Happy New Year!

We have had a busy couple of weeks over Christmas and New Year. We now have all the girls in the sheds with only the four boys (rams) and some of our 7 month old lambs outside braving this freezing weather which still seems to be hanging around! We spent all of Saturday bringing all the girls (ewes) in from outside and they are now all busy eating all the yummy hay we have for them all to keep them fed over winter. It is a nice feeling having them all inside on their cosy straw. No more surprises on the lamb front but some of the girls who are due to lamb in a couple of weeks are looking pretty big! Our last farmers market of 2009 was at Henley on Christmas Eve. We arrived at 7.15am having driven through a lot of snowy countryside and the market was frozen solid with ice. We and all our other market friends set about clearing it so we could start trading, it was hard work! But all with a fun Christmas spirit. We spent two days in Kent with family and our friends John and Julia Sargent very kindly looked after our girls for us while we were away.

New Years Eve was spent vaccinating the girls against abortion risk which was really important to do before we headed over the Wittenham Clumps on the quad bike to the Red Lion in Brightwell cum Sotwell to celebrate New Year! Sue and Bob who run the pub have some of our lamb every week.

The forecast for this week is still very cold, we are so pleased that the majority of the flock are now indoors . . . although the frozen water pipes and troughs are not so fun! Farmers markets start again with Oxford on Thursday (7th) and then we have Brian coming to shear the girls we have brought in on Friday followed by having them scanned to see how many babies they will be having in March, we will let you know!

Thank you for reading and happy 2010

Roly, Camilla, Boris and Meg