As well as making sure we have enough water for our animals, we also need water for our vegetables. This year, we have had to water seedlings and pots every day for weeks.
The problem is our water supply is a hillside stream which fills a tank used by 4 houses. In dry weather, the spring shrinks to a trickle so we have to be careful with our water. We already have a couple of rainwater butts installed, but these soon empty. We have also ordered a polytunnel (growing vegetables outdoors here is challenging) and that will need to be kept watered too.
The answer was to purchase a large water butt. We identified a spot and bought the biggest we could put there, a whopping 1,500 litres. It was delivered but only to the bottom of our track so the first job was to get it up here. It’s at moments like these I am thankful we have our tractor with its front loader.
Armed with ratchet straps, I set off, attached the tank and brought it up.
Being too far from the downpipe, we needed a feeder system and for that I installed a small slimline water butt. It took a few concrete blocks to get it to the right level.
I also had to put in a level base for the big tanks. Time consuming but not that tricky, this was all soon done.
The final problem was that the water divertor supplied did not fit onto the cast iron downpipes we have here. It took a couple of days to think of a solution. In the end, I took the cast iron pipe off below the divertor and replaced it with a plastic pipe of similar dimensions. Job done, almost. Cutting through the cast iron pipe took a while. I started with an angle grinder with a metal cutting disc. That lasted about 5 minutes before it shredded. So it was back to the old fashioned way, manual hack saw.
In the end, it was all done and plumbed in. This latter job was complicated by the close proximity of corn flowers that were attracting many bees. I am allergic to bee stings so didn’t really want to get stung. Thankfully, they ignored me, even when I reached right across the flowers to pick things up I had dropped.
Recently a lovely lady in faraway Georgia, USA bought “the Yogi rug” from our online shop. I was excited because it’s always a bit extra special when a person from a distant destination buys something from us. This was doubly special because the lady from Georgia told me she also lives on a farm so I loved the fact that the Yogi rug would be going to live in agricultural Georgia, a far cry from rural Scotland, but also somehow very connected, a home from home almost.
The following day I packaged up the rug and popped in Yogi’s photo, packing slip and all the bits. I then booked in FedEx to collect the parcel from us on their next day collection service. FedEx are a brilliant company to send things to the US, we have used them before and in fact last time two rugs flew off to America and arrived at their destination within only three days! The great thing about using a courier is that you can track the parcel’s progress which is quite good fun. It is also comforting to know that while you can track a parcel it is unlikely to disappear into a great big abyss and appear mysteriously some time later, or not as the case might be. In the past we used standard mail to send parcels around the world and although we’ve had no parcels go missing and only one late arrival due to a post office strike in France, (the parcel did eventually make it thankfully), we’ve decided to offer courier only service for our rugs and cushions because it gives us and our customers peace of mind to be able to track packages and know roughly when they will arrive.
Yogi as a lamb with mum Witchy
The following morning the FedEx van arrived and off the Yogi rug went. We waved it goodbye and I admit, I had a bit of a lump in my throat. The Yogi rug is very special you see, Yogi is Witchy’s lamb and Witchy struggled when she was young so it was a miracle that she grew up to be a mum and then go on to make Yogi who is our first strawberry blonde sheep. She is exceptionally pretty and has a very cute baaa. This rug is the first I have made from Yogi’s fleece, it was her lamb fleece so very soft and cuddly.
Anyway, I carried on with the farm jobs and went off to my gardening job. Later that evening I opened FedEx’s tracking page to see where the parcel would be. I was a bit surprised to see no update to the tracker but thought nothing of it, I presumed the driver had forgotten to update his device and it would show up at some point. I carried on with life.
Two days later I thought I’d have a peek at the tracker. I was surprised to see absolutely no change at all to the parcel’s status. It was still showing “waiting for collection”. My heart sank, I thought something had to be wrong so spent a while looking for contact details and eventually found a “chat” button. Luckily, I didn’t have to wait too long, along came Emily who was really helpful and friendly. I told her I was concerned about a shipment and gave her the details. Emily said she’d look into it and then disappeared off for about half an hour, (well, it felt like half an hour at least, it was probably about 4 minutes but still). I was starting to think I’d been abandoned when she reappeared and said she’d located the parcel and it had a new tracking number. She said it had arrived into Memphis Tennessee and was in Customs. I was so relieved, I nearly jumped for joy. I went about my business with a spring in my step.
