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.

Sheep!

Big news this week is the arrival of Margi, Morag and Martha as Kate has named them, 3 Wiltshire Horn shearlings (year old lambs basically). We're not intending to eat them (well, I can only speak for Kate and I here, Buzz seems to have other ideas, as you can see on the right), they're going to keep the paddock down and next year have lambs for us to sell or eat as we see fit. The problem is that we've been like worried parents since they arrived, constantly looking out of the window to see where they are, and when they disappear over the hill we have visions of them forming an escape committee and going next door to live with the professionally kept ewes, with their fancy barns and weed free pastures. I'm sure we'll relax a bit once we get to know them better. We're also lucky in that the people we bought them off have been very helpful, Esmond and Ann Black are hobby-breeders who live about 15 miles away and have a flock of around 30 Wiltshire Horns and a wealth of experience. We got to hear about them through the North Yorkshire Smallholders Association. As complete novices they could have so easily sold us disease-ridden fleabags with rotten feet and worms, but they calmly and gently took us through the ins and outs of sheep keeping, with no pressure to buy. Esmond even allowed me to worm our sheep before they left his smallholding so we could be sure they'd be protected and so I could get experience of using the worming gun and more importantly, holding a squrming sheep while dosing it with wormer. Sheep were the last thing on our list for this place, but we're both much happier than we thought we would be about having them here.
Speaking of meeting people through the Smallholders Association, we met a local couple recently in a similar position to us. A chap called Dave posted a request for a 'pocket money' chicken house for his son, obviously we don't have a spare house, but I do have the plans I've been following, so replied that he was welcome to have a copy if he wanted to have a go at making one. In the end his son found a chicken house in budget and Dave was let off the hook, but we arranged to meet up anyway and Kate and I went round to Dave and Julie's house in Richmond on Saturday morning. They keep chickens and sheep, so it was a great way to gain a bit of confdence about sheep keeping (they were so relaxed about their sheep) and get fired up to get the chicken house finished so we can get some birds and start producing eggs. It was a lovely start to the weekend, in the company of nice people doing what we are just setting out to do and I think it gave us both confidence in our own venture.
On the subject of the chicken house, as you can see above all the pieces fit together (no-one is more surprised than I am. Actually, maybe Kate is. And possibly some of you reading this - see Nick, I'm not a complete klutz). Given a boost by seeing Dave and Julie's chickens, we've now started painting the house so it will be weatherproof for a few years to come, then we're just about there and the chickens can move in - finally we're on the home stretch for the chicken house saga.
Our veg are coming through (as are the weeds, naturally) and we bought a hose for the upside-down tap, so at least we can direct the jet of water somewhere other than skywards.
And when the sun comes out, there is no place either of us would rather be than here.