Nine little pigs…….

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Alex

It’s that time of year again, we always get our new batch of piglets in May/early June as that seems to work really well for fattening over the summer and dispatch in early November when the weather is beginning to cool.

This year, we have got purebred Gloucester Old Spots, these are our favourite breed of pig. We have tried a few different types over the years, but Old Spots just tick all of the boxes, they are friendly, good natured, grow well and have a fantastic flavour of meat with good fat ratio (providing you don’t overfeed them!)

Old Spots are traditionally orchard pigs, kept in cider and perry orchards to clear windfalls. This works well for us as we always let the pigs into our orchard every day in autumn, and they do a great job of clearing up, we just have to make sure we let them out again before they start digging! Pigs are excellent at clearing ground, they systematically dig and turn the earth, eating any roots and seeds they find, leaving the patch looking like it’s been rotovated. If you need a piece of ground clearing, I’d recommend pigs every time.

We have a kind of community ‘pig club’ thing going on with our friends and neighbours. Around the village and local area, pig keeping is gaining in popularity and currently there are three smallholdings keeping pigs which are shared with other friends, who don’t have space for pigs. This is working really well, we buy a whole litter of piglets between the group, this year we bought nine, three at each holding. The benefits to forming a group or ‘pig club’ are many. Apart from regular get togethers to talk pigs and eat pork products, we bulk buy feed which keeps the cost down, we share equipment for pork processing and the cost of transport- collecting piglets and going to the abattoir is also reduced when working together. Best of all, ‘pig day’ where we butcher and process the meat has become a much looked forward to social event, with miles of sausages made and lots of beer drunk!

So this year we collected nine piglets and trundled off to deliver them to their new homes. The piglets were all sleeping soundly in the back of the trailer when we got home and needed some rousing to persuade them to leave their cosy bed of straw. Once out, our three quickly began to explore their new patch, making themselves at home straight away.

Next stop was Kenny and Rach’s smallholding at Apples Equestrian riding centre. This family are animal mad and have a huge menagerie of ponies, dogs, cats, ducks, chickens, rabbits and a pet Tamworth pig named Marmalade. Marmalade is enormous and such a character, she is very popular with students at the riding stables as she really friendly, docile and always ready for a scratch behind the ears! She seemed quite happy with the new occupants of her pen, even when they started on her food!

The final three pigs have come to live with our neighbours, Nigel and Claire. Nigel’s big project is an orchard he is restoring, he began keeping pigs a few years back to help clear the overgrown site. The pigs are doing a great job, along with another neighbouring smallholders sheep, and the orchard is looking fantastic. The piglets disappeared immediately into the undergrowth and got straight to work digging.

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With all of the deliveries done, we returned home to check on how our three were settling in. Sound asleep in their ark!

May in the garden…

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Alex

Spring has finally sprung here at Dale Cottage and the place is looking beautifully lush and green. Here are some pictures I’ve taken around the place.

Self-seeded honesty, blooming in the long border.
Raindrops sparkling on Alchemilla mollis foliage.

The cow parsley is out, my favourite time of year.

The blossom is finally out (6 weeks later than last year!)

Bees and hoverflies feasting on pollen.

The Hawthorn or ‘May’ is flowering on time this year!

The bluebells brighten a shady corner.

Ruby herding chickens!

The cowslips are doing really well in the orchard this year.

Hazel structures for peas and beans.

Planting up the new herb garden.

I got a new lawnmower! (Rob went on a scything course last week and is practicing on the lawn!)

The plot thickens…..

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Alex

Now the weather has improved, we’ve been spending lots of time outside getting on with long overdue jobs. The polytunnel is slowly beginning to fill with seed trays and pots and it won’t be long before these need planting out, so I thought it was time to prepare the beds in readiness.

I grow organically here at Dale Cottage and a big part of that is soil management. The way I see it, is that there are two ways of making sure your vegetables get the nutrients they need to grow; you either feed the plants or you feed the soil. If you grow organically, you probably opt for the latter.

There is no doubt that growing and harvesting fruit and vegetables year after year from the same plot of land, depletes the nutrient levels in the soil and these periodically need replacing. In my mind, feeding with artificial fertilisers comprising mainly N P and K (Nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) cannot adequately replace all of the nutrients provided by healthy soil. Healthy soil is alive, it contains mineral matter from weathered rock, organic matter from plants and animals and is teeming with micro-organisms. These microbes work hard converting these elements into substances plants need to be healthy, strong, resilient and ultimately, nutritious. To ignore the importance of soil health is crazy, without regular replenishment of organic matter, soil eventually becomes nothing but a medium to hold plants upright.

