The day started in the middle of the night really with my father being ill in the night after his 4th Covid vaccine. He wouldn’t be available to work and one of us might need to stay home with him. We’d have to see. I was up at 6.30 and went to feed Ant and Dec. There was no sign of my father at this point. Dec hasn’t been quite right in a while and doesn’t really want milk. I’ve been thinking about what’s wrong. He holds his tail out a bit so I suspected he may be constipated. The treatment is to flush him out a bit with warm soapy water. I decided to use the syringe from the tubing kit. I got the warm soapy water and drew 50ml up into it. I had no idea how much I would need. He’s only little though so I only put 10ml in. When I i removed the syringe out shot the 10ml of water and some poo. Result!
Then I carefully washed the syringe and my hands. I put the syringe back in the steriliser and then fed them. He made a better effort to drink. I ate my breakfast and went to make milk for the other lambs but the big bowl was upstairs in my father’s room. Josh crept in to get it for me. With the milk made I went to meet Chloe. We were going to feed the pet lambs, sheep and alpacas and then come back to go to Tregurnog with Josh. Feeding the pet lambs was the same feeding frenzy as usual apart from Betty being missing. We fed the sheep and alpacas without incident and headed back up. When we went into the wellfield two familiar looking lambs came to greet us. Lazarus and Mabel again. Little escape artists those two!
At my house, Chloe was excited to meet Ant and Dec. She was shocked how small they look compared to the others. We got the dog and off we went. The plan was for Josh and Chloe to take the food on the quad. I was going to walk with the dog. Josh realised my father had the quad key 🤦♀️ So we all walked. Then we went to see the chickens and collect the eggs.
We left Tregurnog to take Chloe somewhere special. Somewhere she has wanted to go for a while. Somewhere that everyone in college talks about – Arthur John’s. This is an agricultural merchant’s shop in Cowbridge. We needed more milk powder for the lambs and layers pellets for the chickens. You have to go in there with a plan and a strict list otherwise you’ll spend a fortune. To make matters worse we have an account 😬 We just have to be careful. As we were standing over a bucket feeder discussing the merits (from Josh’s point of view) and the negatives (from my point of view), my phone rang. It was my father “I need a cup of tea” “We are just leaving Arthur John’s now, we’ll be as quick as we can”
We gave him a cup of tea and had a brief chat. He was feeling rough after the vaccine. He just wanted to sleep and didn’t want to eat anything. We went for food at the Coach House Cafe at Edwards’s. After food we checked my father again and gave him another drink. Josh stayed home to do emails, bookings etc and to look after my father. I popped to my mother in law’s with her eggs and for a chat. I’d barely started my tea when Josh rang “You’ll have to come to Garth Hall immediately because the Camelibra is at the triangle and I need you to unlock the gate!” I gulped my tea down as fast as I could, said my goodbyes and left to drive through the lames. When I got to the triangle, I passed the delivery lorry. At Garth Hall, Josh was in the paddock with the tractor, the wellfield sheep and several of our pet lambs. I unlocked the gate and shooed them out of his way. I shut the gate after him and headed to the tractor.
Tractors are big and this is relatively small. It has three steps up to the cab. The cab is 5 feet off the ground. It’s at the same height as my head. It’s a long way up. The ride isn’t comfortable on the passenger seat either as it’s just hard plastic. The driver’s seat is on springs. When we drove up the lane, Josh was bouncing about happily on his seat I was being jolted around. We made it to the triangle without meeting any cars. Phew. The lorry driver opened the back to reveal the pallet of Camelibra had toppled over. He got another empty pallet and Josh helped transfer half of the bags onto the other pallet. Josh loaded this on the forks and began to reverse. The top bag started to slide off. I climbed down to put it back up but I couldn’t reach. Josh righted it and we both got back on. He turned the tractor round and it began sliding off again. “Put it in the cab”
That done we started off again. We met 3 vehicles on our way that had to reverse for us and another one ended up behind us. Josh slowly negotiated the turn down into the drive. He stopped in front of the gate for me to get out and open it. There are quite deep ruts where the tractor has been. I descended the steps. I had to jump down off the bottom step. I hit the upper part of the rut a but awkwardly, twisted my ankle and then fell backwards into the rut. I was sitting in the muddy rut, with my back up against the bottom step. Stuck. “Are you OK?” “No! I’m stuck!” I reached behind. Well and truly stuck. Josh must have been laughing because he certainly wasn’t helping! I managed to turn to the side slightly. My left hand had to go in the mud and nettles. I then put my right hand down in the mud to crawl out. I was filthy and Josh was definitely laughing when I looked up. I tried not to laugh on my way to the gate. I failed. It must have been really funny to watch.
Josh left the first load in the paddock and I had to stay to keep the Camelibra safe. The very second Josh drove off for the second load, Munchie started nibbling on a bag. I had to act immediately. “Come on come on!” I grabbed some food and led them all into the wall garden and fed them. I shut the gate and went to sort things out in Cai ready for the Camelibra. When Josh got back he tried to put the pallet in but it wasn’t heavy enough to push the other pallets in. He had to put that one back down and push the alpaca mix pallet further back in. There was just room for the Camelibra pallet then. In it went. Then he brought the last one as far as the door and we stacked this one by hand. I left Josh to put the tractor away and I went to check the sheep and collect the mule. There weren’t any new lambs and no lost ones. A miracle!
As I drive the mule up the slope, I noticed that Neil had flattened all the molehills. Yesterday that had several markers on it, showing the position of his traps. He must have successfully trapped a mole. He would be pleased! I got the Camelibra and alpaca mix and put them into the feedtubs. The clouds were fitting greyer and then it starred to hailstone. I retreated into the office to wait out the shower. Neil arrived at that point. He took the pipe off the poover. He then put it in the brook to fill with water. This would soften and flush out the poo that’s stuck. I’ll be able to check it tomorrow.
When I got home Josh told me there is a walk tomorrow morning. Chloe will help us with this and in the afternoon we will tackle cleaning bums. This sounds like an awful job and of course it’s not pleasant. But, if we didn’t do this, the sheep would get maggots. More on this important job tomorrow…
