came in before Christmas to dry out the ram lambs before they went off. After which, I was put in with my daughter Tuppence, two weeks before Christmas to keep her company as she was in lambing. After all it’s partially my  fault that she’s in lambing so early in the year….

Back in the summer when Nikki went away for a few weeks,  I developed a habit of walking over the next farm along the valley as part of my daily ‘constitutional’. Although I told her not too, Tuppence followed me one day and met a ram. With utter disregard to my opinion of him or the consequences, off they went frolicking. These young ones eeeyy? Just no stopping them.

(Me on the right in the role of grandmother, with Tuppence and the two lambs).

So that is the reason that she’s in lambing months before any off her peers; who will lamb in April when there’s spring grass and warmer weather. Although there are good sides to lambing this early – we got to be inside, feeding on hay and sheep nuts whilst the rest of the flock had to bear some extremely windy days.I think Tuppence will be waiting next year for the rams in November, having learnt her lesson.

But going back to the subject, what a proud moment it was for me when she gave birth on Christmas eve. Just think, a birth in a stable, how very fitting. Tuppence lambed on her own (I was a backseat midwife) to bear two beautiful lambs, one ewe and one ram.

Following tradition of only naming ewes, Nikki’s granddaughter Cerys has named the ewe lamb Twinkle. Quite befitting with Christmas tales of stars…

                          (Guinea Fowl Roosting with their adopted mother hen)

Well that’s the main excitement. Otherwise there are the usual shenanigans, the Guinea Fowl keep going walkies onto the road and the dogs follow them. Idiots. Don’t they know about cars? I suppose that’s what happens when you are brought up by a hen. They’re not the only silly ones about. The rams got out of their paddock yesterday (they are kept separate from ewes apart from the 6 weeks in November). They had to be brought home by two nice young chaps.

That’s about all the animal excitement we’ve had around these parts. There are still roses in the garden and the first snowdrops have come up. Spring is on its way. So is my bedtime, so I’m off. Ta and goodnight.

The Old Girl

Hello world!

Hello

So for those of you who’ve not ‘cottoned on’ yet, this is a blog about me- Tilly the sheep. Usually I’m simply called ‘the old girl’. I live in the rolling hills of Devon just a little way from Totnes in the Harbourne valley

It’s a sunny winters day in Devon and I’m out in the field watching the herons in the water meadows. I stay out pretty much all year round. That way I can make friends with all the walkers who come past the field.

So far I’ve spent the morning inspecting the pastures, there’s plenty of grass despite the dry summer and we’re even given a bucket of sheep nuts (protein) twice daily and hay ad lib.

As it’s the first post I’ll describe my farm a wee bit. We have lots of chickens, there are 16000 laying nearly an egg each every day. They are free range happy cluckers who I rarely meet. On the other hand, there are a bunch of ducks and rare breed chickens that roam everywhere on the farm who I’ve occasionally made acquaintance with on my excursions (which are mainly to remind the farmers that sheep can in fact undo string and open gates as they forget every now and again).

                       

We (sheep) often share a field with the one and only cow Belinda, ponies, Magic and Misty, and the capricious goats, some of whom are nearly as old as me (20 years old). We don’t mind each other so much. The goats are more fun, as they like to escape like me. Even though they look pretty calm when there’s a camera on them…

 

Tonight I expect I’ll go in to the barn with Ian’s mum as it gets a wee bit chilly down her at night. Ian’s mum is another slightly younger, old girl ewe. I’ve not been a mother myself since 2009. I’ve had two whole years free after seventeen years of motherhood, what bliss.

If you’re wondering how come there’s so many photographs, that because of Nikki. She’s the farmer/photographer behind the camera of the Farmers Calendar . It’s not that unusual to see a naked farmer posing for a month and I have starred in several pictures. I’ll write more on that later, the idea of being naked, with no wool is making me cold.

Cheerio.

The old girl.