We use a rotation system and give the beds a good top up with compost and manure every 4^th year. Most of our veg is grown on raised beds 1.2 x 4 metres and I add a barrow each of home-made compost and well rotted cow manure. We try to avoid cultivating the soil too often, preferring the no-dig method, but this year we did whizz over it with the rotovator to incorporate the organic matter and fluff up the soil a bit (a year of heavy rain has compacted it somewhat).

The benefits of adding organic matter go beyond plant nutrition, it helps improve and maintain soil structure, improves drainage in heavy soils and water holding capacity in light soils and of course, feeds the beneficial soil organisms. A good healthy soil should contain huge numbers of micro-organisms-a teaspoon of soil contains more microbes than there are people on this planet! As with the human body, a healthy balance of bacterial flora is the key to soil health. So in essence, we feed the soil, the soil feeds the plants and the plants feed us – simple!

Home-made compost is a great way to maintain soil health and it’s a wonderful feeling when you first succeed with a compost heap- realising you’ve managed to turn a heap of garden and kitchen waste into sweet smelling, crumbly, black compost! (it took us quite a few years to get there!) We’ve got a 3 bay system here, each bay is about 1.5m square. We fill the first bay with waste then after a year, turn it into the second bay, in the third year, we turn it again, but this time we add comfrey leaves in layers. We grow a big patch of comfrey which I cut regularly during the growing season for adding to the compost, using as a mulch or as a liquid feed. Comfrey is a deep rooted plant and makes a nutrient rich fertiliser, it’s rich in minerals as well as N,P and K and acts as a fantastic compost activator. Our compost heap works like a well-oiled machine these days, producing a plentiful supply of soil food, year after year.

The garden is beginning to come to life now and the perennial borders are starting to fill out. The hens love it when we are out gardening, following us wherever we disturb the soil and having a good scratch about.

I planted these Daffodils back in the autumn to give a bit of spring colour to this woodland border.

The benches in the tunnel are rapidly filling with seed trays and pots. I try to keep seedlings up off of the ground for as long as possible to minimise slug damage, once the young plants are big and strong enough to hold their own, they move to the sand filled nursery beds on the ground.

I just wanted to show how well these cold adapted tomato varieties are doing already. I posted back in March about sowing tomato varieties from the Real Seed Co which germinate well in colder conditions and begin to set fruit early. So far I’m impressed, the two larger seedlings on the left are ‘Stupice’ an Eastern European cherry tomato and ‘Galina’ a Siberian cherry. The plant on the right is ‘Gardener’s Delight’ a well used variety in the UK. All were sown on the same day, but it’s clear that the cold adapted varieties have coped better with the cool spring conditions.

Gimme shelter….

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Alex

The wintry weather continues with more snow forecast for Easter weekend, will spring ever come?

We have rigged up an impromptu shelter for the lambs out of an old land rover roof (good to find a use for all of those spare parts!)

Jacob’s are a hardy breed and despite the weather, they seem quite happy. The lambs continue to skip around in the snow, while their mums munch hay, I would think they are looking forward to fresh grass again though.

The garden is still frozen solid and I’m trying not to think about how far behind i’ll be with the jobs when it finally warms up. The last of the ewes had her lambs, meet Blodwyn (she’s a little camera shy!) at two years old, this is her first time in lamb. She has taken to it very well and is very attentive to her twins. She actually delivered triplets but sadly one was stillborn, of the remaining two, one is quite tiny, but she seems to be feeding well and thriving. Hopefully she’ll catch up with her brother soon. A welcome bit of colour in the snow, my Tete-a-tete narcissi are blooming despite the cold weather.

Lambs and lurgies……

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Alex

I apologise for the delay in getting these pictures posted, we had two sets of triplets born last Tuesday.

We were glad that we had put up the maternity gazebo, because as it turned out, the weather was dreadful and we were glad of some shelter for ourselves as well as the sheep!.

Last week started with freezing temperatures, snow flurries and the flu. One by one we all succumbed, huddled under duvets, shivering despite the heat from the woodburner, it was to be a long week!

