Our special Sophie

We lose our beautiful girl

2011 didn’t start off too well for us, with the tragic loss of our lovely GSD Sophie. She was a truly wonderful dog who joined us with her sister Amy over 10 years ago, and she was the matriarch of our pack.

Although getting older she was generally pretty healthy, but one day on a walk around the field she just lay down and seemed very cold. We brought her in to warm her up and she did rally, but the following day she collapsed in the kitchen. Wrapped in a blanket while we comforted her, she died in our arms. Quite typical of her to spare us from long term worry, and difficult decisions.

She will be sorely missed, not least for those defiant barks she used to deliver while looking us in the eye and ignoring our pleas for quiet!

RIP Sophie.

Soft soap

We try making our own soap

December has been quite busy, with poor weather giving us all kinds of problems. Deliveries (in and out!) have been interrupted and movement around the croft has been harder than usual. However, the animals all seem to be coping well, even if they are already looking forward to the warmer weather in Spring!

Since spending time outside has been less than attractive, we’ve turned our attention to pursuits indoors – including our first try at soap making.

Using lard (from our last pigs), goats milk, olive oil, and a little caustic soda (measured very accurately indeed!), we produced 3 blocks of soap, including one with added oatmeal ‘exfoliant’. Now cut into pieces it will need to cure for several weeks, but we’re looking forward to trying it out.

Woo hoo more snow

The snow catches us by surprise but the dogs love it

It was all going so well, and then suddenly there was a blanket of white. We knew it would happen sooner or later, but we just didn’t expect it to be in November!

Still, we can’t dwell on it. The sheep have been converged into a more sheltered area (this was due to happen anyway, but the snow gave us that little push), and we are well into the animal feeding cycle now. The main difficulty is that the feed has to be carried as the wheelbarrow can’t be pushed through, and the usual paths are quite deep. It makes otherwise quite straightforward tasks much more tiring.

On the plus side, we haven’t seen many muddy pawprints in the house! All the mud has either frozen or been covered over, leaving a nice clean play area for the dogs. They love it!

A wolf amongst sheep

Daisy the shepherd

As the evenings and mornings draw in, we’ve been busy as usual. Busier it seems, as shorter days always mean packing everything into a shorter time.

Our main event was harvesting the grapes from the polytunnel. We had hoped to do this sooner, but as usual there are other distractions. Still, eventually we managed to sort out 8 demijohns of wine – 7 red, and 1 white.

We would have had several more if we’d used a different recipe, but we do prefer the rich flavour that we get with this method. There’s no added water, juice only. Can’t wait to bottle it in the spring!

In the meantime, Daisy has become a good labour saving device in a slightly different ‘field’. As our nominated sheep dog, she helps us to move the sheep around more efficiently. She weaves around behind them according to our hand signals (not traditional, we realise), and they disappear back into their paddock without too much resistance.

It certainly saves a good deal of running and shouting on our part! Well done Daisy!

SmithyCraft

Working with wool

Since the weather over the last couple of months has been slightly less than perfect, we’ve been turning our attentions to more ‘indoor’ pursuits…

Using 100% wool, we have been practising our knitting, crocheting, felting, and needle felting skills, all in warm and dry comfort, and think we have produced some really lovely stuff.

We now have many more items than we could possibly use ourselves, and have created a new website to see if there is any interest in it. You can see for yourself at www.smithycraft.co.uk.

Where possible we have also been working with some of our own fleeces – washing and preparing them, and then dying them using natural dyes. And last month, we dusted off our spinning wheel, and have been spinning our own yarn too!

At the moment, we are only using our own fleece for needle felting (decorating the finished pieces), but depending on how things go, we hope to reduce our reliance on externally sourced wool, and use more of our own.

Whatever happens, we’re delighted with the progress we’re making, and it’s great fun too!

Cow and goat

Baling, calving and a co-operative goat

Our delight at cutting the grass in July lasted about 24 hours, after which it rained and rained and rained (and rained). We expected rain of course, but not as much as we got!

Eventually we managed to bale it, but due to a number of factors we got only 100 bales – about a third of what we were hoping for (and need). At least we managed to do it all with our own equipment this time, and mechanically speaking, everything worked a treat!

Meanwhile, Rosie, one of our Dexters, delivered a calf for us a week earlier than expected. This was her first calf, and although the birth was fine, regrettably she didn’t seem too keen on feeding it! After quite a lot of fiddling about, we admitted defeat and separated mother and calf, and started feeding him from a bottle. He is called Albert.

One of our local dairies supplied colostrum, and another was happy to give us fresh milk for a couple of weeks, but unfortunately Albert just hasn’t taken to bottle feeding at all.

Luckily, the goat kids are already eating solid food, so the most sensible solution was to separate them from the goat and let Albert suckle it instead (pictured). Unusual perhaps, but working nonetheless. Kids, calf, and goat are all doing beautifully!

We have kids

Our first kids

We have been extremely busy just lately..

At the end of June, one of our goats had kids (our first at the croft, due to some unfortunate timing last year). Everything obviously went without a hitch, as they were waiting for us in the pen one morning, newly born. They are doing extremely well.

We managed to harvest a small amount of goats milk for ourselves, and made some cheese. Delicious!

Our annual battle with the peats is finally over, all bagged and stored in the peat shed for another year. They should keep us going until the next time.

And, the grass is cut ready for baling. With the weather being even more unpredictable than usual, this is no mean feat!

Farewell to our beloved Blitz

We say goodbye to a true gentleman

At the beginning of June, and after a long battle with CDRM, we lost our beloved GSD Blitz. He was 12.

We took Blitz on as a rescue dog 9 years ago, and never regretted it. Even with several other GSDs in the ‘pack’ it took him several months to fully settle in, but after that he showed his true character – a gentle giant with a bark that could pierce the eardrums!

18 months ago he was diagnosed with CDRM, after we noticed him dragging his foot, and 6 months later a large mass was found in his abdomen. Neither was causing any discomfort, but over time his mobility did deteriorate. With careful management though, and one or two home made devices, he remained comfortable and happy to the end.

We miss him terribly, but are extremely thankful for the extra year he gave us.

RIP Blitz, you will always be with us.

Pastures new

The sheep go off to mow some grass

After the long winter, and somewhat poor start to the spring, we found ourselves with a shortage of grass for the livestock to graze.

Our usual strategy of moving them around between 6 small fields worked for a while, but even topping up with hay left us with barely enough to go around. They were eating it faster than it was growing!

Luckily we heard of someone fairly local to us, that had an acre of grass which they found difficult to cut and keep under control. They were making it available to anyone with animals that could graze it. We jumped at the chance, and as soon as we could, our ewes and lambs were piled into the trailer, and ferried a couple of miles to their new temporary home.

While shepherds watch

Shepherds at work

All of the lambs have now been born, and following some time inside the livestock shed (while the weather was still unpredictable), they have now been moved to their outside residence.

Luckily for us, we also have some ‘lamb monitors’ available to perform regular checks for us. As you can see, they enjoy their work!

Elsewhere, the polytunnel is starting to take shape with good signs of growth, and the grass is finally looking like making an effort. It will need to work harder though, otherwise our hay crop this year will be very poor.

The slow start to the season could make things quite tricky!