A ‘Stella’ quote ( did you see the xmas special) that 
just seemed rather apt given the added hairyness of our wild boar ! The girls were looking well wrapped up for the winter in their winter coats and didn’t seem to mind some extra bedding too
… Proper cosy in there.
October started off well with a new addition 
to the livestock .. a good friend Jean had a pony that needed a home, so I couldn’t say no and when we met Gemma pony a section A (tiny hardy sturdy little unit ) she seemed just the thing to keep Lotte company … just got to get them used to each other and avoid the kicks !
so we are now a farm with 17 ducks, 16 sheep, 10 chickens , 5 pigs , 2 ponies and a dog !
I think that classes as a Farm now not a small holding ?
Ribs were healing well so my thoughts turned to 
getting back on Lotte , maybe not for anything too speedy but it was frustrating not being able to get out in the lovely autumn sunshine .
Body armour was my weapon of choice and I think it’s pretty sexy huh .. am hoping it will remind me to ride better and stay on !
How many September blogs,vlogs, diary posts or novels state this month to be when leaves change colour and temperatures drop ?…well Poo to that I hate to be a cliche, 
but I’m doing it too, there’s an avenue of Beech trees, on my route to most of everything that is stunning at all the spokes of the leaf colour wheel and right now it’s on the turn. There will be more photos as it transforms
I see cars stop all the time to capture the lovely canopy and it regularly stops me in my tracks ..
July ended in a downpour and a brilliant lightening storm that we soooo needed , the ground steamed, soaking up all that lovely rain and visibly heaved a huge sigh of relief.. The husband on the other hand got home one Friday night to find we’d 
actually finally run out of water just as the rain started ,so a man needs a shower .. what does he do ? You guessed it ,he showered naked in the rain ..
I so wish I had a naked husband shower photo to post here .
The rain didn’t last long though and within a few days we had our summer back .
April 2018 is when the man of the house reaches a half century , so this month a lot of the energy is spent organising a shindig to celebrate !
Other than our gorgeous man, it’s been all about babies this month. 
We started the month with lambs popping out all over the place , Toms sheep were first,
but with all this new life there has to be a few casualties, the first was a new mum leaving behind a little lamb that became
She soon learned to suckle milk from a bottle and everyone had a go at feeding our new house guest x
Spring arrives in March thank goodness…. though
The cold doesn’t stop lambing tho and on our daily check round the fields me and Lauren spotted our first Grobdale lamb for 2018 .. so cute . On our way back down , 
we spotted another sheep up on the top , separated from the main flock , a tell tale sign she’s about to lamb so we took the kubota up to check her out . The lamb was coming so we hung on to watch , but it all seemed to be at taking a bit too long and 
she wasn’t going to let me get near and without a dog or a crook (or any sheep wrangling skills for that matter) so we bombed back to the house and rang a man with a dog . Within the hour he had her caught,birthed , and shown us how to tube feed the lamb . Mum and baby claimed the first stall in lambing shed and by bedtime the lamb was suckling as he should..
(this is us heading back out to the main flock next day)