Christmas is coming and my time on the smallholding at the moment is limited. Cooking, present buying and last minute fixings ready for a house full seem to have taken over. I still do my morning rounds. The morning is a great time here. I take the kids down to school and then before long I am back here ready to go. Every morning I then head out to the field to check everything over and feed the pigs. The pigs are very expectant of their food and are usually grunting for it as I bike past them on the way back from dropping off the kids. After picking up the food the pigs are always my first port of call. The moment I get in the field they are squeaking and grunting and running around because they are so excited about the arrival of food. They are both getting quite big now and both totally food obsessed. If it hasn't rained for a few days their area is normally fine. However once it does rain the mud just gets thicker and thicker and the standing water rises. They don't seem to mind but it can be hard going across the thick mud with two heavy hungry pigs jostling you to try and get at their food. They usually have cleared an area of dried ground to feed them on by having a good root around with their noses. Once the pigs are fed and have had a scratch behind the ears I usually go and check the polytunnel. At the moment not a lot is going on in their. Some greens are ready but not really growing so they can be picked as and when required. Other plants are small but will have a massive headstart on anything else in the spring so when other veg are simply seedlings these will be ready to eat. So I just pop my head in. If it's cold all of the plants are under fleece. If not then I move it out of the way so they can get more light.

The sheep are usually next. I sometimes feed them and sometimes not. They have plenty of grass so it's only to keep them tame and to check them over. The ram we have at the moment is very greedy and so the rest of the sheep find it hard to get much of the food. He is much tamer than the others and is happy to have a stroke. The others are a little more wary. They will come really close but aren't keen on being touched. They like it even less when I have to catch them to check them or remove the large sticks and twigs that they regularly get stuck in their wool.

It's then just a quick hello to the chickens who I feed and let out when I first get up, and a quick check on the couple of veg that are growing. There is often a few extras like topping up the bird food, but all in all it makes rather a nice start to the day, and makes me feel ready for a nice cup of coffee.

The plan fell apart the other morning when I was short of time as I was trying to get to the doctor, the turkey was delivered and I had to get the fridge in the out house working (no door on and no plug). I got that working dashed some food in for the pigs and got in the car quick. Unfortunately in my haste the gate got left open so the sheep could get into the veg area. I think the Strawberries will survive but most of their large leaves seem to have been munched.

Last minute extra note "Speckled Star" (favorite old chicken) is very ill. Think she'll need to go in the morning, poor girl. Wonder who'll get that job?

Visiting Ram

We now have the services of a Ram (or Tup) servicing our Ewes. That should mean if all goes to plan that the Ewes will be tupped and ready to lamb next April or May. The sheep have managed to eat and trample all of the grass in their enclosure (I am not sure all the wet weather helped). So we have moved them in with the chickens. They are quite funny together. I have seen a couple of chickens give a sheep a peck to get it to move out of the way (this technique does seem to work). The sheep have realised that the chicken house contains straw which is edible. To start with this involved nibbling at entrance ways to get at it. Yesterday morning the sheep let the chickens out first thing by opening their door in an effort to get at the straw. This morning all was well when I let the chickens out, however they had nibbled all the straw they could reach in the hen house. So while we had breakfast they took another approach which was to completely demolish one wall of the chicken house! I found all the slats removed and a leg of the house broken. Once the sheep had broken in I don't think they were that keen on the straw due to all the chicken poo on it. I was trying to get up a fence in the main field so we can get the sheep out of the chicken run, however I ended up spending a good while fixing the chicken house instead. However I did manage to get some fencing done and in the next couple of days we should hopefully be able to let the sheep out into the main field.

Tractor loaded up and ready to help with fencing

I seem to have forgotten already what happened last week, I really ought to update my blog more often. At the weekend the kids and I left Zoe dog sitting and went down to the RSSKL Advent fair. It was great to catch up with lots of people. I spent the whole day chatting and drinking coffee. On Sunday Mark visited (a University Friend) and he helped us with the animals. We clipped the chickens wings. Zoe had helpfully made a corral to chase them into. This saved the usual procedure of chasing them round in circles around the chicken house and never catching them. Steve then kindly delivered the Tup. We then had to get all of the sheep into the other field. Zoe decided we should make a corridor of palettes to guide them from one field to the next. I was somewhat sceptical that the flimsy fence would keep them in. However it worked well and the sheep happily just followed the food bucket where ever it went.

Hopefully the sheep will stop destroying the chicken house and will be out enjoying the long grass in the field very soon. 

We are now managing to have salad from the polytunnel several times a week, as well as a having some servings of Kale. Hardly self sufficiency but it's a start.