While the flower beds along the house and the meadow at the entrance are all looking great (summer at auchenstroan), the flower bed the other side of the lawn has always been a bit of an eyesore. Most of the plants were, according to Nicole, a mish mash, in the wrong place; Crocosmia, Yellow Loosestrife, Solomon’s seal and Hostas. In amongst these, Ground Elder, Bindweed and Willow Herb had taken over. With me otherwise occupied trying to rescue some veggies (veggies version 2), it was left up to Nicole to clear the bed.
flower bed clearing underway
Working as a gardener and fairly busy right now, Nicole fitted this in around her work. It was a large task and took the best part of a week to clear it. Patiently waiting by the greenhouse were rows of carefully potted on flowers, Echinacea, Achillea and Salvias to create a wee “prairie” from the recently weeded border. These were having to be watered daily and so would benefit hugely from finally getting into the ground.
Finally, the bed was cleared and a mountain of weeds made their way to the compost bin. Nicole was exhausted but very happy indeed. Now for the good bit, the planting out.
flower bed cleared
pile of weeds
There was no waiting or having a wee rest to recover from all the effort of clearing it. I was on a deadline to mulch it. Nicole headed off to work and I was straight into mulching – it took 4 trailer full’s of mulch to put a decent covering down. Hard, but satisfying work. There is something very attractive about a recently mulched flower bed.
flower bed woolly protection
Nicole got home and after a quick cuppa, she was out planting. Given all the problems we’ve had in the veggie patch with slugs and snails, each flower was carefully surrounded with wool.
The net result looks amazing, but will be even better once all the flowers grow and bloom. That will most likely be next year.
As previously mentioned, we borrowed some cows from a neighbouring farm (cows return to Auchenstroan). With them nicely settled in, I headed off to Edinburgh to meet a flamenco guitar master (for some guidance) and then a beer with friends. All excellent.
I returned Saturday morning to a water emergency. With the weather being warm, the cows had drained all our livestock water tanks. Also, the burns that feed our tanks had dried up. Nicole had taken some water over but the quad bike cannot tow that much and it’s also very slow to fill a bower from a tap.
So, it was out with the tractor, hook up the 600 litre bowser and set the pump up in the river. We are on spring water here and during the summer filling a 600 litre bowser would empty our water tank (shared by our close neighbours). So, it’s best to pump it up from the river. One of my neighbours helped for which I was very grateful. I also filled two 20 litre water carriers while I was at it.
cows queuing for water
Once full, the bowser was towed to the tank and connected so the tank could be filled. While that was happening (it takes two hours for the bowser to drain through the standard hose connector), I went to fill the trough with the 20 litre carriers. At first, the cows were not sure what I was up to, but as I started pouring water into their trough, they formed an orderly queue headed by the brown cow pictured.
Once I had poured the two containers in, she dipped her head and drained the lot. This could be a long day, I thought. If you’re wondering why the troughs were not filling automatically, they were, but just not quickly enough. The have a ballcock valve much like that found in a standard toilet. The water flows in, but like an old tap.
Anyway, I zipped back and forth with the quad fetching water while the bowser offloaded into the tank. On the second visit, the bull was at the front of the queue. His head was almost as wide as the water trough. He watched me with mildly suspicious eyes while I poured the water in. His head was in straight after the first container, so I just poured the second one in next to his head. He drained the lot and, sated, he wandered off. It took about 4 trips before the queue started to thin out and 6 to get the trough back to full. It also took three bowser fulls to fill up the tank (around 1800 litres). Once done, I thought that was that.
No!
Sunday morning is my turn to check the animals. I found the cows had made the executive decision to move field trampling a fence in the process. Not much could be done, so we opened up more space for them and they seemed quite happy. And they still had water.
Monday morning, all the water was gone, again. They had managed to move a trough off its stand and so tilt it and drain the entire system. I inspected all the troughs followed closely by a number of cows. All empty.
Tractor out, pump on, refill…
Only this time, there was no water coming down. In a mild panic I worked my way up disassembling each connection. No water, but I could find nothing wrong with the system.
I gave up – we asked the farmer to take them back a day early as it was hot and they needed water.
Now, we have had trouble with this tank but I thought it was repaired. In fact, the tank had appeared to be holding water again, so I had filled in the repair trench (before it collapsed). I dug it all out again, but everything was fine. And then the water started to flow into the troughs. It turned out to be a small hump in the pipeline which the water level had to get above to start flowing. Panic stations were all for nothing. Only now, one of the connections was leaking.
Thankfully, I have a box of pipe connectors so I was able to repair it. The pipe had shifted a bit so I had to put in a piece to lengthen the pipe so it would reach the connector properly. By the end of the day, I had refilled the tank, repaired all the pipework and the troughs were all full again. This time, only sheep would be drinking.
