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| The Geese at Willow Cottage |
On 10th
April I left Cornwall behind me and headed back up the A30. It was a
beautifully sunny, spring day and on impulse I decided not to go up
the M5 to Bristol so at the junction above Exeter I turned right and
headed off to Honiton, as I'd never been there before. For some
reason Honiton was originally famous for lacemaking and, in fact,
Queen Victoria's wedding dress was made of Honiton lace. The town
itself is very pretty but I didn't stop at all, just drove through
the middle and took a northbound road out. It wasn't long before I
realised that I was still too far west and would meet up with the
motorway again at Cullompton so I 'hung a right' at the next junction
and went completely 'off piste'. In fact I was so completely 'off
piste' that some of the hamlets I went through did not feature in my
Road Atlas at all! During that morning I became intimately acquainted
with the highways and byways of the Blackdown Hills, eventually
hitting the A303 purely by accident just south of Ilminster. I drove
on towards Yeovil knowing that I really needed to go north quite soon
if I was ever going to get to Bristol before nightfall! By now I
really needed to stop for a drink, etc so, seeing a sign for East
Lambrook Manor Gardens near Martock, I turned off and made my stop. I
realised as I was driving towards it that I'd been there before about
nine years ago when I was on holiday with my brother and his family
in South Somerset. It was the home of the garden designer Marjorie
Fish and is very well known as a spring garden so I'd picked the
right time of year to come back. They have the most amazing
collection of hellebores and it seems to have been an exceptionally
good year for them, for some reason. I spent about half an hour
walking round the gardens and then, feeling refreshed, continued on
my slightly odd route to Dundry.
When I arrived I was
greeted effusively by the two labradors – Merlin and Sampson.
Sampson is now a very tall, gangly 'teenager' being eleven months old
and, as I heard the tales of all his many minor and several major
misdemeanours, I wondered how he had lived to be that old! I began to
worry about how I was going to cope with this new addition to the
menagerie as it seemed he couldn't be trusted with anything – if it
was edible, he would eat it; if it was inedible, he would chew it
into tiny fragments and strew them everywhere. There were lots of
other 'new additions' as Sally had not taken out the ram lambs
quickly enough in the autumn and all thirteen ewes had been
impregnated! Typically, in a year when Sally had not intended having
any lambs, she ended up with twenty three – the most she has ever
had! There was an addition to the goose pen, too, as the little
fluffy gosling that I had helped nurture last year had joined the
flock. Unfortunately, it turned out to be another gander and he
wasn't as 'courteous' as his father – in fact he was best
approached with a yard broom in your hand! I also had the care of
nineteen newly-hatched chicks and, my goodness, don't they grow fast!
At the beginning of the week they were small, fluffy balls and at the
end of the week they had most of their wing and tail feathers and
were ready to move from the brooder box to an inside run.
The family left for
their week's holiday in the early hours of Saturday morning and I was
left 'home alone'. Sally had asked if I could plant out the sweet pea
plants that her daughter had given her, but when I went to get them
they had disappeared. There were, however, two newly chewed-up
plastic flower pots on the lawn. I searched around and found the
contents of one pot more or less unscathed so I put them in a
container of water to revive. I had been told that Sampson dug up
plants almost as soon as they had been planted and, in fact, he'd dug
up the heather plants that Geoff had tried to plant so many times
that they gave up trying! I cast my eye around the garden for
suitable places to plant sweet peas and then, that evening, once it
was dark, I shut the dogs in the house and planted them out by
torchlight, basing my theory on the premise that if he didn't see me
plant them, he might be less inclined to dig them up again! (When I
left two weeks later, they were still where I'd planted them, so the
theory may be correct – or he may just prefer sweet peas to
heathers!) I eventually found the contents of the second pot two days
later and, as it had been a very hot few days, they were somewhat
desiccated. I soaked them for several days and then planted them but
I don't hold out much hope for their survival. I think Sampson
fancies himself as a bit of a gardener as he didn't like to see dead
things in pots – these he would upend on the lawn, chew up the
flower pot and then any dried up twigs; he also dead-headed daffodils
and bluebells – well, the heads were dead when he'd finished with
them! He did, however, have a lovely nature so you couldn't remain
cross with him for long, but he was exhausting to look after as you
had to keep one, or preferably two, steps ahead of him at all times.
