January it seems is supposed to be when you stop eating and drinking .. kind of detoxing.. well pish to that !
In this house we are still guzzling the Christmas leftovers, the animals get the leftover leftovers and so, nobody is doing without really .
kind of keeps them happy anyway as we move them about.. We seem to be doing a lot of that this month !
The pigs were first, their pen really was looking a bit bare , and they love to forage; they had even been breaking out every now and then so it was time to move them to pastures new.
When we arrived at Grobdale we inherited a pigloo in one of the smaller paddocks , it seemed the perfect time to give its proper tenants and evict the ram lambs Henry and Harry , give them a grassier patch and move the bulldozers in ! Here’s the video Of us moving the lovelies .
How happy are they ..
Another happy bunny would be our lovely, occasionally grumpy autistic teen ,oh and
Psychotic every now and then ,
who knows if it’s hormones, age or autism that trigger it but ponies definitely are a
cure all (Click here to view )
Back to animal moving and another job this month was to complete tupping time , gathering the sheep and returning our visitors and loan Ram to their own homes. It went rather well we thought until I realised one of mine had absconded !
Get the trailer out again ..
A return trip to Gorse hill , to collect Dolly and an invite to share a Christmas present of a cookery lesson at the Station house cookery school .. ooh yum thanks kiersten 🙂 photos and review to follow in Feb..
Ducks were next on the list , the Muscovy tribe had outgrown their welcome up with the chickens and it was time to introduce them to the other loch residents..
It seems our teen is pretty good at wrangling poultry ..
Lauren had been doing really well learning new skills here on the farm, as well as riding lessons over at Barstobrick she finally progressed to riding our pony Lotte, Autism makes for quite an anxious person and anyone who knows Lauren will understand what a big step this was .
Note big cheesy smile..
As well as our livestock we have quite a population of wildlife, bird activity in particular.
The RSPB big garden birdwatch is something I used to run at school and so with the help of Ramsey we completed our survey and within the hour saw Blackbirds, Red kites, Ravens, House sparrows, Great tits, Chaffinches and a robin.
We generally see lots more but the weather was fowl (sorry couldn’t resist that) so always bring your ‘noculars’ ..
Winged creatures are a plenty up here in the hills , and it seems we have bats in the dairy ! (according to our bat survey ,part of the ongoing steading conversion work) So to enable us to work on the roof, we have to install alternative roosting for any returning bats cue
Husband up a tree, wielding a hammer, nails and a rather unattractive concrete bat abode..
December had, had me interviewing and briefing builders on our plans , next on the list was lots of costings and studying our drawings .This enlightened us a fair bit into what to expect oooh there were some horrid numbers .. and then 3 weeks into January we had some good news, the building warrant was granted !
We could officially start work on the steading conversion .. better get a move on , I have a bat licence to comply with !