This year, the grass has gone mad. I have never seen it so long and lush. To say the sheep can’t keep up would be an understatement. In fact, of late, they have only really grazed two of the five fields they have access to. Sheep prefer to nibble at short grass, so much of the long grass remains untouched.
cows back at auchenstroan
Our neighbouring farm keeps cows and a few days back, they appeared in a field next to our track (the cows that is, not the neighbours). It was a good sized heard of around 25 with a mix of heifers, calves and a sizeable bull. Opportunity yes, we thought to ourselves.
So, we asked our neighbouring farmer if he’d like to graze his cows in our fields for a bit. He was delighted to do so and brought them over yesterday evening. After an excitable period of exploring, the cows settled down and this morning, they looked really happy. Well, it’s a big field with lots to eat, who wouldn’t be happy?
They will be with us for a few days by which time we expect they’ll have scoffed most of it. We are really pleased because grazing cows is really good for the land too.
I wrote a few weeks back about the problems we were having getting our veggies going this year (problems with veggies). First, the birds dug them up and then, the slugs emerged and scoffed the lot. We ended up with around about 3 kale, 2 turnips, 4 spinach, 3 beetroots, one half-eaten broccoli and some carrots from our first planting. All the salads have gone. None of the direct sown seeds have emerged. Onions aside, A bit of a disaster really.
carrots protected by wool
Luckily, I had kept some seedlings back and potted them up. We also did an emergency purchase of more seeds and got them going. The problem is, though, what to do about the slugs. We don’t really like using slug pellets and besides, they hadn’t been much use where we had used them. In the past, I have tried various approaches, eggshells, traps etc, but none of these were that good really. However, Nicole read somewhere that they don’t like wool. It’s worth a try we thought as we have plenty left over from shearing.
So, over the weekend, I have been planting out the second wave. These are all plants that have been potted up and allowed to grow reasonably large. This should give them a fighting chance. Each plant has been delicately surrounded with a carpet of wool. Rain is forecast this week, we shall soon see if that works. Fingers crossed!
Haribo came to live with us a few years ago. He came to us unwanted by his previous owner and with a list of issues over two pages long. Most of those issues disappeared fairly quickly, but one endured. Haribo was very scared of dogs he didn’t know and this led to a fear aggression response. His coping strategy was to get the first attack in.
This made walking a bit of a problem, but as we were aware of this, we were able to control him. Over time and under George’s wing (George is our Anatolian Shepherd), Haribo’s general behaviour improved, but the fear aggression stayed. In the last few months, we have noticed that Haribo just seems to have become more relaxed. He has a very stable life here and plenty of space. He and George are best mates and he also likes Maga, the collie who lives nearby.
Last weekend, a neighbouring cottage had visitors coming and they were bringing a dog. A small terrier. She’s a very relaxed dog, they told us. Hmm, the words ‘terriers’ and ‘relaxed’ don’t often appear in the same sentence. When I worked as a dog behaviour consultant, most of my clients were owners of small terriers. Anyway, I said I’d manage the introductions. On Friday afternoon, I picked up the collar and lead, but I couldn’t find Haribo anywhere. In the end I went to the neighbour’s cottage. Both George and Haribo really like our neighbours and Haribo often camps in their garden where it’s cool and shady.
Sure enough, there he was, fast asleep in their porch. It turns out they had already met, Haribo and the terrier that is, and nothing had happened. Just a small growl from the terrier, apparently (no surprises there). We are amazed. The first time Haribo has met a strange dog and not gone to level 10 in an instant. He has done well.
slimline Haribo
His second achievement is that he has lost somewhere in the region of 7Kg. Around the turn of the year, we noticed he was looking a bit porky so we cut his food a bit. It’s our fault really, feeding him too much and not noticing the him slowly getting fatter. Nicole discovered some lumps so we took him to the vet. He’d already lost some weight but he was still around 7Kg overweight. So, we cut his food a bit more. The fatty lumps turned out to be benign and now have disappeared. We weighed him again recently and he’s down to 28kg, much closer to his target weight of around 25kg.
He also has much more energy and is definitely enjoying his walks more.
So well done Haribo. Given one of his previous issues was raiding bins, it’s gratifying that even with his diet, this never happens. In fact, we can leave the animal room open (where we store animal feed including dog biscuits) and they never help themselves.
It’s shearing season here and sheep all over are having their wool sheared. Given that it’s been quite hot for a couple of days, our sheep are quite happy not to be sporting their woolly coats right now. Shearing is also important for health, hot weather means more flies and blowflies, in particular, can be quite a threat to sheep.
