Wednesday 28 July 2010

Winter food all ready!


This week saw the last of the hay bales put away in the shed ready for the sheep to eat when they come in for the winter. We have made a mixture of hay and haylage. Dry weather is essential when making hay, the grass is cut and then turned everyday to allow the sun to dry it out, before it is baled and quickly put away in the shed before it rains! This has not been a problem this year as it has been so dry. The last two fields we had haylage bales made as it was quicker and meant we didn't need to turn it before it was baled. It is wrapped in green plastic sheeting to keep it dry and maintain the moisture within the bale. It should smell sweet when it is unwrapped and the sheep love it! Lisa has helped us do all the haymaking and we are really grateful to her. We are still waiting for proper rain, it seems to miss us and can be raining hard in Wallingford and Abingdon and we never see anything!

We have had two 'shepherds for the day' which has been great fun. Samantha our solicitor gave her husband Simon being shepherd for the day with us as his birthday present. He spent the day with Roly helping do everything from selecting lambs for market, treating the lambs with the prevention from fly strike (this is horrible, when flies lay their eggs and they hatch into maggots) and having yummy lunch of lamb pie at the Red Lion in Brightwell with Sue. Andrew and Elf also had a day with us and seemed happy to turn their hand to most things we presented them with!

Roly took the wool off to be sold through the wool marketing board which will eventually be used as carpet. Our 250 sheep produced about 1 tonne of wool!

The next move for some of the ewes will be to graze on the Wittenham Clumps which will be lovely to see. Not so easy for us to check them when they aren't in a field but a new challenge for Bel and Meg!

We can't quite believe it is nearly August and we will almost have been here a year....what a journey!

Camilla, Roly, Boris, Meg and Bel

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