Getting to Know Ewe

The last week or so has been spent getting to know the sheep a bit better, learning how they tick and giving them somewhere to shelter from the wind. We'd originally tried to make a shelter from some old tarpaulin we had, but every time the wind blew, the sheep scattered as it flapped so we had to have a rethink as they weren't going to get a good night's sleep with the lash-up we'd provided them. The new shelter was made from a pallet we scrounged (like proper Yorkshire farmers) from a building site next to my parent's house. They seem to like it, so we've scrounged the rest of the pallets off the building site to give them an extension (en-suite and a new kitchen, we thought), we might even give them a roof if we're feeling generous.
One thing we're aware of is that we don't have a sheepdog (no matter how hard he tries) or a quad bike (no matter how hard I try) so we need a way of getting the sheep to come to us, rather than the other way around.
The tried and tested smallholder's way is bucket training, the idea being that a bucket with food is rattled and the sheep come running to you, rather than you running round the field like an idiot. So last Friday, Kate started the training, I recorded it in pictures.....


It starts well, the rattling bucket gets their interest.


They soon seem to realise what's in the bucket.


There seems to be an odd one out...


However, one bucket isn't big enough for more than one head, and they start to get a little more...forceful. As you can see, Kate's nerve is going.....


...so she leaves them to it...


...resulting in one sheep with a bucket on her head.

Other than sheep, it's been routine jobs over the Bank Holiday weekend. We realised that the lawn (for lawn read rough grass, it's no bowling green that's for sure) wouldn't be 'mowed' by the sheep when there's an acre of paddock to do, so we did it with the lawn mower. It took 2 days. We have more lawn than we thought we did. We also did some digging, the patch of what we thought was waste ground by the back door turns out to have once been a herb garden, so we've rescued what we can and have an accidental herb/flower bed now.
We also found the big grub thing on the left, we had a few in the veg garden too, they're huge and mean looking but we've no idea what they are - we fed it to the birds anyway but we'll probably find it was the larva of some rare insect that makes veg grow twice as fast as normal or something.
Just after Easter we had a short visit from Nik and Leo, friends from Southampton - we got Nik doing bucket training too, his 'overhead technique' was a new one on me - pictures to follow if he dares to send them to us.
Finally the chicken house - painted, doors attached and bolted together - all that I have to do now is attach the roof and Chickenopolis is ready for it's first residents. It's been a long slog but I've enjoyed spending my evenings making this, and though I say so myself, it actually looks quite good. The only issue is what to do next, 'Project Hogtown' looks to be on the cards.