April turned out to be a very varied month, weather was very changeable and certainly lived up to the “April showers” title. At the beginning of the month Boaris went back to his farm after hopefully doing the deed with Nora !

We had seen  plenty of “pig porn action” whilst he was here.. so are hopeful that in June we will get some mini squeakers running about in the mud ..

Talking of mud ,The builders are making such a lot of it that boots are the footwear of choice for EVERY trip out the door , hence my socks are getting some hammer and i’ve had to learn how to darn ! I can’t bring myself to give up on my lovely saddleworth wooly knit socks .. good socks are worth fixing I say x

April was the month that the Muscovy ducks decided that the Loch was the place to live and that the chicken enclosure , much as it was peaceful (or used to be before the builders arrived) was not a place to lay their beautiful tasty eggs .

A new venture sprang from this and we started selling at the roadside .. check out my very cool egg box ( such a clever husband )

 

Other than our farmed poultry, the birdlife here was increasing massively, the birdfeeders needed replenishing almost daily we were being taken over !

Curlews and  grey lag were among the first we noticed .

We have heard the cuckoo but yet to catch sight of them , we heard and saw them last  year so are hoping to catch them again in 2019…My favourite though is the curved beak of the curlew , I love the curlews trill , very calming ..

 

We are very close to the kite feeding station at Laurieston so Kite viewings are plentiful , and our trail camera captured one regular visitor feeding at the loch .

 

 

Still on bird watching ..my very lovely friend Nancy and the equally rather nice Mick ..came over very early one morning to check out our bird wildlife , something they do as volunteers for the RSPB reporting back on specific bird species/varieties . Their findings were quite exciting and am looking forward to reading their report ..will let you know .

              (George, I hope your proud of my improved twitching skills)

Its a bit more relaxing watching the wildlife than the builders as they wreak havoc with our  beautiful buildings progress is not slowing down . eek

The three buildings now had great chunks missing .

Some wall removals, were to extend the floor space , some were so that they could get machinery inside to remove interior walls and floors.

So our holiday cottages are not quite up and running yet but we had a sneaky peak at our neighbour and good friends over the way Ramerish holiday cottage  So anyone itching to get up here for some serious R&R needs to get booked in with Jenny for a holiday .. Oh and Lauren says you need to also book a therapy

She has magic hands !

Anyway  our big build project is all looking a bit of a mess but there’s a good reason for it all and as they say ..

you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs ..

Never mind eggs and poultry though , the sheep really are the main event this month , lambs started appearing 2 weeks earlier than planned .

The first offspring were from a neighbouring black face ram that jumped the walls to “jump” my ladies . I was hoping we had got him out before he managed to impregnate anyone but it seems he got to two and they’ve popped out two sets of twins ! Still very cute , and a welcome sight in spring . That seems to be the extent of our multicultural additions , we look forward to the pure Herdys that are due beginning next month onwards x

It’s clearly a lovely place to live , all our animals seem chilled and happy , getting along just fine, so much so that the pigs didn’t want to leave ! Our naughty wild boar weaners were due to go off to the abattoir one Monday morning , and decided that they were not going to load up .. so after a couple of hours trying different tactics we had to concede and postpone the deed!  They just wanted to stay another month..

A plan is being concocted as Baldric would say ..Lets hope the end result is as good as the eggs ..

 

The month was finished off rather nicely with a visit from our besties.. we miss these guys so it was lovely to have some time with them.. oh and a star bar or two x