Dun February

I always used to call it Februaryitis.  Everything is grey; the brown soil is grey, the green grass is grey, the sky of course is nothing but grey.  So depressing.  Winter has gone on too long already.  No doubt, climate change has ensured that things move faster and winter lasts less long - doesn't feel like it!

The sea of hay in the middle distance was once a crisp, tidy, plastic-protected cube of 330 bales.  The sheep crept under the plastic and ate the lower bales - the gales arrived - the plastic blew off.  After tying the plastic back down four times, we gave up, and the sheep have the pleasure of climbing all over their dinner.  It does at least save me the chore of barrowing two bales a day from the barn out to the hay rack. 
You can see the mud that 41 sheep and one shepherd have churned up.

The horses have done even better.  The camera has exaggerated - nonetheless, here is Hope at her pink bucket, her hay heap beyond.  She and Bob are so fed up with this.  They have been very good really, but the 8-weekly visit of the farrier to trim their hooves in the barn is getting more and more of a trial of strength as they "arm-wrestle" to get some attention and activity more exciting than their field (bare grey grass) and their feeding-lot (grey mud).
Hope will have to move on.  The farm isn't big enough for two full-size horses, and she will take more work to bring into full activity than we expected (this is me and her owner, Jane, my most useful friend!).  Bob will stay and, as a loving and willing but wholly untrained 3-year-old, take all the attention we can give him.

It hasn't been a bad winter, all in all, but as ever, I'll be glad when it's over.  The snowdrops are fresh and clear and sweet as ever.  The veg garden is in the middle of its biggest re-design for nearly 20 years - lots to get the teeth into!  Mine certainly - yours, I hope.  There's always hope.

Bob Hope comes to Little Mill Farm

This is Hope.

She is a rescued brood mare, nine years old, sweet-natured but needing a lot of feeding up and a lot of human attention, which she's not used to.  She is broken to ride and drive, which is a good start!

                                                                        
And this is Bob.  He is off the mountain, a two-year-old colt who is to be broken the Horse-Whisperer way.  Already you can lean on his back and he doesn't even look to see what's happening.  He is absurdly friendly, but prefers carrots to apples.

He was named by us before we found Hope - who had her name already.

;

And here they are ignoring each other.  Bob had been here about five hours, Hope sulked and refused all attention except apple, but they will settle down together very well.  Hope's coat is now shining much more than when she arrived two weeks ago.  The grass is good down here.

Fortunately for me, my friend Jane, who helps with the sheep and the washing up, is very experienced with horses.  She gets to keep a couple of horses with free feed and housing, and I get to learn harness work.  I want them to pull beams to crush bracken; to pull a sledge or cart with firewood, muck, hay, straw, etc; and, maybe, turn the drying hay slowly and gently to preserve the precious herbal leaves.  All those jobs can be better done by horse-power than tractor-power, especially in a wet winter.

Next spring - the new geese pair take to the Road - Bing and Dorothy   . . . . .

More hay pix

It's hot work - but it really is as idyllic as it looks.  And the satisfaction with a crop like that!  Wow.

It's that time of year again

Hay!
Wonderful stuff.
There are three fields to make this year, and it's a lovely thick crop after the mild wet winter and hot summer.  The sheep are a bit pinched for grazing in this heat, but I have to look ahead to the winter too.

This year, as last, Nick from Monmouth is making it for me.  He did time at an agricultural college, worked on a farm for years, still misses it.  Even so, I have to pay him!  So half the crop of bales will be stacked in one of the fields, under a tarpaulin, until I can find buyers for it.  I can advertise it as "lighter bales very suitable for ladies" - because that's how I need them to be.

After my "winter horribilis" I still haven't got round to buying in any pigs, and the veg garden is sparsely planted this summer, but I have had a brilliant idea - of moving most of the veg growing back down behind the house (the proper permaculture place for it) where it's more easily available for short spells of work or picking.  The poplar windbreak has got so overgrown that the air behind the house there is often stagnant and laden with spores in a hot summer, which is bad for veg.  One, I will have the poplars severely cut back (thereby providing myself with large quantities of firewood and wood chips for mulch), and two, I will just have to live with that!  This means, too, that I can alternate veg and hens out there, utilizing the hens' fertility - a very good thing.

In this pic you can just about see the faces of two house martins peering out of the nest, awaiting the arrival of the parents with beakfuls of insects.  They are nearly ready to fly.  I am thrilled about this, because they're the first house martins to have fledged in all my 26 summers here.  Twice, a pair has tried, and each time the magpies waited till the eggs hatched and then struck.  This year it was the magpies who got struck; by the jackdaws.  I cheered, I'm afraid (anthropomorphism at work.  But if I provide a lovely soffit for house martins, I don't see why I shouldn't have the result  . . . . .  ).

Where next?

If you have read earlier posts, you will have seen that my mother died last October in her cottage on the farm, after living here for 18 years, and contributing far more than her age - 80s, 90s - might warrant.

A month ago my husband died in his nursing home. We had bought the farm together in 1989, after 10 years of partnership, and ran it together for 14 years as the first registered organic farm in Gwent.  Michael suffered a series of strokes from high blood pressure after the Foot and Mouth outbreak of 2001, lost more and more of his mental capacity, and finally retired to a nursing home in 2009.  I have been effectively running the farm's 30 acres (11 hectares) single-handed since 2004, and expected to be able to go on doing more of the same now as a single woman, but I find that - at any rate to begin with! - it's quite different.

I am struggling with the responsibility and all the work involved.  No doubt many wwoofers will be a little put off by this.  But, if you aren't, I need strong arms and minds more than ever before!  I believe I am as sociable and talkative as before - but am finding it difficult to cope with the immense business of keeping the place on its feet.  If anyone feels like being a lifebelt - do, please, get in touch!

. . . . . And so spring springs, as ever

There's something about lambs  .....

No.2 ewe, on the left here, gave me some sleepless nights.  For weeks she was globular, with an udder like a football.  But she had just the one lamb, this morning, large and fit, and both are healthy.



 
This not-so-little mite was no.1, born three days ago, and is getting deeply curious about his human carers already.








And here are the first twins.  Their spotty knees are the genetic inheritance from their mum; her breed is mostly Ryeland, a medieval breed based locally, between Hereford, Ross on Wye and Monmouth, and developed to make the most of the local red soil which lacks some minerals.  We've always found they do well here; should I go back to that breed after my trial of primitive Hebridean sheep?  My major problem with the Hebs is their colour - black - impossible to find under a hedge on a dark night.  I hadn't thought of that.

But don't forget the veg garden! It's still claggy and water-bound, but now is time to start sowing - broad beans in the tunnel, and tomatoes, celeriac, chillis, and more in the greenhouse.  The ground would be warming now if it weren't so wet.

Wet

"Wet" doesn't do it justice  . . . . .  In the past 8 weeks the farm has had 500mm (20 inches, in old money) of rain.  To put ir into context, the hot dry year of 2003 gave us a total of 636mm in the whole 12 months. Most years we get around 900mm.

Not much can be done in these conditions!  The higher end of the farm is just very wet - but the bottom is completely sodden from the rain rushing off the lane and through the fields on its way to the stream.  The veg garden is in the middle.  There will be more slugs than soil come spring.  Thank goodness there are no pigs on site right now.

 
Wet sheep.  I've moved them uphill now; their new field will soon be a bog too.






Wet hens.  They spend the day sheltering by the back door.  No wind or rain there, but lots of mess for me to step through.




I'm still hibernating.  Roll on spring!  And the fun of tackling those slugs!  Wwoofers, you will be so welcome!