I slept well and although my throat is still painful, it’s a lot better than yesterday. I feel better in myself too. I think yesterday that I was coming down with the migraine. So today was far more positive.
Skye was walked and then I went to Garth Hall with a bottle for Elsie. I must admit to driving the truck all the way around though, just to preserve my energy. I drove to the wall garden gate, opened it as there weren’t any sheep there and then I drove in. By the time I shut the gate there were 4 silvernoses, Molly and a wether following me. I got to the barn and I could hear Elsie but she wasn’t in the barn. That part of the wellfield is a bit of a bowl and sound echoes around. She was calling but I had to work out where she was. Then I saw her, just outside the old machinery shed. Calling me but not moving. I waved the bottle at her. That shifted her 😂 She came to the barn and came in. She rushed to the bottle as usual but, she played with it and didn’t really want it. She drank a bit. She hasn’t had a bottle for two days and she is plenty old enough! I think, she has weaned herself. Well done Elsie. She was far more eager for lamb creep than the bottle. Then I fed the two rams and went to collect their water. The sheep had moved from the barn gate but they were lurking, just in case.
The grass is wet but the ground isn’t so I could drive down. 4 wheel drive is a marvellous thing. I probably won’t get the truck up again from he bottom in a hurry if the rain later is as heavy it’s forecast to be. I got some food for the alpacas, while it’s dry! Then I fed the ram lambs. Yesterday Jordan picked up some ‘ram mix’ for them from Arthur John’s. She is now insured to drive the truck so her and my father went to collect layers pellets and ram mix from them and also to Riverlea for the trailer ramp part and to get bearings for the trailer wheel. Neil will sort the bearings out this weekend as we’ve got another market on Thursday 6th. My father used to feed beet pulp but in recent years the quality hasn’t been so good. Too much of it causes the runs. As a consequence we started feeding ewe nuts which are better. We then changed to ewe rolls. The same thing, just larger. There seems to be less waste with the larger ones. The problem is that rams and wethers cannot have ewe nuts or ewe rolls. They can have a few but cannot be fed regularly. Over time they cause urinary calculi. Obviously this is dangerous so we looked for something else – hence the ram mix. At first glance it seemed like alpaca mix but when I was putting it out for the ram lambs, I realised it contained lots of corn and nuts so not quite the same. They loved it.
Today wasn’t all positive though. Wandering around with buckets around pet sheep in, quite frankly a bloody nightmare. Neil thinks it’s funny but because I feed the most, the sheep congregate around me. They also see me as a soft target. Neil sneakily feeds them and then the buggers attack ME for food. Ted appeared first with a few other wethers. Of course Ted, as a former pet lamb is not afraid of me. Then I saw another sheep dashing down the slope towards me. Blossom. She was a pet lamb about 4 years ago. Her mother was horrible to her and kept hitting her away. Blossom’s jaw is slightly wonky due to this. It certainly does not affect her ability to eat. These two have no fear and are likely to try and get their faces in a bucket. Any bucket. They aren’t very good at moving out of the way of vehicles either. Ted nearly got his face shut in the truck door 🤦♀️ As annoying as they are, they give me blog content…
Helen x
