March 10th, 2009
Well today started off better than others despite the wind and the rain, after hubby successfully milking Berechon our jersey cow, and successfully negotiating the female piglet who was determined not to be left out, we then proceeded to making for the first time butter. No laughing here please, it was the tiniest bit of butter out and made by shaking cream from yesterdays milking in a jar, simple really although not sure how my arms will be tomorrow from all that shaking lol….
Started making pont l’evoque (soft cheese for the first time) hopefully it will turn out okay - looking good so far - why on earth didn’t we do this months ago, we have had the cow long enough but did not like to disturb her feeding her calf (softies or what!)
anyway more news to come on the results. Next stage will be making hard cheese as thats what the kids really want.
went back tonight to get the cows in for the night and there they were the three wise pigs waiting for us! Ha I said, no problem, hubby you call them round the side and I will run through with the wheelbarrow to the barn so we can get the cows in, plan worked perfectly until super pig Charlotte (all 600 kilos of her!!) burst through the metal barn doors from the other side - followed by - wait for it - all the goats and kids, at this point the three wise ones returned and well that was it - CHAOS! Clio went for Charlotte, the goats took advantage of their bid for freedom and legged it. Confronted with quick decision making we ran in to the barn calling Charlotte in she came followed by the others - not the goats though……..; Cows were going crazy bellowing ‘we want our tea, stuff the pigs’ ‘we want our tea stuff the pigs’, not to be outdone by our wanton animals we got charlotte in to a sty and managed to separate the others in to theirs, regained calm in the barn, tracked down the mischevious goats and persuaded them (haha this is where the bucket of granules came in handy) to return home and then calmly brought in the rather annoyed cows. Peace was resumed and an hour later here we are relaxing until the next adventure. Would we give this up - not a cat in hells chance………..
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February 26th, 2009
A few photos of this years new arrivals, started with kids, our milking goats gave birth - first Buffy the black one had triplets (first kidding for her) unfortunately one was born dead but the other two are doing very well. Then Willow had twins (first kidding for her too) both doing well.
We have also had 8 lambs really cute so now we have 19 sheep in total.
Cute eh!
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January 30th, 2009
Our first lambs are here, born this morning and so cute, hopefully we have another 14 to come ….
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January 28th, 2008
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January 28th, 2008
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January 28th, 2008
These two little monkeys or should I say pigs are due to produce for us (well the sow is anyway) in may. They are really funny and are excellent rotavators have just got to work out how I can move them around the land without having to keep fencing everything in.
Well so much for that theory then! Shows how good am I at spotting pregnant sows and even better and noticing if a boar is properly equipped or not!!lol So it turns out Mr Pig did not have the necessary bits to get Mrs Pig in sow so off they went to the abattoir and thus provided us with some very nice tasty pork.
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January 28th, 2008
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January 28th, 2008
Gizmo has to be the smallest goat we have ever seen, left by her mum we took her in and bottle fed her and it was very much touch and go. Trouble is she is so small we cannot put her outside without being with her so she is living the life of luxury at the moment.
Her favourite trick is to climb up the stairs and then jump off and then run off dancing…
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January 28th, 2008
Being as we decided enough was enough at Christmas and that not only were we going to stop working and put everything in to restoring the mill and building a house for my mother, we also decided we would aim to become completely self sufficient this year. Which explains our recent acquisitions, starting with 9 dorset x sheep, the ram is to follow next week, we already have two tamworth pigs and hope the sow will produce as planned in may, and tomorrow we are going to collect an old gloucester spot who is due to produce in march - all we are waiting for are some cows - 1 for milking and 2 for there meat. We already have lots of poultry and the incubator should be going on tonight ready to start on a batch of chicken eggs. Anyway am going to post some pictures on here of the animals…
The sheep having their breakfast…..
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