On Tuesday morning it seemed likely that the two expectant mothers we had admitted to the ‘delivery suite’ were nearing their time.

Crawling out from under the duvet, clambering into wellies and coats and braving the cold weather to check on progress, was not my preferred option, I must admit, but smallholding is not just a fair-weather job! I can tell you that I was not feeling full of the joys of spring or enchanted at the miracle of new life at all, just very sorry for myself and dreaming about a nice, modern, centrally heated house in the suburbs!

But then, within the space of an hour or two, without any assistance needed from us, each ewe produced perfect triplets, something we had not experienced before.

In previous years we have had mainly twins and occasional singles, last year we did have a third, but it was born dead. So despite feeling like we were at death’s door, we couldn’t help but be delighted and rather proud of this ‘instant flock’!

My friend Emma, who is a ‘proper farmer’ is convinced that there is something funny going on, as she and a neighbouring farmer have had so many triplets this year, well it can’t be the weather!

In no time at all, all six were up on their feet and feeding well. We had bottles and milk on hand ready in case any seemed not to be thriving, but so far, so good.

One set has two ewes and one ram, the other set are two rams and one ewe. We haven’t yet thought of names so any ideas would be welcome!

These pictures were taken this morning, at 6 days old they are looking a very healthy and energetic bunch. We let them out onto the field yesterday for the first time and they have been tearing about at great speed and bouncing ever since.

Finally, here is a shot of Bruce and Sheila who are now over 6 weeks old, looking absolutely humongous compared to their new cousins!

P.S. For any US readers, ‘Lurgy’ is a generic British word for any kind of infectious disease, I believe you guys use the word ‘cooties’!

P.P.S We are all feeling much better now, thanks!

Sowing Solanaceae and the lamb delivery suite…..

Posted on March 9, 2013 by Alex

Seeds

Although it’s been another grey day today, it has stayed dry and been fairly warm, so I took the opportunity to start my sowing for this years veggie garden. I always start with the Solanaceae family- tomatoes, peppers, chillies and aubergines. These are tender, warm weather plants and need a long season of warmth and sunlight to ripen, so it’s a good idea to get these started fairly early in the year. Saying that, some might think I am starting very late, many gardeners get these started as early as January. Personally, as I will be planting out into an unheated tunnel, I find early March to be ideal, usually just right for planting out after the risk of frost has passed.

This year I’m sowing seed from the Real Seed company, who you may remember from my ‘seeds of freedom’ post. I have chosen some interesting varieties which I hope will be successful even with a repeat of last years bad weather.

I’ve got three varieties of tomato- ’Stupice’, an early cherry from eastern Europe, ‘Galina’- a sweet yellow cherry from Siberia and an old favourite- Gardeners Delight. For sweet peppers I’ve chosen ‘King of the North’ a cold summer adapted green pepper and ‘Slovakia’ another eastern European variety. I have a mild chilli pepper (as I’m a bit of a wimp!) ‘Palivec’ which is a long red variety from the Czech Republic and finally ‘de Barbentane’ a long black aubergine, bred in France for outdoor production, so would do OK in a cool summer. It might seem that I’m being pessimistic about the weather, but I’m keen to find some really resilient varieties that I know will produce whatever the vagaries of the British weather- I’ll keep you posted on successes and failures!

I like to use a fine seed compost and sow these larger types of seed into pots. For a few years now I’ve been using these Bell boy mini propagator pots, they are sturdy and can be re-used for many years, fit well into my propagator and when they come off of the heat, they have a cloche lid to protect the seedlings.

I usually add a bit of Vermiculite to the seed compost, this helps with aeration and water holding capacity and it also absorbs nutrient, which can then be utilised by growing roots.

I sow the seed thinly (well spaced) and cover with a thin layer of compost and pop the pots into the propagator- the Solanaceae family generally need around 20 degrees heat to germinate successfully. Once the seed has germinated, I take them off the heat and put the lids on the pots until they are ready for potting on.