Coloured Ryeland fleeces dried and bagged up
One of the sad facts is that, these days, wool is almost worthless. Most is bought by British Wool for less than a pound a fleece. That’s pretty much what it costs to shear a commercial sheep. For small flock owners like us, the cost is higher.
Nicole recently started making felted rugs (felted fleece rugs at Auchenstroan). These are starting to prove popular and so Nicole is planning to ramp up production a bit. This mainly involves drafting me in to help.
Shetland fleeces drying in the sun
We have a few fleeces left over from last year and 27 of our own Coloured Ryeland fleeces from this year. However, we thought it might be good to see what kind of rugs could be produced by other breeds. So, we have got a few fleeces from our Farm-sitter’s farm (pictured at the top) and also some Shetland fleeces from a smallholding further up the road from us.
It will be good to see how the rugs turn out. They will appear in our shop as they are finished.
Well, summer has finally arrived at Auchenstroan. I think it’s going to last for at least two days, so we are trying to make the most of it. We are supposed to be taking a break this week, but there’s always stuff to be done. A couple of sheep have suffered from midgie bites around the eyes so we have been wiping the affected areas clean with saline which seems to be helping. Another sheep has a cut (from shearing) which has got a bit infected, so we have been treating her (it looks like it’s getting better).
While we have been having problems getting veggies to grow (problems with veggies), the flowers are doing really well. The flower bed at the front of the house (pictured above) is constantly buzzing with bees, both honey bees and also various bumble bees.
Nicole is especially pleased as many of the flowers she grew from seeds. Pictured right is a meadow area which is just coming into bloom and looks really great.
wild flowers
Pictured left is a flower bed created by Nicole around a stone dyke (one I repaired a while back). The roses are still to bloom, but the geraniums are enjoying the warm sunshine.
Our wild areas are also blooming. We have set aside quite a few areas as natural meadows. Pictured left is what used to be the pig pen. Now it’s a wild flower haven with young rowan and hazel trees planted so as to create a small woodland. In the meantime, the wild flowers are flourishing.
young woodland in summer
Our broad leaf woodland is also coming along nicely. The trees are getting to quite a good size now. It’s a great area for trees as it’s quite damp – a lot of the water from the hillside ends up here. We are looking forward to the trees getting ever taller and creating that real woodland feel.
In the meantime, we are scrabbling around to finish our tasks so that we can get the garden chairs out and put our feet up before summer ends.
We have a field shelter complex in one of our small fields. Our sheep really like the shelter and they head there when it’s raining (for shelter) or sunny (for shade). They also head there when they’re a bit stressed, for example when it’s midgie weather. Last year, we added slabs all the way round to ensure they had some hard standing.
muddy puddle in shelter
That worked really well, but annoyingly, the ground in the shelters got quite muddy and in places there were small puddles. Mixed with a bit of sheep poo, it can get a little smelly. Over the winter, we used a lot of sawdust and straw to keep things fresh. While that gave us a mini mountain of mulch, it’s still not that brilliant for the sheep. With 27 of them, it was really a bit more than the shelters could cope with.
So, we decided to add some drainage. We have also set up a path from our fields to the lambing paddock. They were not well connected, but a little bit of fencing means we can now give the sheep unrestricted access to the lambing shed. This winter, we’ll be able to spread the load between the two shed complexes.
Laying drainage pipe
Anyway, I did a bit of planning and bought some drainage pipe. The plan is to run a pipe through each shelter and also around three edges where it can get pretty damp and muddy. Combined with the guttering installed last year, this should take a lot of water around the shed away.
Then it was time to roll the sleeves up and get digging. I had also bought a special sock, a covering for the drainage pipe that kept the silt out. This meant I didn’t have to bed it in gravel and also I didn’t have to put it in that deep. Nevertheless, the digging took a while.
drainage pipe laid
Once the trench was dug, it didn’t take long to get the pipe in place. We’re hoping it will make a big difference.
In the meantime, the sheep have access to the lambing shed which has a floor made of hard core, so they are perfectly happy – when they remember it’s there!
We’ll be keeping that field shut for the summer to allow the ground to recover from the pounding of 27 sheeps’ hooves
We’ve had our fair share of animal medical problems this year and while most are now sorted, one of our hens, Bim, has rather a persistent problem. It’s a large swelling in the lower abdomen and looks pretty red and uncomfortable. It’s a condition called Egg Yolk Peritonitis, a common condition in hens of all ages. You can see the angry red patch down near her legs in the photo.
Bim has already had a visit to the vet resulting in a course of anti inflamatory injections and a course of antibiotics. That helped a little, but in the following weeks, the swelling slowly returned. Sadly, treatment for Egg Yolk Peritonitis is seldom successful and often results in the hen dying.
