SHAGGY SHEEP SHEARING.

Well, as I said yesterday, the arable farmers were desperately trying to get their harvest in before the rain front moved in and dampened all the crops and last night, rain it did.

I awoke this morning to the pluvial pattern of raindrops on the window pains. A wet day!

Having come downstairs, and said "Good morning" to the two ewes, I got  a muted reply.

One, as many of you may have noticed has too much fleece, bad enough in the last weeks of hot weather but this morning her coat of too much wool was just drenched and heavy with all the overnight rain.

Well Dafad here had already planned on getting her sheared and so had been preparing a pen in the enclosed space behind the large compost heaps. Hoping that with the clever use of old doors found in the barn here, that it would be enough to pen her in for shearing.

Meanwhile as I was trying to sort out some tools and generally trying to tidy up the greenhouse, two inquisitive ovines came nosing in to see just what I was up to. They have free range of half of the garden here and as you will have already read, done a good job de-weeding the veg garden and the two apple orchards. The rest of the garden has plants apparently poisonous to sheep (such as azaleas)so are blocked off from visiting that area. They are getting increasingly more confident and definitely nosey! Note the extra wool on Donner, time for a de-fleece to lose that extra, rain sodden and heavy weight. Not needing to be baled for the wool marketing board,  the wet fleece doesn't matter.

Into the makeshift pen they both went and after a bribe of lots of ewe nuts they settled down well enough to be trimmed of all that extra wool weight that they were carrying.
Now, having no professional  shearer on hand, they had to make do with a total amateur. So ... the clip was not as neat and tidy as could have been and there was no fleece as such to roll and bale (it was full of burrs anyway) but at least she was free of all that extra weight. Much cooler!

Now ... 
don't blame the pink handled shears on me, they were lent to me by a friend and are labelled, wait for this "Gardening shears." After a bit of sharpening, they became sheep shears this afternoon, the closest they got to gardening was to remove all the burrs caught in Donners' fleece. She seems to attract them in a way that Bramley doesn't. Donner is definitely the most assertive ewe and tried her hardest to get out of the makeshift pen.
She really did not like having the over long wool, burrs & dags removed from her and a bit of a battle ensued.
The only blood drawn was from the shearer, who had a bit of a slip with the shears when Donner tried to win won over but the shearer won!
The compost heap is now wool enriched & all the gathered droppings are also included, in two years time the compost out of the middle bin will be good to go on the veg garden!

And as for "Madame" she quite obviously felt much better not carrying that extra weight.

Fleece free!

For the rest of the day she seemed much less irritable (I'm not surprised) who wouldn't be wearing a winter coat during the blistering hot summer days that we've had recently. And ... according to the weather forecast, last nights rain was just a watering can for  us gardeners and we are due more blistering hot days. At least one sheep will be happier!

But I still prefer Badger Faces, even if not quite pure breed!

HARVEST IN QUICK.

Yesterday, I took a short break from administering to Dads estate, a welcome reprieve.

I drove out to see Charlie the dog trainer, who (bless him) with all his many years of experience  had never seen such a young dog with such severe crepitus of the joints.

But fair play to the daft dog, he is still gentle and kind and willing to make new friends.

On the way back, we stopped at an old watering hole, a lovely place  only to find that since May of this year, dogs are no longer allowed.

Such a shame as, with the mad mutt struggling, a walk in the shade of the trees would have been ideal for him, plus  a very cooling, relaxing swim. Sadly it was not meant to be.

So ... we wandered slowly along a nearby footpath, only to witness some local harvesting.

The dust raised by these voracious machines, filling a quiet afternoon with a haze of dust.

It was obvious to me that given the rain potentially forecast, these farmers are working as hard as they possibly can, tying to get a good dry crop in before the forecast front is due.

And oh my, like so many farms around here, they are working very hard even late into the night and whilst driving locally the traffic is often slowed by these big machines.

On one side of the dividing hedge there was the grain crop  being actively  harvested and yet with just a field boundary between the two, the later potato crops are still in flower.

As were the poppies, so reminiscent of Remembrance Day with their bright red petals

<<< This one was unusual in that the petals were crinkly not smooth and stood out amongst the crowd growing along the side of the dry, dusty old farm track. I also ate my first ripe elderberries of the year though the sloes were still green and far from ripe yet. Traditionally they are picked after the first frost, hopefully a long way off yet.