The week that the
family were away was the most glorious weather, just like summer
except for a cool breeze, and it was a pleasure to go out in the
mornings and open up the chicken runs. It's a good job that they
don't have any very near neighbours, though, as the cockerels make
quite a din and started at about 4.30am! My busiest times were for a
couple of hours first thing in the morning and again as the sun was
setting so, in between, I did a little light gardening and then read
or did some spinning. I have started a new peg loom rug but, this
time, I am making it from spun yarn rather than raw, twisted fleece.
It is a good way of practising my spinning and being able to use the
'textured' (ie badly-spun) thread that results!
I had one fatality
(other than the sweet peas) whilst they were away and that happened
on the last evening that I was in charge. I went out to feed the ewes
and lambs at about 6.30pm and they all came streaming down the hill
bleating and jostling for position while I distributed the ewe nuts
evenly along a clean bit of grass. However, once I'd finished
spreading out the food and the ewes were all eating, one of the ewes
was still running distractedly up and down bleating loudly. She
seemed to be checking all the lambs and getting more and more
agitated. I had been just about to do the daily head count of lambs
and check that they were all OK – I could only count 22. Now, this
is not unusual for me as I am notoriously bad at counting sheep so, I
was about to start again when I realised that this ewe was still
making quite a fuss, so I looked up across the field and there, right
in the middle, I could see a little body. When I reached the lamb it
was still warm, but very dead, so the only thing I could do was drag
the body down the field, out of the gate and into a dis-used stable.
Unfortunately, it had been the ewe's only lamb – many of the others
had had twins, so she was very distressed and I could still hear her
calling for it when I went to bed, which was upsetting. However, by
the morning she had become resigned to her loss and had stopped
calling and by the evening she rejoined the flock for the feeding
frenzy. There was no sign of anything wrong with the lamb, but there
are many infections that they can fall prey to where the first
symptom (according to a sheep veterinary book) is 'sudden death'.
Quite often it is the larger lambs that keel over for no apparent
reason and usually between one and two months old.I knew that there had been nothing I could have done to prevent it, but I still didn't relish having to tell Geoff and Sally upon their return. Luckily, they also knew that this happens sometimes but it was a tremendous shame as it had been a ewe lamb that Sally had earmarked to join the flock as a replacement. I was quite relieved to
hand back responsibility for the 'menagerie' and
slept like a log on Saturday night!
It was Easter Sunday
the next day so Jeni came over and we drove up to Cheltenham for a
couple of days to spend time with Mum, Dave and my brother and his
family – a nice family interlude. I then returned to Dundry as I
had promised to help Sally ear tag the lambs and also help with
preparations for her upcoming Open Day when she raises money for an
African aid project. However, I did manage to visit a couple of good
friends on Thursday afternoon and another couple on Friday afternoon,
so it wasn't all work, by any means.
On the Saturday morning
I drove up to Cheltenham where I have just spent nearly a week with
Mum, doing a few bits and pieces in her garden and generally being
spoilt.
Wildlife notes:
Sally has a nesting box
with camera wired up to a monitor in the kitchen and, during my
second week there Mrs Blue-tit started to incubate about 8 or 9 eggs.
My mother's neighbour
saw three hedgehogs in her garden two nights ago, which is really
encouraging as I haven't seen a hedgehog (dead or alive) for some
years.
There seem to be a good
number of bumble bees around at the moment and honey bees seem to
have survived the winter well, according to two friends who each have
several colonies.
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| Yellow double Hellebore |
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| Purple double Hellebore |
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