Myfanwy (Price)

Myfanwy Price and Dylan.

Welcome aboard Myfanwy Price, a very Welsh name for a Southdown x Hampshire ewe. She is so named because she continues our run of female members of the cast of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood which already includes Polly (Garter) and Lily (Smalls). She comes with a young (June-born) ram lamb at foot whom we have called Dylan (as in Thomas, of course). When I last posted we were all ready and with a working trailer tow-hitch, eagerly awaiting a phone call from Mayo-Liz our 'supplier' out by Kiltimagh.

Myfanwy and Dylan check out 'Hen and Two Chicks' on the
front lawn.

As it happened, the phone call came just as we were preparing to go out shopping for new bed linen. We were expecting Sparks and his good lady for an overnight on Monday and thought it would be nice to fit out 'their' room with all new linen. We were just drinking that final coffee before departure when the phone rang. I had to look pleadingly at Liz for a change of plan; she probably saw a future of trying to keep me focused on linen shopping when there was a ewe and lamb awaiting collection. Anyway, plan B was set in motion - hitch up trailer, nip to Kiltimagh to collect sheep, drop sheep back here, leave me to commune with new sheep while Liz took off for Carrick, solo, for un-pressured bedding shopping.

Our full complement on the front lawn.

Off to Mayo then and we knew where the pair would be even as we pulled up, so we got a good look at them over the split shed-gate before Mayo-Liz and husband Ray had even appeared to welcome us and we liked what we saw. The ewe is a relative youngster (18 months), so rather slight and slim compared to our 'mumsie' 3 year old and 5 year old, but she will fit in well with our plan to roll 3-4 ewes through the flock at 2-year age intervals. That way any anxious new first time mums can get reassurance from the calm, experienced old timers as their bodies go through all those unfamiliar and potentially upsetting changes.

We're big chicks now, so we want to sit
up in the grown-ups chairs.

The new ewe here is, in fact, a one time Mum and has her first lamb already with her; him a fine sturdy chap reminding us of our own first-born, Feste who was also 3/4 Hampshire. He is not quite weaned but he is big enough to need to kneel down to get at Mum's teats and she is already a bit impatient with him and walks off after he's had only a quick suck. Our plan is to put all three ewes to the borrowed tup (Rambo) at around mid September, so the ram lamb needs to be weaned fairly soon, so that she can come back on heat by then. We do not anticipate a problem. Ideally the tup serves all three ewes quickly on arrival, so that we get a nice synchronised lambing (Feb/March) but if she's not quite ready to stand for him, he will be around for a month and will catch up with her later in the visit if she's a bit slow.

Light summer fare ? In the awful wet weather we have been
lighting the range some evenings and using up frozen
winter-warmers like this haggis, neeps and tatties.

Rambo is good and ready and will almost certainly have tupped the ewe 'Pink' whom I sheared recently and may also have had a go at one of Sue's goats to produce a 'Geep'. The goat is looking very pregnant when we last saw her but Sue tells us that Geeps are a rarity. The mother (generally the goat) may go to full term but will usually pass only still-born 'babies'. However there are American 'experts' on the internet who say that, no, they have loads of them running about as fit as fleas. We wait with eager anticipation but also disquiet - no-one wants the gentle mother to suffer or even experience the anguish of still birth.

Not the brightest place to sleep, Soldier.

So, we trundled home with our new purchases and had a quick discussion on how to introduce Myfanwy and Dylan to our 'old' 4. We can no longer drive car and trailer across the front of the house and right into the East Field due to the new gravel/rose garden and the combined rig would ground out on the slope at the end of the cattle race.  Liz came up with a cunning manouvre where we move the 4 to the East field and then let the new ones in from the lane into the top of the Primrose Path. We were not sure of the keen-ness of the newbies to follow me and my unfamiliar feed bucket, but we knew we'd have no problem with the 4.

Some first outdoor mange-tout, went in well to the Indian
(Madhur Jaffrey) meal Liz cooked for Sparks plus one. 

The new animals got an hour or two alone on the front lawn while Liz shopped and they got their bearings and shouted much baa-ing conversation to the 4, one field away. When Liz got back we distracted the new pair while I ran the old 4 on to the lawn so they could meet. That went off as smoothly as you could hope, so, come 6 pm, all 6 were run back to the East Field to spend the night, a little minor stampede after my feed bucket which was actually led by Myfanwy and Dylan. Job done. Our little flock is now complete.

Another classic depression cruises up the Western Seaboard
- no Summer sunshine for us just yet.

We will have 'produced' 4 lambs this year which meets all our needs. We have had a little rash of friends and relatives asking 'can you do one for us' but we are not inclined to go down that road. However, we have an outstanding order in with our old friend, the elusive Scarlet Pimpernel, Kenny O'C. He never replies to texts, calls or voice messages but has been known to turn up without warning with a trailer of "the sheep you wanted" and if he does, he's such a nice guy that we'd not want to let him down by saying "Ahhh, but we've gone elsewhere because we thought you weren't interested....". We may end up with 9 sheep yet, these 6 and Kenny's 2 (female) store lambs and a breeding 'yow'. Don't put the Under MIlk Wood back on the shelf just yet.

An Occasion of Sin?

Class of 2014 try out the 'new' trailer.