Two days later I wondered if the rug was sitting pretty in its new farm so I entered the tracking number into the system and waited for the internet to chug into action. When the page decided to open, I was really disappointed to see absolutely no change at all in the parcel’s progress, it was still at the FedEx Memphis hub, in Customs. At this point in time demonstrations had started to break out in the US and obviously there is CoronaVirus, so I assumed this was causing a backlog in processing parcels. Never the less I starting to feel a shadow of worry creeping over me and that night I woke up at 4 in the morning picturing the Yogi rug all alone on a shelf in a warehouse in faraway Memphis Tennessee.
Yogi
I tried to push the nagging worry from my mind and went about my business. That morning I emailed the lady in Georgia with the new tracking details and told her there appeared to be a hold up at Customs and that I would let her know as soon as there were any updates.
I stopped checking the FedEx tracking page daily, I thought it would work its way through in its own time, I did however set up an alert with FedEx so if there was any movement on the parcel I’d get an email.
A watched kettle never boils, but if it doesn’t boil in two weeks you can’t help but wonder if something might be awry. So, after two weeks of no movement on the tracker I decided to get in touch with Customer Services. I wanted to know if it was normal for a parcel to be stuck in Customs for this length of time. It was then that I had the pleasure of meeting Leroy Williams. I was astounded at the speed with which a representative came back to me after sending in my initial query, I think it was half a day if that! Leroy was brilliant, a real credit to FedEx Customer Services Department, the speed at which he dealt with my query was phenomenal. Within a short space of time Leroy had informed me that the shipment had disappeared off the radar. It should have arrived at its destination by now so he would open a “search query” and this would take 72 hours. Although my heart sank to be told this, I felt strangely positive and upbeat, purely because of the way Leroy was handling the issue. He asked me to send photos of the package and a detailed description of it and all sorts of other info. He said to leave it with him and he would be back in touch after the allotted time, if not before if the parcel was found sooner. So although the parcel being “lost” was awful news, the blow was definitely lessened by the way Leroy handled the situation.
However, the spring in my step didn’t last long, I’m not sure why, it just kind of disappeared, probably not helped by my overactive imagination and tendency to worry. Images of the Yogi rug lost and alone on a shelf in a cardboard box in a stark warehouse full of conveyor belts and robots in Memphis started to haunt me day and night. Doubt that the shipment would ever be found didn’t just creep in, it started to rampage through me, and under my calm and bustling exterior my mood was spiralling fast downhill. The sensible part of my brain fought with the emotional part, at 4am when the emotional part was hitting over drive the sensible part asked; why are you so affected by this? Parcels go missing all the time, Leroy is dealing with it, there are more important things to worry about than a missing parcel, for goodness’s sake pull yourself together! People are dying of corona virus and you’re worrying about a missing rug! But I couldn’t pull myself together and on day three with no word from FedEx my calm exterior disintegrated into little pieces and I reverted to the five year old me, I rang my mum and bawled down the phone. “Yogi is missing in Tennessee!!!” “Pardon?” “Oh,” she said, “not the sheep, the rug!!” “Yes,” I said, “the rug, but it’s as if part of Yogi is lost, and part of my soul too” I said. It was then that I realised through my sniffles that the reason I was so upset was because each time I make a rug, part of me, and part of the sheep goes into it, not just physically, but also on a kind of energetic sort of spiritual level. My mum was brilliant, she listened and said it was totally normal for me to be reacting like this, she would feel the same way, we had a long chat and then I made a cup of tea and resigned myself to the fact that Yogi was missing and not just presumed dead, but actually dead. (Note, the Yogi rug had now actually become Yogi somehow)!
That evening I did the 5pm sheep check which meant climbing the hill with the dogs and counting the sheep, then mooching around a bit checking their behaviour and generally making sure they were OK. On approaching the flock, I immediately saw something was wrong, they were bunched together and their body language was peculiar. As I climbed the hill towards them I could see a dead deer with antlers in the middle of their circle. As I got closer the antlers became four legs, and as I drew closer still, the dead deer became a sheep on its back with its legs sticking straight up into the air. A cast sheep, “oh sh*t” I said out loud and started running through treacle to get there. It didn’t look good, there was no movement and Yarr’s tongue was lolling out and there was foam around his nose. I dived on top of him and rolled him over, to my amazement he sprang into action and legged it down the hill snorting and sneezing. I was so shocked at Yarr being alive, I just sat on a mole hill for about 10 minutes trying to gather my thoughts. Within this time, Yarr, being a friendly chap, came back over and stood next to me. He was in a bit of a state, the wool on his back was totally flattened and his rumen seemed to be a funny shape, kind of distorted. He kept sneezing and snorting and so I stayed with him for a good while to make sure he reverted to normal. I wiped his nose with my sleeve and gave him a gentle back rub (his favourite). He was slowly coming back, but still out of sorts. Eventually he wandered off to graze and I thought, phew, he’s OK. I headed back downhill for a cup of tea and planned to go back in an hour or so to check up on him before bed. It was over that reviving cup of tea and scone (which later flew out of my mouth) that Adrian suddenly announced, “oh look, an email has just come in from the lady in Georgia.” “Pardon?” I said, followed by, “what does it say?” “The Yogi rug has arrived” said Adrian calmly, “what? Are you sure? Really?” Followed by half a mouthful of scone flying across the table. I couldn’t believe it, my emotions had already taken me on a gravity defying rollercoaster with the Yarr incident, now I was being dragged back up again, I didn’t think I’d be able to cope! Of course, I was ecstatic. Once I’d digested this brilliant news I rang my mum, danced for joy in the kitchen, all was well with the world again, the sense of calm that had deserted me so unceremoniously these last few days flooded back and I felt great.
