Sunday 31 October 2010

Beautiful colours...

We always love going to check the sheep but these last two weekends have been amazing. The countryside looks so beautiful with all the yellows and reds of the autumn colours, particularly when they are against a bright blue sky. The berries too have been wonderful, we have stocked up on lots of blackberries for the freezer and the hawthorn berries and rosehips seem to have been redder than ever!

All the sheep are well and the rams are now doing their business! A few weeks ago we went to choose some new rams to make sure we weren't taking any risks in our girls not getting pregnant. The rams are so important! So we had some very valuable help from Steve Atkinson, a very knowledgeable and experienced local shepherd who is retiring. Steve has been a great help to us and helped Roly when we brought the ewes in to sort through them before the rams went in. They were looking out for ewes which had lumps in their udders (an indicator of mastitis, an infection in the udder during lambing), poor condition and checking their teeth too. If too many teeth are missing, they will not be able to eat as much which means their condition will suffer and they will not be able to rear next years lamb. The ewes which are taken out for the flock are sent off to the abbattoir with the fat lambs and we have mutton for sale! We have a few regular customers who love their mutton, it is a stronger meat and needs to be cooked for longer, but it is delicious!

We have had a couple of harsh frosts which swiftly reminded us of the cold winter we had last year, we have heard several reports that this winter is set to be the same....we hope not! The grass starts to lose its nutritional value at this time of year and so it turns our mind to getting the sheds ready for when the ewes come in mid December a few weeks before they are due to lamb. Not our main flock, it is the 50 we lamb in January to make sure we have enough lambs for the farmers markets in early spring. The main flock start lambing from the 21st March, we are already looking forward to it!

Finally, our online sales will be going live soon....we will let you know when it does, please tell you friends and family they can order our delicious lamb and we can deliver anywhere in the country! Our packaging is really special too, we are using 'Woolcool' which is fleece lined, biodegrable packaging which will keep the lamb at whatever temperature we pack it in, so either fresh or frozen. We sent a trial delivery over to Patrick who has been helping us with our website and it arrived safe and sound and he thought the packaging was fantastic, see our website for more details.

We are taking more bookings for being 'shepherd for a day', so if you want to treat your friends or family for Christmas or a birthday present, then give us a ring!

More soon and enjoy the wonderful colours.

Camilla, Roly, Bel and Boris