But Bim was showing no other signs of ill-health. Her comb is red and healthy. She is eating, she keeps up with the other hens, in fact she is still number one hen. That said, she had started to be slow in leaving the hen house in the morning.
The question was what to do. There is no real treatment for this condition. Even an operation is out of the question as hens do not normally react well to anaesthetic.
Anyway, we had the vet coming over to check on one the sheep. Peaches, the oldest, is looking a little thin and we needed to check her teeth to make sure she was still able to eat. We tried, but putting our fingers near Peach’s teeth proved somewhat tricky. The vet had a special gadget and Peaches is fine, thankfully.
Anyway, we asked her to give Bim a checkover. She also agreed that Bim, swelling apart, seemed very healthy. So, she’s on another course of antibiotics supported by a diet and bath regime designed by Nicole. Yes, you read correctly – a bath regime. Apparently a warm salt bath can help to clear the affected passage. Bim is not entirely sure about the bath, but the blow dry afterwards goes down a treat. Bim happily stands on the floor and lifts her wing to get maximum effect from the hairdryer.
Her diet comprises garlic and other natural antibiotic / anti-inflammatory plants.
It’s early days, but she is now proving hard to catch which is a good sign.
Sheep have to be sheared once a year, it’s vital for their wellbeing. Here, in SW Scotland, we shear mainly in June. While Nicole and I have both done the shearing course, we contract out our shearing to professional shearers. It’s a really hard job and the top shearers shear a sheep in just a few minutes. So, all in all, it’s better for the sheep as it’s over quickly.
sheep in – awaiting shearing
After last year, when we had assumed we’d just call in the sheep as they were needed (wrong!), we had built the sheep handling area. We were looking forward to using it for the first time.
The shearers had let us know they were coming about lunchtime, so after breakfast we brought the sheep in. I say we, Nicole just called them and in they trotted.
yakozuki
We let them have a look around the paddock. For the hogs, this was where they had been born last tear – I wonder if they remembered. Anyway, the lambing paddock was full of tasty morsels – meadow flowers, tree sprouts, a hedge and low hanging leaves. They had a lovely time.
We also had to catch Yakozuki as he was limping. He needed an antibiotic jag. But, they were all a bit excitable. So, after an hour or so, we brought them into the handling area and let them settle down a bit. We caught Yakozuki and gave him his injection. Then we settled down to wait.
shearing waiting room
The shearers duly arrived and we had our first problem. Their trailer only just squeezed through the gate. Note to self, bigger gate needed. However, with skillful trailer manouevring (that puts me to shame), the shearing rig was soon in place. It turns out one of the shearers is from one of our neighbouring farms. It’s good when that happens.
orderly queue
We gathered the sheep into a smaller waiting pen and started to guide them up the ramp. Ha ha – they took one look at the ramp and doubled back. In fact, it was quite a tricky job getting them up the ramp – needed two people. One to move the sheep towards the ramp and one to catch them as they turned back and keep them moving forward.
Even then, some of the hogs were small enough to turn round and drive them all back down again. Still, the two shearers were zipping through them so these were but minor hiccups. We kept the orderly flow of sheep up (we had 27 in total being sheared). Of course, there’s always one. Peaches – the matriarch and eldest of our ewes decided that shearing was not for her this year and every time we turned our back, she quickly backed herself down the ramp into the waiting area. Three times! I had to stand behind her for a while. I compensated this loss of freedom with lots of back scratches – Peaches loves her back scratches.
Sparkle watching Bluemli
It’s great watching top shearers in action. What with all the keeping the flow of sheep up, I didn’t get to see much, but Sparkle was enraptured. You can see her in the picture on the right, head resting on the gate, watching Bluemli being shorn of her locks.
Throughout all this, Nicole was labelling each fleece with the name of the sheep. Each of these fleeces will be turned into a felted rug. And so, we’ll know whose fleece each rug is made from. Each rug will be supplied with a little history of the sheep it comes from.
all sheared
Soon, all the sheep were shorn. Nicole had also gathered them back into the holding area so that they would be out of the way of the trailer when it was towed out.
It’s funny how small and dainty they look without their thick woolly coats.
back out to pasture
Once the shearers had gone and we’d had a quick cuppa, we took them back out into the main pasture. There was a nice breeze there and that meant no flies and no midgies. The sheep settled down and looked quite happy. We think the shearing helps them regain full fields of vision. The thick woolly coats can grow round their eyes causing problems. We do trim them from time to time, but a full haircut means unhindered vision. Bluemli even came in for pats, something she hasn’t done for a while.
And of course, Ymogem came over to pose for a photo.
Ymogen sheared for the first time
It was a tiring day for all of us, sheep and humans. So, we decamped to the pub for a well earned drink and a dinner we didn’t have to cook.