It’s always a great feeling to be getting started with the home-grown vegetables and looking forward to super fresh and nutritious crops later on. Tomatoes, especially fresh home-grown ones are an excellent source of antioxidants such as Vitamin C and Lycopene. They are also rich in vitamin A, potassium, manganese and B vitamins and are thought to be protective against cardio-vascular disease and good for bone health. Sweet peppers are also an excellent source of nutrients such as Vitamin C, A, E, B6 and carotenoids. One of the benefits of growing your own is that these nutrients are vastly concentrated when the fruit is allowed to ripen on the plant (something that rarely happens with commercially grown produce). Aubergines (or eggplant) contain a host of vitamins and minerals as well as many important phytonutrients. The black skin of the aubergine contains an anthocyanin called Nasunin, this is a powerful antioxidant and free radical scavenger that has been shown to protect the lipids (fats) in brain cell membranes. All good reasons for growing your own, I can’t wait to get stuck into some healthy mediterranean style recipes at harvest time!

You might remember just over a month back, we had some lambs arrive unexpectedly. We are now expecting the imminent arrival of the first lot of planned lambs! We had decided that as these lambs were due in spring, to lamb outside, it turns out that this was a tad optimistic, as the weather forecast is pretty bleak for the next week or so. So being the soft touches we are, we have erected a gazebo over the lambing pens, for shelter from the rain and hopefully, with plenty of hay and straw, they should be snug enough! These two are due tonight or tomorrow, so they have moved into the ‘delivery suite’ in readiness for the big event. I will hopefully have a fresh batch of cute lamb pictures to post soon. Bruce and Sheila are going to look monstrous in comparison to their new-born cousins!

A Good Life…….

Posted on February 18, 2013 by Alex

Very sad to hear today about the death of Richard Briers. Richard holds an important place in the hearts of many a smallholder, as lots of us were inspired to take up the ‘Good life’ after many years of watching the escapades of Tom and Barbara as they attempted self-sufficiency in suburbia.

I loved this show as a child and wanted to be Barbara (dungarees and all) and to marry a man just like Tom! Sadly, I didn’t grow up to look much like Felicity Kendall, but I’m very happy with the husband I got and with the ‘Good Life’ we’ve created.

Here is a link to a Youtube video of the Good Life, have a watch if you fancy a little nostalgia and remember the lovely Richard.

Cold Comfort soup….

Posted on February 16, 2013 by Alex

With this persistent cold weather, lack of sunshine, rain, sleet and snow, spring still feels a long way off and it’s easy to fall prey to winter sniffles. Much as I enjoy being outdoors and the smallholding life, it’s no fun doing the chores with a streaming nose and thumping head.

So, in an attempt to stave off winter ills, I often cook up a big pan of chicken soup in the hope that this will protect me and my family from pesky pestilence. We’ve all heard reference to the famous therapeutic powers of chicken soup, but it got me wondering how much truth there is in it, or is it just an old wives tale?

It seems that there is actually very little scientific evidence for chicken soup per se, having any actual curative function. I could only find one study, which looked at the effect of chicken soup on neutrophils (immune cells) in order to discover if any effect on immune function occurred. The study concluded that on exposure to a solution of the chicken soup, the movement of the neutrophils was inhibited -in essence the soup slowed down the action of the cells, which in the human body would migrate to the source of the infection and produce an immune response. The study appeared to show then, that chicken soup may slow the inflammatory response to infection, reducing symptoms of upper respiratory tract infection such as blocked nose and headache. What the paper didn’t mention was whether this might mean that while there may be symptomatic relief, would the immune response be slowed enough to prolong the infection? You can read the paper here and draw your own conclusion!

So it seems we can’t rely on scientific evidence to find out how effective my soup recipe is, so I decided to look at the ingredients of the soup and how they might work together to give a body, depleted by a long winter, a much-needed boost.

My soup always begins with a good chicken stock, by this I don’t mean a cube from a packet, dissolved in water. (I do resort to those at times, but never for cold comfort soup) Starting with the best chicken you can afford is the key and if used thriftily, can reward you with many a tasty meal. We reared some table birds last year for the first time and it’s something we will definitely do again as it has diversified our meat meals somewhat from the usual pork and lamb. It’s good to have a supply of ‘happy’ chicken in the freezer which has foraged around in the orchard with the other hens and been fed good quality food. As with all of our animals, because we have reared them ourselves, we feel we want to use every part of the animal we can. So when we have had a Sunday roast chicken, I pop the carcass into a casserole pot with some onion, celery and carrot and stick it in the bottom oven of the Rayburn overnight. Lifting off the lid in the morning reveals a lovely golden, wholesome smelling stock, which will provide for two more meals- I usually make a large pan of soup and a risotto with the stock and leftover meat from the roast, three meals for the price of one!

