Smallholding - because it's worth it

Today was everything that smallholding should be.
It started with Sue letting the poultry out and doing the morning feed while I finished off some rather rustic protection for my broad bean bed. I wanted to finish this before the escape committee got into the veg beds and scratched up all the Poached Egg seedlings I planted last night to look after the broad beans.

We started early, for the plasterers were due to arrive at 8.30am. We need some remedial work doing in two downstairs rooms, so we shall be spending the next few days in improvised living quarters squeezed between all the furniture which now fills one end of the kitchen and the conservatory (aka the potting shed).

The dogs are quite happy with the new living arrangements

We have been trying to arrange to have this work done for well over a year and have come to the conclusion that plasterers easily beat estate agents. lawyers and even politicians in the charlatan stakes! Not the one we are using I hasten to add. So it will be a great relief to finally get this work done.

Once it is all finished we will be repainting and turning one of the rooms from a bedroom into a communal room for our next exciting plan, hosting volunteers on the smallholding.

We have our first volunteer coming to stay at the end of this month and it now all seems very real.

With the plasterers set to their work, it was back into the garden where I was preparing the bed for some pea seedlings  to grow. Meanwhile Sue was busy with the new chipper shredder which I finally got round to using at the back end of last week (I am scared of power machinery and it often sits quite a while before I pluck up the courage to use it).

Sue was so enthusiastic about this new machine that she totally didn't notice the arrival of our next guests.

And so to our second appointment of the day with the caravan man. We bought a caravan off Facebook a while back in preparation for this venture to give the volunteers a space of their own but had not really worked out all the practicalities of actually using the caravan. But it was all good news. Solar energy won't be a problem, we can use a big gas bottle to power most of the appliances and the caravan man was quite impressed with the caravan.
Not only this, but he is going to look out for a second caravan for us. We don't do things by halves.

It wasn't yet midday but the weather somewhat reflected our day so far - a very foggy start had turned into a gloriously sunny day. All five bee hives came out to make the most of it too.

Sue and I busied ourselves on the smallholding until Sue decided to go into town to stock up for visitors coming later in the week. That plus the fact that the plasterers were getting through quite a lot of coffees and we needed more milk! (We don't yet have a cow)

But Sue's shopping trip was cut short.

I picked some old cabbages and took them down to the ram paddock - the six boys are being very laddish at the moment, full of the joys of spring. They spend most of their time chasing and leaping and butting.


But it was the ewes which caught my attention. One was lying by the hay feeder looking decidedly close to labour, but then I looked at the other of the fat girls to see her water bag hanging out the back. Lambing was upon us!
I don't want to boast, but this was perfect planning. We try to introduce the ram so that lambing happens during our Easter holiday and this was just about perfect timing.

I called Sue to come back in case assistance was required, but ten minutes later I was WhatsApping her a photo of the newborn lamb.
I would have put my life's savings on this ewe having twins but I was wrong. Instead it was one very sturdy ewe lamb.

All the other sheep came over to introduce themselves, but it was the other heavily laden ewe's behaviour which was interesting. She licked the lamb just as if she were its mother and spent the next couple of hours trying to adopt it. Fortunately the lamb, although occasionally confused, bonded with the right mum and was doing all the right things to get its first feed.

For now we have brought mum and lamb and heavily pregnant aunty up to the stable. There was a chilly north-easterly blowing this afternoon and it is easier for us to keep an eye on things if the sheep are inside. I'm sure they would rather be outside though.

So that was pretty much the day done. Just about the perfect smallholding day.

But it's never that straightforward. A strange noise mid afternoon turned out to be one of the turkeys with its head stuck in the gap between the gate and the heras fencing panel. This has never happened before and fortunately the girl managed to free herself when I approached. But half an hour later I heard the same noise with the same result. This time the stupid turkey appeared to injure its neck in its efforts to free itself.
It is now looking pretty sorry for itself. Whether it survives the night or not I wouldn't like to bet.

And there you have it. The many highs (and occasional lows) of smallholding.
I'm sure that with more lambing there will be plenty more ups and downs in the next couple of weeks.