Returning back to the car the combine harvester was offloading all that it had just reaped

from the field and a fountain of grain was being poured into a patiently waiting trailer which then drove off  to put this load into nearby storage on the farm. Not many minutes later it was driving back into position awaiting the next heavy load to be poured in.

Hopefully ... most of this years grain harvest in the Fens will be well stored by now.

MOMENTS OF PEACE & PLEASURE.

Today started fairly bright but rather late, with the sound of the birds in the trees all around the garden, the cockerel (named Basil) next door and the bleating of nearby sheep.

It's the kind of start to the day that, no matter how creaky and stiff and sore one is, getting up holds pleasures in store for the day ahead and somehow that makes things O.K.

<<< The daft dog seemed eager to see the sheep in the apple orchard not having quite worked out that they are only let in there in the heat of the day to give them shade. They have become quite a trio as you will see.

I had paperwork to do today, not the most pleasant of chores but needs must as the devil drives, to use an old saying. Then also later in the day there was shopping, another chore I don't particularly enjoy, but having parked up, I took the scenic route via St Andrew's Church. It is a lovely old building and has been a place of worship for more than 800 years. It looked mellow and serene in the glancing afternoon sun. A place of peace and quiet escapism.

Inside it was blissfully cool after the external heat of the day and luckily empty of visitors .

Time for some reflective contemplation and a need to think back over these last few very hectic, tiring and emotional months. This lovely window especially caught my eye >>>

I hope the answer is "Ye shall reap what you sow." and that the doves of peace will settle in relaxed harmony. Where my future leads me I have no idea but I just pray that all this will be resolved in a nice way and that whatever lies ahead of me will see a situation of harmony and fruitfulness in the harvest of my life.

I walked back out into the sunshine feeling more at ease with the world and able to enjoy the rest of the day in an easy and relaxed way.

Back home and shopping unpacked, it was lovely to look through the workroom window as I got on with some much needed paperwork. Looking past the sunflowers to the apple orchard I could see two very happy ewes munching on the fallen fruit. They are much better than a lawnmower as they eat the fruit whole, there was not an apple to be seen in the grass which looked almost mower manicured. Brilliant!

I shall be quite sad to see them go, when they have done the work they are here to do and the pair of them are working hard. In the veg garden one can clearly see the height that they clear the weeds to ... just look at the creeper remaining above the clear brickwork!

They also seemed pleased to see me and became quite vociferous, though that could simply be that they anticipated  the promise of a handful of  fresh crunchy ewe nuts!

And not just two but three ... the daft dog was eating the ones that fell to to the ground!

No matter what happens in the future, I will be able to look back at sun filled happy days when I will have done my best to sort out my folks estate to the very best of my abilities.

As for the future who knows. Another road to travel maybe, we shall see.

GARDEN GRAZIERS.

It was strange, but rather lovely,  to wake up this morning and to hear sheep bleating so close to my bedroom window. However, it is a lovely way to start the day and this being a weekend which are my chill out and just potter days, I had a whole sunny day to amble.

My two under gardeners were already busy at work munching their way through weeds and looking back as if to say "See ... we've already cleared that end of the veg garden!"

 "And now we're going to be working from this end and may meet in the middle."

Today was another hot sunny one with very little cooling breeze, as I pottered slowly about getting some more small chores done, I left the "ladies that munch" to their work.

But is got so hot that even they decided to give munch mowing a break and found shelter in the apple orchard, they looked so relaxed in the shadows of the lovely old apple trees.

"Hey we've worked hard all morning, we deserve a break in the apple shade!"

It amuses me that they strip the leaves, but leave the apples still clinging tightly on ...

and I loved the image of these three fruit dangling above her head. Now I have been loathe to give either of them names as they are only on loan for purpose, but they have very distinctly different characters.

<<< This one is quite clearly more subservient to the other and quite shy, but likes eating fallen apples, so ... for the sake of easy identification she has a temporary name. And what better than that of a good cooker, that makes excellent apple sauce to go with lamb, so she is now called Bramley! 

The other one is very much the bossy one and much larger, she would make a good weight at market, so she is for the time being (to me at least) is Donner!