Yarr post pickle
Later that evening Adrian and I whizzed up to the sheep on the quad bike followed by two panting and slightly reluctant dogs. Happily, Yarr was fine and on four legs, grazing away as if nothing had happened.
That evening I slept really well, Yarr was alive, the sheep were OK, and best of all the Yogi rug was happily ensconced in its new home in Georgia, no doubt having a welcome rest after all its adventures!
And of course, we will continue to use FedEx to send our parcels. Things go wrong in life all the time but it is how problems are handled that matters. FedEx dealt with the issue brilliantly. We will never know exactly what happened to the Yogi rug, we can only guess that it was probably something to do with the system failing to read the bar code or something like that and then obviously someone would have had to step in and do a manual search. What ever happened, we were very impressed and amazed that the parcel was found. If you look at pictures of the FedEx hub in Memphis, it is enormous, apparently the largest of their hubs in the US so in short, FedEx did a brilliant job to find the missing shipment!
Yogi the day after her rug was found safe and well
Part of the sustainable living ethos is re-using stuff. We generate a lot of garden waste and this all goes into a large compost bin. Of course, over time, it fills up. I have found the best thing to do is to move all the compost into bins and leave it for a few months to rot down properly.
Emptied and ready for more
That said, first the bins need to be emptied (having been filled last time). So, what I have a three stage system. There are bins with useable compost, bins with compost that is rotting down and the large collection bin.
At the compost shuffle, I put all the usable compost into old plastic feed or compost bags and take it to the greenhouse. Then I tip all the compost from the green bins into the “ready bins”. Then I tip all the stuff in the big bin into the teo green bins.
It’s a lot of work, but it only needs to be done a couple of times a year. And it’s very satisfying once it’s all done.
We also have wormeries for the kitchen waste. They are enclosed so no tempting titbits for rats or crows, both of which can be a bit of a pest.
Despite living in what is generally considered to be a wet part of Britain, we do have prolonged dry spells. In fact, for the last 3 years, there have weeks of dry weather in the spring.
Since moving here, we have added two water tanks to gather water from hillside springs. But these springs dry up in the dry weather and if we’re not careful, we have to ferry water up from the river. This year, just before the dry spell hit, we got a new 550 litre trough installed adding extra capacity.
When they first saw it, the sheep were startled; they are not keen on new things appearing unexpectedly. But as the rain stopped and the sun came out, they have found it to be another useful drinking spot.
I think, over coming years, we might add further capacity till we have enough water to last for months rather than weeks.
Since June last year, Bim has been suffering from egg peritonitis, a common condition in hens of all ages for which the prognosis is usually death. Last year, we managed to keep her going with a range of treatments (see Bim the Wonder Hen). As the year progressed, the hens stopped laying and Bim’s condition stabilised.
With spring arriving, egg laying has been in full flow. Bim, too, has been trying to lay. Unfortunately her peritonitis is still with her so her laying has led to her swelling up again and walking like a penguin. The vet prescribed two courses of antibiotics and anti-inflammatories but sadly after two weeks of treament, the characteristic red bulge has refused to go down. So Nicole has been preparing a special afternoon snack laced with garlic, minerals and homeopathic remedies.
Now, our chickens like the world to know when they are laying an egg. There’s the racket made before is laid and then the racket made afterwards. Just the other day as we were standing by the coops when Bim emerged to announce to the world that she had laid an egg.
“Oh no” was our first thought.
But looking in, we found an egg, a dark brown, cuckoo maran egg that was warm. Bim is our only remaining pure bred cuckoo maran. Therefore, it must be her egg. We jumped for joy!
