06 March 2004 - Sheep and snow
We had intended to start this diary in January but since we are now half way through March it is clear nothing goes according to plan. As we write we are in the midst of lambing our 8 Cotswold ewes - a rare stoical breed that has us up twice a night for absolutely nothing to happen! We have crossed them this year with an Exmoor ram called Tin Opener. He has fine horns and a passive nature and now lives in the orchard with our 2 Berkshire pigs. Rosie and Mabel are pretty black girls being kept for breeding in the summer.
This is another venture we have very little experience of but we do have a patient neighbour to walk us through the whole thing. Anyway the lambing has been mixed with a pair of bottle fed lambs taking much of the time - their mother was my favourite, Mascara, who very sadly found the twins sapped her energy and took her life. We have crossed the breeds this year and indeed last (a Suffolk) to increase productivity and give us some changed breeding stock. However we will return to purity in the autumn, so that our good lines do not disappear.
The snow hit us hard last week but went as fast as it came. It gave the children a day off school and bent our fruit cage in two. The fruit bushes were just starting to bud up. They will live on, just a little strangely pruned this year. We have a patch of rhubarb that will give us a crumble this week. We will make rhubarb and ginger jam the moment we have a surplus. Much of the vegetable ground is ready to receive the seeds that we have yet to buy. We are organic here, blessed with an excellent soil built up over the generations from every type of manure. Things mostly grow well and prolifically with a never-ending battle against slugs.
We are working all hours to prepare the garden for opening at Easter. The paths are very weedy and some need new gravel, others are being dug out and covered in wood chip. We are still enjoying some late snowdrops and I have every intention of dividing some of the congested clumps to create even more swathes of snow carpet. My special snowdrops have bulked up quite well this year too, especially Merlin. Primrose Warburg, probably the most expensive plant that I have bought, a gorgeous yellow snowdrop, has flowered for me twice and has now refused to put in an appearance this year. I am saddened at this loss but feel cheered at finding an elwesii broad leaf that I had forgotten.
We have so many tasks to complete that Angus and I sometimes feel overwhelmed at the list of 'to do' but then the sun shines and we get going again. Amy, aged 5, finished her term with a praise worthy performance as a sheep, and will now be helping us to make our Cerney Cheese and to plant a new belt of plane trees that will eventually replace some squirrel damaged Acers at the rear of the walled garden. To add to our list we have complicated our lives further by buying a collie bitch puppy. We hope that at some point in the future she will control our small flock since we feel that life is too short to charge about the field in hot pursuit of wayward sheep. We have watched a film all about training our collie and hope that Jessie has taken the whole thing on board. We will give her the new books to read so that she can master the finer points.
The daffodils are smiling and we must get busy with seeds and yet another tidy up since the last rage of winds. We have quail about to hatch and black rock hen's eggs to fall over. We must find an outlet for our organic eggs before the boys become egg bound.
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