Now, some may be wondering why she has so much fleece, especially this late in the year and with all this heat.  It is simply because the owners shearing tools broke down and we may need to hand clip her. Certainly that extra fleece is a magnet for burrs and goose-grass seeds and cannot be at all comfortable, so that is why they are let into the apple orchard in the heat of the day. Hopefully soon she'll be free of all that extra wool weight and feel a lot more at ease. Meanwhile Dafad here had been struggling mowing the large lawn that looked more like a hay meadow. Though wonderful for insects it had become too long and weedy. 

<<< The weather vane, hardly moved today, which by the way is not correctly attuned to the right direction in fact to the opposite poles (blame the idiot that put it up there) yep Dafad failed to work that obvious rotation out! Come the early evening, both the daft dog and I were just happy to sit in the last of the sun and relax.

Then later, just as I was securing the house for the evening, I spotted a fast moving critter leaping about on the telegraph lines ... as Rolf Harris would say "Have you guessed what it is yet?"   Well ... I will tell you about the very opportunist squirrels here on another day but they are certainly intelligent creatures it's just a shame they are the grey imported variety, not our wonderful native red squirrels.

And that folks is all for today, a very tiring but fun filled day. Goodnight all. 

EWE TWO!

In my last post "AFTER THE RAIN" I ended with the somewhat quippy comment that all I needed was a few sheep to clear the weeds in the veg garden. Dafad here has been missing the sheep back in Wales and has also missed out on this years lambing, shearing and sheep dog trials. and with the mainly arable acres of land,, there's not many wooly backs here.

Yesterday a dear friend, knowing how much I miss the sheep back home,  brought me a present, a black sheep though little did she realise at the time just how apt her gift was. It was looking rather lost and  more than just a tad lonely, gazing wistfully through the temporary trellis fence the poor thing obviously wanted companionship of the ovine kind! Well it just so happened that I was expecting some visitors, temporary gardeners to help clear the vegetable patch of weeds as it is all too much for me to handle alone.

So ... Dafad here had asked for help, which as promised would arrive today, but it needed a little preparation before the temporary work force arrived ... >>>

An old hay rack was attached to the side of the end compost heap and plenty of water to drink given these long hot summer days.

Nearly everything was in place for my new lodgers, then they arrived and got straight to work!

<<< These are Charolais crosses, though crossed with what the owner does not know but they travelled a very short distance to be here (from just across the back lane) and bless them, settled in quickly, nibbling away at unwanted weeds and even bless them "pruning" the lower levels of the trees, so easier to get the mower under! They have not even been here a full day yet, but have settled in quickly and peacefully. The mad mutt is very used to sheep but more the free ranging Welsh kind. These however, were fascinated by him ... though he found these friendly ovines rather daunting, but ... was as good as gold with them both.

After they had settled in to what will be their main temporary home, the veg garden, I then let them through to the orchard and the sweeter apples which they happily munched.

They have also done a good job of munching weeds as well as denuding the lower branches of apple trees and shrubs of leaves, which will make future pruning a lot easier.
So ... both my new "under gardeners" are working hard for their keep and deserve fresh hay, which I bought today as well as a bag of ewe nuts, just to keep them tame & sweet!

 To my amazement, guess who loves eating ewe nuts ...? Yes that mad mutt of mine!

What a bloomin' trio!

As the sun set in the west, the two ewes relaxed in the evening sunshine of the orchard.

A sun smiley, happy day on a farm that used to keep pigs and chickens.

AFTER THE RAIN.

After all the long days of hot sunshine, it was bliss to wake this morning in the early hours and hear the sound of rain and to smell through the open window, that fresh, sweet scent.

Walking out into the garden when I eventually surfaced, the whole garden seemed to be a happier place as the plants drank the moisture from overnight and everything just seemed brighter and happier, including this   tiny plantain 

<<< bejewelled with the morning dew like drops of liquid crystal.

But there is a blot on the weed encroaching landscape >>>

This huge skip, which is now mercifully loaded with all that cannot easily be recycled and is now ready to be picked up and taken away. Hooray! I shall be so glad to see the back of it and see all that junk beyond salvage towed away leaving car parking space for visitors here.

Today, was an empty headed, slow mo, pottering gardening sort of a day. I need them as following the stroke, I still find it difficult to get my head around lots of information landing from all directions. With the American airbases nearby we get a lot of air traffic above us but there were things flying in the garden here today that are very attracted to fallen apples..