This is good news – if she can actually make and lay an egg, she might make it through the egg laying season again and survive another year.
Since then, she has laid a second egg, but no more. Unfortunately she appears to still be laying some of her eggs internally as her bulge is still there. Nicole is keeping up the natural remedies which we hope will keep her going until egg production slows down. Bim is an elderly hen so should naturally lay less eggs as time goes on. Fingers crossed she can enjoy her twilight years egg free.
Last November, I found a tiny hedgehog wandering around the garden. It was too small (less than 300g) to survive the winter, so we took it in (see hedgehog seeks board and lodging). With a custom built run, house and a personal heater, Hoggy grew stronger over the winter months.
We released her at the end of March (see Hoggy Released).
We set up a wildlife camera to capture what she did and placed a feeding station near the hedghog house we released her into. In the first week, only videos involving a mouse, a deer, a cat and a robin were captured.
I looked in the hedgehog house and Hoggy had gone. It’s what one would expect from a hedgehog, but for some reason the wildlife camera didn’t capture her leaving. Most annoying.
Hoggy eating
We kept the feeding station and camera in place. A few days later, we had our first video of a hedgehog. It didn’t go into the feeder, but it was a hedgehog in the vicinity nevertheless. It took a couple of days (or nights) before we finally captured a video of a hedgehog in the feeder eating.
We are pretty sure it’s Hoggy because she ate the dog food and dried calcium worms but left the specialist hedgehog food. This is what she had done in her winter quarters.
We shall keep replenishing the feeder to ensure she, and any other hedgehogs, have access to a tasty snack if they need it.
We have quite a large area of willow woodland which spans either side of one of the burns that run through our smallholding. One of the spring jobs is to coppice this. This mainly involves taking out fallen and damaged trees as well as keeping branches away from the road.
It is best done in the spring. In the winter, the burn can be a bit wild and the ground underfoot wet and marshy. In late spring the willow comes into bloom and attracts bees. You don’t want to be felling trees that are covered in bees. Also, as a deciduous tree, it is best to trim willow while it is dormant.
tree trapped in stream
With the weather a little drier and the burn calm enough to wade across, I sharpened the chainsaw and set off. I am always very careful doing this, chainsaws are pretty dangerous. I make sure I am wearing protective clothing.
I also have to careful in judging which way the tree will fall. Most are already leaning over, having been blown over at some point, but they can have tall branches growing up. I wear a hard hat!
One tree decided to have its revenge and, on cutting through its trunk, it swung into the burn and planted itself there. The upper branches remained supported by neighbouring trees. I had to leave it there, I’ll wait and see what the wind can do.
tossing the caber across the burn
I cleared out the damaged trees one by one and cut the wood into managable lengths. These had to be carried across the burn to where I could collect them. Rather than carry them over slippery stones, I lobbed them over, my version of tossing the caber.
After that, I just gathered them into a tidy pile to await collection – these logs will go into our wood supply. I also pushed some cuttings into the ground to create new trees. Mind you, willow regenerates very quickly so I probably didn’t need to do this.
In our smallholding here, we have a small loch which attracts ducks, herons and other water birds including geese and even occasionally, a cormorant. We also have a duck house that we bought years ago. This year, we got our act together and rooted it out ready to go onto the loch.
We loaded it onto the quadbike and set off. We had plenty of nylon rope (for securing it). They can be attached to an anchor, but we don’t have a boat so we couldn’t take it out to the middle of the loch. Our cunning plan was to tie it to two trees, one on each bank. I also had to relearn a sheet bend, a knot I had failed to learn as a boy scout, a mistake which nearly cost me my advanced scout badge. It’s funny what we remember.
Anyway, first things first, we had to get the duck house on the water. It comes in two pieces, a floating platform and the house itself. It can be quite tricky to get this level, but we got there.
This plan started well with us securing it to the first tree. The idea then was to walk around the bank to the opposite shore. The problem was that there were other trees in the way making this tricky. Also, the first think to happen was that the duck house got tangle up in some branches. We couldn’t pull it free without knocking it and thus causing it to tilt. Nor could we reach it to push it clear.
So, it was boots off and into the water I went. By judicious prodding with a tree guard, I managed to get it free. By this time Nicole was half way round the loch and had come up against a rather tricky tree of her own. This one was in the middle of a marshy area which we couldn’t really walk on.
I nipped back to the house and got a plastic milk carton and some more rope.
Back at the loch, I joined the ropes, attached the milk carton (full of water) and lobbed it over the loch. This enabled Nicole to fetch it and tie it to a tree on the opposite bank.
