Sheepblog

We booked some good weather for our shearing event this year, much better than last year!  At times it was a little bit too hot, but a handy cloud soon appeared to cool us down each time our skin started to sizzle…

My friend Ruth stepped in at the last minute to pack the wool and help keep the pens full, after I got a text from a sick Phil at 8.30.  I had already been up for 2 hours loading and transporting sheep so as you can imagine I was not relishing having to do all the catching, turning, packing and pen management too!

Our shearer was Cathy Wainwright.  Cathy is the grazing manager for Beds, Cambs and Northants & Peterborough Wildlife Trust, and is one of the very few (possibly the only) female shearers in the country.  Cathy has many rare breeds of sheep to carry out the grazing on their reserves up there, but mostly Hebrideans.  Cathy, her soon-to-be-husband Darren, and son Cameron breed some very nice Hebridean sheep - we got Laphroaig, Lydia, Louisa and Kirstie from them.

We had over 100 visitors despite the council choosing that day to close and resurface the road outside!

It was an incredibly long and tiring day, but we got all the sheep shorn and back to the field.  We are sending the wool off this week and will hopefully get it back soon to sell in the shop. 

The lambs were very popular and everyone behaved themselves except Allum ram, who jumped out while I was away fetching more sheep.  He ran round the yard, everyone was running after him to shoo him back in.  Unfortunately Cathy had left her dog in the truck so couldn’t help!  Allum eventually realised it was more stressful OUTSIDE the pen and went back in.

Thanks to Ros for many of these photos of the event.  I was far too busy drinking tea as you can see, but I have the bruises to prove I did a bit more than that!  my job was to catch and turn the sheep ready for Cathy to take from the gate.  Also to keep the pen full of sheep.  Later when Ruth had gone, I also had to put all the wool in the bags!  Phil really chose his day to be off sick!

A picture of our newest arrival - Buxton (and in the background his mum Larch).

I took this at 8.30 in the evening after all the sheep had been returned to the field.  I had to lie down to take it, and I very nearly didn’t get up again!  Buxton will be appearing on the Hebridean Sheep Society Calendar being put together by Cathy. 

We attended Maresfield fete this year.  The lambs were very popular, as was Phil and Ben’s sheepdog demonstration.  We got a huge crowd watching, and a round of applause when we got them back in the pen again!

No photos I’m afraid, although volunteer ranger Emma took a photo of me trying to beat Phil’s time on Major Thorpe’s litter picking challenge and failing by 12 seconds!  Emma and Steve were there as part of the Friends of Ashdown Forest stand.

The weather held until 5pm when we were packing up, when the first blobs of rain were felt.  Thunder and lightning as we left the showground…

We delivered the sheep back to the field and discovered a new lamb - a VERY handsome young ram from Lydia.  Photos when I get the chance!

One of the reasons I have been a bit quiet on my blog is that relentlessly following on from Puppies and lambs and coinciding with grazing and fetes and preceding shearing, I have been moving house.

This view from my driveway at 5am lets me know it has all been worthwhile…

We have been grazing the ewes and lambs all this week from Isle of Thorns on a nice ex-bracken mow which has great potential for restoring to nice heathland, with the help of grazing!  It is getting a lot of birch regrowth,

which is something the sheep can really help with.

As you can see, the lambs are keen to help where they can!

It was a lovely day for grazing on Friday, I had the A-team out - Meg and Breac.  They are excellent with the lambs, patient but persistent, also good with the stroppy protective mothers!

Meg really likes the flock to be neat and tidy.  In this photo she is shooting off to the left where she has seen a ewe and lamb going off for a wander…

Get back in there!

All neat and tidy again.

While the dogs are out on the Forest, they find all sorts of sources of water to refresh themselves in and have a drink and a wallow.

Meg looking refreshed.

The lambs sleep and play, here they have found a hole that is very interesting, they seem to be trying to fit as many of them into it as they can!

We get all sorts of visitors here, many people walking dogs and coming out a lunchtime from Cats Protection.  We also get some aerial visitors…

There are some pillow mounds on this bit of heath as well - old earthworks to form rabbit breeding burrows when rabbits were first introduced and kept as a source of food.

often now, particularly on wet areas of heath, they offer a drier, better drained area for trees and bracken to flourish on.  Restoring these bits of archeology is something sheep can do much better than tractors.

I have put up some small exclosure plots here too, so we can monitor the effects of the grazing.

Not a bad place to spend a quiet day out…

After a bit of work, we managed to get all the ewes and lambs out grazing from Isle of Thorns today.

Hopefully things will get easier as the week goes on and they learn where to go.  There is plenty for them to eat out here and the lambs enjoy exploring!  There are over 70 ewes and their lambs here, you can’t see them all in this photo though.  We hope to supplement numbers with the non-lambing ewes to, to take sheep numbers over 100.

 I’d better go now and take over, I think getting them back into the field tonight may be interesting!

The lambs are starting to come faster now.

 I will put on pics when I get time…..

 Phil is out grazing in Wrens Warren this morning.  I will take over this afternoon when things quieten down in the lambing arena!

Meet Barry

Don’t ask me why Barry - it was Phil’s idea.  Mother and Barry doing well. 

Phil borrowed a tractor this afternoon to harrow and reseed our fields.  Chris is very scornful of the effectiveness of this - we will see…..

Look at size of the harrow on that!

It was ‘interesting’  getting it up and down the track!

We got some exclosure plots put up at the first area we will be grazing….very scientific!

They also serve other useful purposes - as well as keeping sheep out, they can keep puppydogs in!  This is Laddie, Phil’s new puppy.

In the background (not caged) is Cloud - Breac’s half sister.  She is my mum’s dog but Phil is borrowing her in order to learn how to train a young dog.  She is very easy and natural on sheep, I hope he doesn’t think all dogs are like her!  After having Elsie and Breac to train (who are both very strong-headed) I saw Cloud on sheep and felt very envious!  This is partly why I am keeping one of Breac and Meg’s pups - the blue merle bitch - who I hope will be as easy to train as her mum and Auntie Cloud.

I also took some initial measurements.

We will compare these to plots outside the fenced areas as the sheep graze in the vicinity.  Unbelieveable as it may sound, we have to prove that sheep grazing keeps the vegetation in check!

Today we had a very successful sheep walk event at the Forest Centre.  Almost 100 people came to follow the sheep being taken out on the Forest - Phil and Ben in charge at first, then Breac and I took over to take them back again.

I forgot my camera, so the only evidence we have of the event is the photos Phil got on his phone.  They are pretty good pictures though!