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| Sunset over East Penrest farmhouse |
Well, I failed
miserably to get out a pre-Christmas blog, so may I take this
opportunity to hope that you all had a happy festive season and that
2017 will be a good year.
On 10th
November I headed off to Cornwall to do a brief farm sit for my
friends, Jo and James. I was a bit anxious as to what I would find
there as, earlier in the year, they had decided that they would
drastically reduce their sheep flock and not put any ewes in lamb. I
was really pleased to discover that they are retaining seven breeding
ewes, because their granddaughter was so upset that there would be no
lambs at the farm, and that my lovely No 74 was one of them! I had
entertained thoughts of adopting her and driving back to Somerset
with her strapped into the passenger seat of my car, if they had
intended to sell her with the rest of the flock! James had split this
mini-flock into two groups and put a ram in with each, and then the
rest of the sheep that they hadn't yet sold were in three groups
around the farm. During the first afternoon that I was there, I went
round with James to see what was where and find out quantities of
feed, etc. We visited No 74's little flock and, at first, she was a
little stand-offish but then, just as I was going out of the gate,
she walked over and lifted her head. I put my head down until our
noses were virtually touching, fondled her ears and then she walked
off to join the others. The fact that she still remembers me always
brings a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes – hardly a
hard-bitten farmer!
Luckily, all of the
animals behaved themselves for the few days that I was in charge and
several of the ewes 'went' to the rams, so hopefully, there will be
the patter of tiny feet at the beginning of April, although, with
only seven to lamb, I don't think my services will be required this
year! The chickens had had to be confined to their house and run as their numbers had been severely depleted by the frequent visits of a large dog fox, who picked them off one by one as they free-ranged around the orchard and fields. Jo had even seen him sitting brazenly in the middle of the orchard when she was outside! One afternoon I took the dogs for a quick walk as it was getting dusk and was surprised when Pickle suddenly hurtled off at full speed, shot under a field gate and proceeded to chase something down the hedge. I was just wondering why she'd taken it into her head to chase one of the farm cats when a blur of red and a large bushy tail broke through the hedge about ten yards from me, shot across the farm track and disappeared into the old quarry with both Pickle and Jess in hot pursuit. I'm glad that I didn't have a third dog with me as that would have been counted as 'hunting with dogs' and would therefore be illegal!
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| My Sunday Market stall |
I returned to Somerset just in time for the inaugural Sunday
Market in Shepton Mallet. It was an astounding
success, even though we only had three weeks in which to promote and
advertise it! We were also extremely lucky with the weather as either
side of that Sunday we had torrential rain and there was widespread
flooding in the area on Monday. The little stream that gurgles along
about twenty yards from my annexe rose alarmingly and water poured in
from the road and across the yard to add to the torrent. For a while
I thought I might have to evacuate!
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| Stream in spate |
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| Normal winter stream level |
We have just heard that
we will be allowed to run a monthly market on every third Sunday in
2017 starting in March, so that is really exciting news. The Friday
Market has been a bit sporadic as far as sales go, but I live in hope
that one day it will take off. The knitted Fairy Mice proved quite
popular, and I am thinking of expanding the range to include Flying
Pigs! I have also had several ideas for needle-felted animals and
figures, but haven't had the time or space to experiment yet. In
fact, before Christmas, I was living in such chaos surrounded by
various knitting and felting projects and bags of wool and yarn that
I got quite miserable, but things are about to change! My friend and
landlady, Mary, is going to allow me to use one of the rooms in her
house as a workroom and has been re-decorating it and making me a
large work table so that I can leave projects out instead of having
to tidy them away! I have been asked to run a one-off workshop on
spinning, peg-loom weaving and preparing fleeces for the Somerset
Smallholders group at the end of January and, if it goes well, I may
offer to run some classes in my new workspace, so that will be
amazing.
The run up to Christmas
seemed to pass in a blur (doesn't it always?). We had our choir's
Christmas Concert on 3rd December, which was very
successful, and this was followed up on the 16th, 17th
and 18th with Carol Services in our three local churches
and finally a lunchtime concert on 19th for the Senior
Citizens in Bruton! Surprisingly I still had a voice left at the end
of it, which just proves how much my voice has strengthened over the
last year with regular workouts!
On the 20th
I was heading back down the A30 to Cornwall. In exchange for a
Christmas farm sit, Jo and James offered me the use of their
wonderful barn conversion for a family Christmas. Not all of the
family could come but my Mum, my sister, brother-in-law and one of my
nieces plus my two children managed to converge on Lezant on 23rd
December, and stayed until 27th. The barn proved a
brilliant space in which to celebrate with plenty of space for us all
to get involved in meal preparation without getting in each other's
way, and a snug/library area off the main room with a huge log burner
that got very cosy in the evenings. I had one minor panic about
Christmas dinner – the turkey that I had ordered online from the
Tamar Valley Food Hub weighed in at an impressive 11.95Kg and only
just fitted in the oven! It was, however, absolutely delicious and
only took 6.5 hours to cook!!
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| The Christmas branch |
Many years ago, when my
ex and I were still together, we substituted a Christmas tree for the
'Christmas twig', as we didn't have much space in our cottage, and I
would decorate it with white fairy lights and crystal decorations.
Because we were only going to be together for a few days at the barn,
we decided not to buy a real tree, but we still wanted some festive
decorations, so I enlarged on the Christmas twig theme: James and I
had cut down some overhanging branches from the track by the pond
back in November, so I went and retrieved one of these and
dragged/carried it back to the barn where I set it up in a large
decorative pot and wedged it in with split logs. I then decorated it
with lights and baubles and tinsel in red and gold and I must say
that it looked quite attractive. I also cut holly and ivy from the
hedges and made a willow wreath for the front door and draped the
rest (artistically!) around picture frames, shelves and window sills.
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| Quad biking! |
The weather, which had
been wet and windy when everyone first arrived, managed to improve so
that everyone could appreciate why I love coming to this part of
Cornwall so much. Mum came down as far as the pond and also managed
to see the Shepherd's Hut, and my two came for a walk down to the
river and back through the wood on a couple of occasions, as did my
sister. I think Jess, the sheep dog, thought she'd died and gone to
heaven as she managed to persuade Dave to play stick throwing with
her all the way down the farm track and all the way back up again! My
niece went on a couple of three-mile runs around the local lanes
(where does she get all that energy from?) and I think everyone
enjoyed themselves. It was certainly great for me to have company
whilst doing a farm sit. Jo and James had not managed to sell any
more of their flock so I ended up looking after 60+ sheep, which
justified me using the quad bike every day to ferry feed and hay to
the various groups, so I was happy.
From Jo and James' I
drove straight to Cheltenham to spend New Year with Mum and my
brother and his daughter, so I have seen virtually all of my family
in the last couple of weeks, which has been lovely as, being spread
quite far apart, we don't often all meet up together.
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| Dave with Jess, Pickle and stick |
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