The traditional practice of making bone stocks has been central to the cuisine of many cultures and with good reason, it is a very nourishing food for the body. Long slow cooking facilitates the release of lots of minerals, such as calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, silicon and trace minerals, in a form which is easily absorbed. In fact, in many cultures where milk is not consumed, soups and stocks are the main source of easily assimilated calcium. Cartilage and tendons also break down and release essential nutrients such as chondroitin and glucosamine- often bought as expensive supplements for arthritis and joint problems. The gelatin which forms when stock cools, is a rich source of amino acids, aiding digestion and helping the body break down proteins- this may the origin of soup traditionally being the first course of a meal.

Adding vegetables to make the soup increases the nutritional value. While some vitamins and nutrients are undoubtedly decreased by cooking, others become more available and it is advised that we eat a variety of vegetables both raw and cooked to receive the optimal array of nutrient from our foods. By adding veg into a soup or stew, the heat stable vitamins and minerals leach out into the stock and you get the added benefit of improved digestibility of the vegetables.

I have two variations on the cold comfort recipe, for times when we might be just feeling a little run down and under the weather, I will add in some onion, leek, celery, carrot and potato, to make a comforting chicken and vegetable soup which is warming and comforting on a cold day. I often stir in a spoonful of sauerkraut as the soup cools to eating temperature to give a little pro-biotic boost and valuable enzymes to aid digestion.

If however, we have succumbed to the dreaded cold or flu virus, special measures are necessary and I go hard-core with soup recipe!

This variation is much hotter and maybe less comfort, than ‘kill or cure’! I start by sautéing onion and leeks over a low heat until soft, I then add 2 or 3 fresh hot chillies (finely chopped), 8-10 crushed garlic cloves and a 10cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated. I add the chicken stock and pieces of leftover chicken meat and simmer for 10 minutes. You can add in extras like a handful of rice or noodles or some shiitake mushrooms, whatever takes your fancy.

Now consuming this soup may not be a comforting experience, depending on how much chilli you have added, but it will certainly clear the head, unblock the sinuses and generally get everything flowing!

Garlic and its cousins, onions and leeks are well-known for their health promoting properties. These vegetables contain powerful compounds which are known to influence the body’s systems such as the circulation, immune system and detoxification. They are also thought to have anti-bacterial properties and are prebiotic foods (stimulate growth and maintenance of beneficial gut bacteria), all good things in the fight against respiratory infection.

Ginger contains many inflammation fighting phytonutrients known as gingerols, which may provide symptomatic relief from the pain and discomfort of colds and flu, it can also have a calming influence on the stomach.

Chillies are rich in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants and are thought to have analgesic (pain relieving) properties as well as being anti-bacterial. Like the other ingredients, chillies may offer valuable symptomatic relief- capsaicin, the substance which gives chillies their characteristic pungency, is thought to have anti-inflammatory effects and the peppery heat may stimulate the release of substances which help clear mucous, improving congestion.

So while I can’t promise that my chicken soup will cure your cold, it may offer you some respite from unpleasant symptoms. So if you are struggling with the last of the winter ills, feel free to try it out, let me know how you get on!

Lambs update

The lambs are nearly three weeks old now and doing well, despite the wet weather. We are still putting them in the barn at night, we may be mollycoddling them a bit, but I can’t bear the thought of them sleeping on wet,cold ground. They are happy skipping around the field during the day, getting more adventurous all the time! You can’t see very well in this photo, but Sheila (at the back) has very striking blue eyes!

Seeds of freedom……..

Posted on February 10, 2013 by Alex

After many rainy days and chilly evenings sat by the wood burner poring over seed catalogues, I eventually managed to finalize my plans for the kitchen garden and my seeds arrived in the post today.

This year, for the first time, I have ordered my vegetable seeds from a small company called Real Seeds who are based on a small farm in Wales. The main reason for choosing Real Seeds, apart from that they are a small, sustainably run family business, is that they sell exclusively open pollinated varieties.

Over the centuries, humans have selected, improved and saved seeds, creating a rich and wonderful diversity of food crops. Open pollination refers to the fact that pollination occurs by natural mechanism insects, wind, bird. This creates genetically diverse populations with greater variation, which allows plants to slowly adapt to local growing conditions and climate year-to-year. Seed from open-pollinated varieties can be saved and sown again year after year and will produce plants which are true to type.

