Sheep steep learing curve

We also now have our own sheep, all six of them. They are called Welsh Mountain Badger Faced Sheep, and are now a year old. They were very wild when we first got them, but have got a little more friendly over the winter, mainly assisted by bribes of sheep feed.Learning to handle the sheep has been great fun most of the time,and a little frustrating some of the time. It is a bit better now they will follow a food bucket. We usually catch them all, and put them through a foot bath ( with formalin in it ) once a fortnight. They seem to be prone to foot rot so need their feet looked at often, and trimmed. Luckily the vet is happy to give me any medication they need to be injected, so I can do it myself. I have had to learn a bit about withdrawal periods (when they first mentioned this i though the vet was talking about family planning for the sheep, and I was busy trying to explain that we have no ram ..... but have since learnt that this is the time period that you cannot send the sheep for slaughter after you have administered any medication. Each medication has its specific withdrawal period. ) Well at least I gave the vet practise a good laugh.

I found it quite amazing that I can buy a 25litre canister of formalin over the counter at the local farmers co op, no questions asked,and yet, when I wanted to buy tick and flea drops to put on the cats, I all but had to produce my passport. Oh well , guess we just have to do what Defra says

Fresh local porduce (we hope )

I have managed to get permission to sell excess fruit, veg and eggs from the farm gate, now I just need to get the stuff to grow. I have loads of seeds in the conservatory already, including runner and broad beans, tomatoes, leeks, lettuce, peppers, rocket, radishes, and some other stuff as well. The polytunnel  is cleaned, manured, and turned and we are ready to go, as soon as the weather gets a little warmer. Hope to have some stuff in there by the end of March. The other problem we will have is keeping the chickens out, as they are very keen to assist with any gardening being done.

The chickens have been wonderful fun, and have hardly slowed down egg production over the winter. We are getting  between 18 and 20 eggs a week, which I am currently selling at £1/ ½ dozen. It was rather embarrassing the other day, David wanted something small from the hardware store, and they are not keen to take a card for anything under £5. We didn’t have any cash between us, so he had to borrow  £5 from the chickens money box. They are saving their money for a new sister or two.Idid make David write them an IOU . I did not tell David they can’t read yet. We moved the chicken arc under the cover of the open barn, so they are dry, and they are still free range, roaming around the garden, part of the fields and the neighbours garden. Typical, they have 5 acres to roam around in, but they have to go next door. So far we haven’t seen the fox, though we do know there is at least one that roams around the fields at night.

Can He Build it ? Yes he can

David has been renovating the cottage inside, a huge job, as this part of the house was built in 1850, has 2 foot thick walls, has sloping ceilings, nothing square ( walls or floorboards or ceiling) and had no concealed  electrics, all the cables ran along  the wall. He has been working in the upstairs area, which was 2 bedrooms with a pretty awful bathroom. The plan was to turn the rooms into two bedrooms en suite, with proper electrics and plumbing. Rather stupidly I thought that we could do one room then the other, but in reality they both had to be done together, as all the internal walls needed to be removed so the rooms could be reshaped from 3 rooms into 2.

This meant that all the furniture that was upstairs had to be stored in the dining room down stairs and apart from the linen cupboard in the bathroom we had no cupboards at all. Any way, we are now four months into the project, have been covered in dust for the whole of this time. A s always David has done a superb job, with very little help from local workmen. All the walls were ripped out, we had new stud work built for the new walls, the whole of the top floor was rewired, replastered, and David has built two super bathrooms en suite, each with a huge walk in shower, and heated towel rails. He has also had to re route ( or actually implement proper plumbing, drilling 4inch holes through the 2 foot thick walls to put all the pipes through. The previous bathroom had one of those macerator sort toilet thingies, that make a huge noise, get blocked easily and are generally a smelly nightmare. We have also had to put in soundproofing, as the floorboard upstairs is the ceiling downstairs and you could hear each and every sound, wither you wanted to or not. So some very heavy rubber matting was put down and then an acoustic  underlay before having the carpet fitted. This has all made a huge difference , thank heavens. W e are now on the home run, have had  a couple of small wardrobes built in,and are just waiting for another bed to be delivered. Next job for me is to work out what I am going to do about the covering for the windows, think they might have to have blinds set into the recesses. Also looking for some art work for the walls, would like to use a local artist who does some beautiful  pastels of local scenes. W e were looking at some of her prints at a local fair the other day, and also saw that she had done a lovely one of a blacksmith at work, which we might get for the dining room. The name of the house Llaingof, roughly translates to the blacksmith along the side of the road.

We are trying to get permission to use these two bedrooms as bed and breakfast accommodation, but the council seems to be unwilling/ unable to provide us with exactly what standards we need to meet. They have come up with such ideas like submit your plan and and then we will let you know what you might need to do. Hope to get the plans in this week, don’t like to ask David to do those drawings as well along with all the other stuff he is busy with.

Whats up with winter

. I just do not know where the days and the winter have gone. I hope you have had reasonable mild weather like we have. We have only had a couple of days of snow, and maybe 10 occasional days with temperatures below zero, so really nothing to complain about. The winter has also not been very wet so guess we have been lucky.

Christmas was rather quiet. W e knew we would not be able to be with all the family ( we usually have a full house on Christmas day ), so it was a very different day for us. Mark and his girlfriend Anna came to stay on Xmas Eve, had breakfast with us and then went on to her family in Birmingham. It was lovely to see them, and we managed to have a walk around the fields in our silly Santa hats.

So Christmas day was rather quiet, but on the positive side we just ate leftovers and had Christmas pudding.

Michelle and her boyfriend ( confusingly also called Mark ) had Christmas with his family, and then came and had a few days  with us in January.

Then I went off to visit Mum and Dad and had Christmas number 3, so that’s enough Xmas for now.

New Year in Wales was rather different as well. When we lived in Southampton  we could watch the fireworks over the docks, from the decking outside the lounge.