A lovely golden bee seeking the last pollen from the everlasting sweet peas and as for the orchard floor ....  the wasps were in their element. I can honestly say that I have never  ever seen so many drunken wasps! On the apple, as seen above, there were 18 in there, most of them unable to fly when I disturbed it. I had to spend quite some time on my hands and knees gathering fallen apples (because of the dog) and dumping them, wasps and all on the compost heap, where they will rot down and in two years time, whoever the new owner of this old place will be, there is some well rotted nutrient for future growing of vegetables in this old farm house. The bramley apple tree is nearly ripe enough to use.

Meanwhile, sadly due to all this extraordinary dry weather, the fallen apples are now decorating the compost heap. Now I need to explain that there are three massive compost bins her (loosely based on the New Zealand style) So ... what I put in now, will take two years to fully compost down. I am about to get a helper to dig out the excellent compost started a few years ago, to go on the veg patch. only then can I start bin number three with a bottom layer of nettles & hollow stemmed stuff, to give the base a good start. One needs patience for nature to take her course  but with a three bin system that is easy. Yes I know, there are those reading this that may say "I haven't got the same room as you." ...  but  I did it with far less land than this.  I had a small garden but I had a 45 gallon (scrounged drum) wormery, they are amazing creatures, they provide very friable compost in a short space of time .....and on top of that I kept four chickens in an end of terraced back garden.  Except for "moult" an approximately six week period when they do not lay, those four kept me in eggs all the year round and with extra to give away. 

The 15 rescued chicks are all growing apace and being well taught by Beatrice the hen

and soon  we will be able to tell the boys from the girls and they will be able to go in the big run and scratch around in the earth in the vegetable garden before they find homes.

All I need now is a sheep or two to eat the weeds.

APPLE PICKING TIME

For some days now, one apple tree has been dropping its fruit and I have had a couple of "Newtonian moments" when a ripe apple has literally fallen on my head ... ouch! But the tree that has so willingly bounced its ripe apples on my bonce, my father called the cider apple tree. Now ... I think it may be a James Greaves, but I am not sure despite googling.

Now, I have never made cider though in years past I have brewed my own apple wine and a certain demi john many years ago that having left to mature ... tasted like proper German Apple Schnapps! Tasty suff!

Now, old Dafad here, whilst sorting out this old place has been hoping to find an apple press and today ... yes ... dusty and disused I found one! Wether I have the time to use it, I don't yet know, but it is very tempting to try in memory of my Dad who brewed gallons of home brew & even for some time, years ago, had his own illegal distillery ... Shhh! (that was years ago now).

Well ... sorting out an attic space today, guess what I found ... yes ... an old apple press. I clearly remember when I was just a mere kid, my Dad pressing apples from the orchard in our old house, what a slow process that was  but as they say "Patience is a virtue " and the wines that my Dad & Gran made are still memorable. We were very self sufficient in those days, Gran & Dad had been through the war and knew just how to economise, something gratefully passed on to me. Luckily thanks to them, I know how to preserve, pickle, jam & thanks to the invention of the freezer, can more easily preserve autumnal harvests.

Elsewhere in the garden the apple orchard is ripening beautifully. Last year, the inclement weather saw a very poor crop of the varied apple varieties here. Hopefully this year will see a bumper crop, but ... just what to do with it all in the short time I have left to deal with it all? This lovely old farm is due up for sale and
 I (despite being the only legitimate  family heir) have been left three quarters of the estate which has led to legal complications but ... whatever the eventual outcome I intend to do the very best to honour the memory of my folks! I guess it is "harvest time" whichever way that goes, only the future will tell.

Meanwhile I have one helluva lot left to sort out and in memory of my folks I will do my very best. Today would have been their 56th Wedding Anniversary, so a sad day in many ways. There are times when I just have to chill out and take a break from filling the very large skip currently parked (solidly) in the driveway, but bit by tiny bit I am getting there.
Many times I have to just sit and rest, even if it is only on an old piece of dilapidated, woodworm weakened old chair. With some T.L.C and a good coat of something weather preservative ... these wooden items >>> could ... find a new lease of life as warm, friendly garden furniture!

<<< Meanwhile the daft dog was laid out in the lap of luxury, stretched out in the back of the Volvo Estate resting his arthritic joints (Bless him). He has struggled with this heat and especially with the crepitus in both his fore-joints. He walks sometimes like a very elderly dog! But fair play to him he tries his very best. He just gets tired out,
like me, so I am off to bed.