I finally made it down
to Cornwall almost a week after I'd initially planned to be there and
spent the weekend re-acquainting myself with the farm and moving the
various groups of sheep to new grazing, as Jo and James were going
off to their son's on Tuesday morning and I would be 'in charge'.
What I hadn't realised was that I was also to have my very own
WWOOFer to assist me! Her name was Janelle and she came from Montenegro and was a freelance artist with an American father and an English mother.(Check out her artwork at janellebaker.blogspot.com) She duly arrived on Monday afternoon and seemed
very friendly and chatty, so that boded well for the week. She had
also been WWOOFing for a few months already so was not a complete
novice, which was all to the good plus, she loved cooking!
We started on Tuesday
morning by taking hay out to the ewes and re-filling the hay rack
before going off around the other groups of sheep to check that they
were all OK. In my book this means counting them all, checking that
they are not tangled in brambles, checking for signs of lameness by
watching them as they move around grazing, and looking for any 'odd'
behaviour. There were three separate groups: the ewes, this year's
lambs and, finally, the 'odds and sods', consisting of some ewes who
didn't lamb this year, some shearlings and some older wethers who
weren't ready to go to the abattoir earlier on. There was also a
group consisting of Henry, the stock ram; the previous stock ram, who
is too closely related to most of the ewes to be used for a couple of
years; a three-year old wether, kept as company for the other males;
and a ram lamb from this year who may, if he grows on well, become a
stock ram in his turn. It took an hour or so to check everything by
which time the weather had really deteriorated and we were trying to
count sheep through a thick mist of rain.
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| Henry and Little Henry |
In the afternoon we
went up to the vegetable garden and started cutting back the hedge on
top of the stone bank, that I'd helped to lay back in 2010. We were
getting along really well but we managed to disturb a wasps' nest in
the bottom of the bank and Janelle was stung three times before we
could get far enough away – they were very aggressive and were
buzzing around for ages, so we abandoned the hedge for the day. Her
poor hand swelled up quite alarmingly and began to resemble a paw –
you couldn't see the knuckles, but she reassured me that she was fine
so I didn't rush her off to the local hospital. The next day it was
still swollen so we got some antihistamine tablets which made her
very sleepy!
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| Nathaniel and his sister, Clare |
On Wednesday we also
had visitors – Nathaniel and his sister, Clare, from America.
Nathaniel had WWOOFed with me back in 2010 and helped to lay the
hedge in the vegetable garden. He and I also spent several days
decorating the bungalow that Jo and James subsequently let out for
holidays. It was lovely to see him again and very gratifying that he
seemed to remember our time together with as much affection as I did.
They found us up in the vegetable garden having a wonderful bonfire
with the hedge clippings which is, more or less, where I was the last
time that he saw me! He and his sister were over from the States
visiting relatives and friends and had really wanted to see Jo and
James but made do with me instead. They stayed for lunch and then
carried on to visit other friends further down in Cornwall.
The weather turned
progressively wetter as the week went on so we did some indoor jobs,
making apple and grape jelly using grapes from the outdoor vine in
the vegetable garden and then some apple chutney, and I did a pile of
ironing while Janelle chopped 2kg of onions for the chutney – it
was only when Jo returned that we discovered that there was a food
processor in a cupboard that I hadn't noticed before!
Once Jo and James
returned it was full steam ahead with sorting out which ewes were to
go to the ram this year. Janelle and I helped construct pens, round
up the 24 ewes and bring them in where James put each one in the
turnover crate so that he could examine their teeth, assess their
condition and check their udders before we trimmed their feet – he
did the front ones and I did the back. Once we'd done all that each
ewe was marked with a coloured stripe on her head: green for OK to go
to the ram; blue for having a year off to get in better condition;
red for a one-way ticket to the abattoir. I am very pleased to report
that sheep No 74 came through her examination with flying colours and
went back into the flock sporting a snazzy green stripe of approval!
Phew!
The following day,
because of a dire weather forecast, we moved the pen and turnover
crate into the barn as we had the 50 'odds and sods' to sort and that
was going to take most of the day. Because it was half-term we also
had Jo's and James' grandchildren, Christopher and Ella, helping out
and we became quite a slick team: Janelle and Christopher moving the
sheep into the holding pen and then along and into the turnover
crate; me trimming back feet; James trimming front feet and all the
other checks and Ella manning the front gate of the crate and handing
James the foot spray.
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| Lovely little workhorse! |
Finally, towards the
end of the week we put all the 'green stripes' together and set about
trying to choose 30 (ish) of the potential 45 or so. It was really
difficult to choose but eventually 34 girls were selected, but at
that point James went down with a terrible sore throat and cold and
retired to bed so Janelle and I stepped in and did the sheep work
over the weekend while James recuperated. It wasn't completely
altruistic on my part as it meant I got to use the quad bike to take
hay bales out to the sheep and, even at 15mph in horizontal Cornish
rain, it is such fun that I felt very lucky to be allowed to do it!
During the following
week we were joined by more WWOOFers, a couple and their baby. Silad
was from Hungary and his partner, Vanessa, was from Germany and they
had an eight-month old baby boy called Henrik. Silad worked outside
with us and Vanessa helped prepare vegetables and sorted out the
linen cupboard while Henrik was asleep. The first job of the week was
to get the ram out with his ewes so we moved the 34 ewes to a new
field and then Henry was brought up by chauffeur-driven tractor and
let out with them. At first no-one seemed to notice his arrival but,
gradually, the whisper went round and the ewes began to wander over
in twos and threes to greet him. After a few days we penned everyone
up again and checked to see whether he was 'working' – in four days
he had covered 13 ewes! If they all hold in lamb to this first
service lambing will start on about 28th March. At this
point James changed the colour of the ram's crayon, that he wears
strapped to his chest, from yellow to orange and then we let them all
out again. The next day there were two or three girls with orange
markings – what a busy boy!
During the time that I
had been in Cornwall I had hoped to hear from my estate agent that
they had found a winter tenant for me, but there was no positive news
so, in the end, I decided to make my way back to Somerset and tile
the entrance lobby and steps down into the kitchen to match the new
kitchen floor, so on a blustery and damp Monday morning I bade
farewell to Cornwall for a while and headed back up the motorway to
Somerset. With a bit of luck I will be back in Cornwall in mid-April
to help with the lambing
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