On Friday the 1st, out of the blue, comes our long awaited text from that elusive Scarlet Pimpernel, Kenny, our sheep man. It seems he has broken his phone and lost a lot of contacts (Mmmm...) and has had to get back in touch via his brother Joe and our brother, Sparks. Kenny and Joe were part of the amazing stilt-walking plastering team of brothers who did such a good job on our rebuilt house. He was now back and offering us up to 5 lambs 'tomorrow' (Sat 2nd) and also suggesting that we meet him halfway at a car park in Ballyhaunis to transfer them from his trailer to ours. We asked for four. Kenny describes them as 'boys' so we put up on Facebook a jokey competition to name them and got back some very amusing sets of four names, everything from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, through the Ramones names, the Four Horsemen, the Rat Pack, the 'A' Team, the Goons, "Uncle, Tom, Cobley and All" to Eeny, Meanie, Miny and Mo, various recipe lists and even, cleverly "Post, Prey, Poon & Asted" I'll leave you to work that one out!

Eyeing us up through the vent gap on the trailer.

I have to admit I was a bit scared of the trailer-transfer thing and had visions of sheep sprinting all over the busy town of Ballyhaunis an a Bank Holiday Saturday afternoon, with us in pursuit but that bit, at least proved that these sheep people know what they are at. However we suddenly had our Saturday now driven by the schedules of sheep-man Kenny. As well as a plasterer, Kenny is a small scale sheep farmer with a flock of one ram and about 30 'Mums' plus whatever singletons, twins and triplets he has managed to produce that year, and we have fallen in love with him over the years and use him as sheep supplier, mentor and source of sheep wisdom BUT (and it is a big 'But') he is a bugger for the lacks-a-daisical timekeeping and he will surely drive us mad.

Liz lets the sheep out in the East Field

He will text you one day promising to call back first thing tomorrow to confirm arrangements, but then he'll not text back, or it will be 'definitely around 2 pm'. Then as 2 pm approaches you will inevitably get a call saying he's fallen behind. Woe betides if you are hanging around waiting and putting off other jobs 'in case he calls'. One of our deliveries finally arrived at 11 pm and we were shepherding new sheep around in the dark with torches. It all somehow hangs together, though and we've not lost a sheep yet. This batch we finally got a firm rendezvous for the car park of pump-supplier 'EPS' in Ballyhaunis (which would be empty at the weekend and is nicely surrounded on all sides by fences but with an easily 'defended' open main gate). We backed our two trailers up tight together and guarded the side gaps while Kenny's son Oisín strong-armed the first sheep from A to B (the remaining three happily followed, as sheep do). The lads talked us through the sheep, which are an interesting mix of Mule and cross breed all with the same father (a Suffolk Down x Texel). Three ram lambs and a 'Yow'.

These Mayo-born babies taste Roscommon grass.

The 'Occasion of Sin' thing in my subject line? For the non-Catholic readers and anyone who was not schooled by the good Nuns who 'police' sweet little Catholic school girls, Liz tells me that as well as filling the girls with knowledge, a good part of the day was spent protecting them from bad influences and anything which might put at risk their purity and innocence. (Sounds like hard work to me, so fair play to the Nuns!). In this world, anything seen, read or come across which might give the girls a frisson of excitement or make their ears prick up and might cause a SIN to happen (gasp!) was referred to as an "Occasion of Sin". Liz tells me that Kenny the sheep man, with his devilish handsome, Wild Irish Rover good looks, dark curly hair, fine features, twinkling eyes, strong hands (swoon) and fit farmer's body is definitely an Occasion of Sin and would have been kept out of the school by Nuns armed with pitchforks and flaming torches.

Aren't these ear-tags meant to be attached to the sheep,
Kenny?

Ah well, the sheep are all home now and safe in our East Field, recently vacated by the last mini-horse to leave, Cody. There is plenty of grass there and the gang are patrolling around now seeing what it tastes like in all parts of the field. We have not settled on names yet - the choice was too huge! This was the first use of the new stock trailer in anger and we were delighted with how it all worked, all be it we lost the spare wheel from its mount at some stage and had to retrace our steps to go and rescue it in case it was lying in the road causing an accident - it wasn't, it was well hidden in a grass verge. Ah well, we've done all the paperwork and Kenny has given us the strip of ear-tags which he has promised (faithfully!) to come round and fit to the sheep in the next few weeks. Brace yourself, Lizzie!

Pirate after his most recent Vet visit

Meanwhile a quick picture of our old soldier, Pirate the Cat, now all goo'd up again with medical fluids, new stitches and scabby stuff. Poor aul' soul. We hope this is the last visit and now he can get better properly, put on plenty of weight and clean himself up a bit. He has effectively taken over the caravan now and won't let our other two cats in. It's his territory now. Our two cats don't actually mind, especially now that it has turned a bit autumnal and wet, and they are allowed indoors (Ha!). They are currently both stretched out luxuriously on a bed in the spare room. We daren't let Pirate indoors, as the dogs would try to rip him limb from limb. It's a shame, because he is so obviously an 'indoor' cat. We are secretly hoping that one of our guests or visitors will fall in love with him, one who can give him a proper indoor berth with no terriers. Meanwhile, though, we will keep him safe in his new life based around the caravan.