Monday 27 July 2015

New to Ewe & Harvest Monday

Shetland Tup
Just For Ewe

Our handsome tup has arrived!

We picked him up yesterday. We met a wonderful lady, called Sue, who was a fountain of knowledge when it comes to Shetlands, and sheep in general. We learned an awful lot sitting in her kitchen, drinking tea, our children slowly trashing her house.

It sounds corny but I think that sitting talking to someone is a better way of learning than anything that a book or whatever can teach you. You can stop people and say, "what do you mean by that?" or "Explain that again, please." I certainly hope that our Lamb Lady doesn't mind that I might be contacting her regularly with a whole variety of questions as we progress through our first year of shepherding!

We are keeping our boy separate from the girls for now, but near them so he's not lonely. And so far the introductions have gone well. He's a born and bred hill sheep so smallholding life has given him a serious case of the bug-eyes!

"What's this!?"

"What's that?!"

"Where is this?!"

He is joining the goat in her newly created goat paddock, hopefully if it can contain our escape artist goat it can hold this yearling dude. Introductions between goat and sheep where very brief and dignified. I think that an understanding has already been established. He showed off his horns, she replied with "I may no longer have horns but I have stumps and I'm not afraid to use them. And I'm bigger than you." So they both lifted their heads, gave a wink and moved on. That's been it, Mindi is very uninterested in him.

Shetland Sheep
Meeting the Ladies

Our ladies were much more interested in meeting the stud next door. Even if he does chat a lot. They came scooting up the field when I appeared, saw him, ran away! then quickly came back to sniff the new neighbour. Once he realised none of these sheep were sheep he recognised he wandered away, but he came back shortly, realising he had to take what he could get.

I am checking on him at intervals to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid but at the moment I am edging towards positivity that all will go well. It's actually quite scary, worrying that something will go wrong; he'll get in with them or he'll run away! I guess learning anything new is worrying but when it involves living things, that you are responsible for, it kind of ups the anti a bit!

Today is also Monday so that means it's harvest time! The weather today can only be described as stinkin'! It has been raining all day without letting up. But me and the bigger little one headed out and managed to gather these beauties.

Harvest
Broad Beans and Courgettes

A huge amount of Broad beans. The beans at this end of the basket come from my daughter's single plant in her little square foot garden that she has been working on.

Two decent sized courgettes. I've a mind to try a courgette cake or loaf with these!

I think the potatoes will be significant when the time comes and there should be good stocks of onions as well. Just wish we'd get some decent weather to help these poor plants along.

This is my entry in Harvest Monday's hosted by Daphne's Dandelions!

Want to see more harvests? Got bumper beans? A lotta lettuce? Or pots of potatoes? Then head over to Daphne's and add your name to the list and then check out the other harvests!

 

5 comments:

  1. Hi, I am playing a bit of catch up and lovely to see a post from you...quite a shock though to read of your children helping you harvest and having there own little section...boy how time flies!!! Glad introductions went well with the sheep!!

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  2. When I lived on a farm my neighbor had goats, and they were quite the escape artists. But then their horse and guineas also ran loose all the time, so I think they didn't exactly do a good job on fencing!

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  3. Well he certainly looks handsome. Good luck keeping your goat where she belongs.

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  4. Awww...what a cutie he is! I completely agree with you when it comes to learning something new - I adore books, but nothing beats talking with another enthusiast directly (or blogging is good too!). I have learned more from the wonderful bloggers out there in the past couple of years than I ever could have from a how-to book or internet site.

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  5. So nice that your kids (not the goat kind) get their own gardens to play with - such a great learning experience and hopefully they will develop a fondness for it!

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