The duck house was in place and ready for use. Now all we have to hope is that the ducks use it. There are a pair of ducks down there though they are quite nervous so we can’t go and look otherwise we’ll disturb them.
Last November, I found a tiny hedgehog wandering around the garden. At less than 300g, she would never have survived the winter. We took her in and she has overwintered in a special box in the pantry with her own personal heaters.
While the nights are still a bit chilly here, I have seen other hedgehogs out and about. Hoggy has also been very active of late, completely re-arranging her winter quarters every night. We decided it was time to release Hoggy back into the wild. The heaters have been off for the last week or so so she should be a little acclimatised to outdoor temperatures.
Nicole getting ready to release Hoggy
We had a hedgehog house set up under a bush and we stuffed it full of fresh hay. We also added some hay from her indoor bed so that she would recognise her smell. Next to it we placed a cat and dog-proof feeding station that I built years ago so we can continue to provide food.
In the early afternoon we took her out. Nicole did the honours, carrying her to her new home. We say “new home”, but there’s every chance Hoggy will leave and not come back. Like many wild creatures, hedgehogs don’t really have homes like us humans. That said, there are a couple of hedgehogs that nest under the pallets that support our hay, so maybe round here they like to have a nest.
Nicole introduced Hoggy to the tunnel into the hedgehog house. Hoggy needed no second invitation and was straight in. We watched her disappear into the bed area and said our goodbyes. We will be resisting the temptation to look in as hedgehogs don’t really like to be disturbed when they are sleeping.
We have set up the wildlfe camera to see what she does and will do our best to keep an eye on her, should she decide to stay.
Once a year, we borrow some cows from a neighbouring farm. We do these because they are good for the pasture. They eat out the long grass making it accessible to the sheep and their poos are highly nutritious from the grass.
Last year they managed to empty our entire field water supply twice in two days (see cows drink us dry). Since moving here, we have installed two underground tanks that collect water from hill streams and two water butts that collect rainwater from the field shelters. These feed a network of troughs, one per field. In total, it the system held about 2,500 litres of water.
“If we are going to get cows again,” I said to Mrs D, “do you think we should we install a large water trough for them?”
“Good idea,” she said.
I set about locating and ordering one. I found a large, galvanised steel trough that holds 545 litres. Just the job; I ordered it.
Then COVID-19 hit and delivery was slightly delayed. However, hats of to McVeigh Parker, it arrived Tuesday afternoon. After the relentless wet weather we have been having, it has been pretty dry of late. It only takes a couple of weeks without rain and the springs that feed the underground tanks dry up. I had to get cracking.
trough in place and level
First thing Wednesday morning, I was hard at work. I had to level the ground where the tank would go. This is never easy. Also, this trough weighed around 70kg so I wanted to be moving it around as little as possible. With pick-axe and spade, I hacked away at the ground. Spirit levels were at the ready. I got it to what seemed level and put the spirit levels on it. Well, miracles never cease, it was level. I put the trough in place and it was level. I couldn’t believe it!
With the trough in place, it was a fairly straightforward job to unroll the pipe up the hill and connect it to the supply. Just a bit of adjustment to the connectors to ensure no drips and all was ready. I turned on the water (I fit isolation valves on all the troughs) and the water poured in. However, it stopped at about three quarters full.
Off I trotted to inspect the tank – no water was flowing in. Thankfully, there was a amall puddle at the intake point, the problem was the filter had become a bit blocked. I cleaned it up and water started to flow in again, albeit slowly.
trough full of water
Next day, I checked and the trough was full. The tank was only half full so I checked the inflow again. Clogged up again – this time I replaced the filter (just a plastic mesh) and left it to it.
Today, the tank was full and the spring was dry. I had installed the trough just in time to ensure a full water supply – now over 3,000 litres in capacity. It’s a good feeling to know we have plenty of water for the animals should the weather stay dry.
The answer was to purchase a large water butt. We identified a spot and bought the biggest we could put there, a whopping 1,500 litres. It was delivered but only to the bottom of our track so the first job was to get it up here. It’s at moments like these I am thankful we have our tractor with its front loader.
The final problem was that the water divertor supplied did not fit onto the cast iron downpipes we have here. It took a couple of days to think of a solution. In the end, I took the cast iron pipe off below the divertor and replaced it with a plastic pipe of similar dimensions. Job done, almost. Cutting through the cast iron pipe took a while. I started with an angle grinder with a metal cutting disc. That lasted about 5 minutes before it shredded. So it was back to the old fashioned way, manual hack saw.