Over the past 40 years, traditional open-pollinated vegetable varieties have been steadily replaced by modern hybrid varieties. Hybrid vegetable varieties, often labelled as F1 are the result of artificially crossing selected plants with different but desirable features, producing a plant with the best features of the parent plants. These first generation offspring, due to a phenomenon known as hybrid vigour, often grow better and give higher yields than their parents. However, any seed produced is genetically unstable and cannot be saved for use next year, the next generation of plants will not be true to type and will be considerably less vigorous. While some of the benefits of hybrid varieties, such as increased size and vigour, are useful to the home gardener, the benefits are mainly for commercial growers. Hybridization offers the grower uniformity and predictable yield (the crop reaches maturity at the same time to aid harvest) and also control of breeding. Seed companies are now able to patent a seed variety so that other companies cannot grow and sell it. In recent years, this ability to patent and own plant varieties has led to a situation where a small number of large multi-national companies now own the vast majority of crop breeding rights, essentially patenting genes so that the DNA of certain plants is now owned property, meaning that it has become illegal to save and re-sow seed. This means that worldwide, farmers are increasingly dependent of these large companies and the limited varieties they sell, leading to loss of self-reliance of communities and biodiversity of food crops.

So by choosing to buy open-pollinated vegetable seeds, the home gardener can play their part in maintaining biodiversity and can choose varieties which best suit the conditions in which the plant will be grown. Most of the hybrid varieties are grown for commercial production and are selected for uniformity, in our own gardens we often need to be more flexible, selecting varieties which suit our soil, climate and conditions. With recent weather concerns, preserving the diversity of seed availability may be vital in finding varieties which will adapt to new conditions as a result of climate change. Also, by saving seed and growing year after year, we can select for types that are well suited to our own individual gardens. For a smallholder such as myself, I value this freedom to remain self-reliant and to make growing my own vegetables a truly cost-effective and sustainable practice.

If you would like to know more about open-pollinated seeds check out this website, it’s full of useful information on the subject and lots of links to suppliers of open-pollinated, heritage and heirloom seed. If you would like to know more about the issue of seed sovereignty and the importance of preserving seed diversity and the freedom to save seed, have a look at the links below.

Finally, while there are some great suppliers of open-pollinated seed in the UK, do check out Real Seeds, their website is really informative and easy to use, the ordering process was simple and the seeds arrived quickly. Above all, they stock some fantastic varieties I’m very much looking forward to my crop of ‘Cherokee trail of tears’ French beans, ‘Collective farm woman’ cantaloupe melon and ‘Latvian traditional soup pea’. I’ll let you know how they turn out!

Links to more information about open-pollinated seeds:

Seed Freedom - Dr Vanadana Shiva’s global alliance for seed freedom

The Heritage Seed Library - Garden Organic project to preserve endangered vegetable varieties

Seeds of Freedom - A film charting the story of seed and highlighting the impact of industrial scale agriculture (Narrated by Jeremy Irons- bonus!)

Seedy Sunday - Community seed swap site

Open pollinated seeds - an initiative to spread awareness of natural ways of propagation. Good links page with list of seed companies who supply open-pollinated varieties.

New arrivals……

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Alex

Our first lambs of the year have arrived and these two are a little earlier than we had planned. We had a visit from the tup back in October and according to our calculations, the lambs should be born from mid-March. However, it appeared that the ram failed to cover one of the ewes and we were a little puzzled by this. Did she shun his advances? had she decided her lambing days were over? Over the next few months, as she began to expand in girth, we realised that there may be another possibility, she was already pregnant! Last years ram lambs were separated from the flock in September, in good time before they ‘reached maturity’, or so we thought. Well, another learning experience, we now know that a four month old ram is old enough for the job!

So these two, a ram and a ewe, arrived on Monday, Australia day according to our calender. So we have named them Bruce and Sheila.

They are a strong, healthy pair and were up on their feet and feeding within the hour. They continue to do well, filling out a bit each day and exploring their pen between feeds.

Hopefully the weather will dry up a bit and we will be able to turn them out onto the grass soon.

Dale Cottage Diaries

Real food and sustainable living on our cottage farm