Milder weather this last couple of days has allowed us to hack the two event horses out (Sonny and Fizz). We are also starting to back Buster, and although he doesn't mind Rachel on his back, he has no concept of forward movement at the moment - we persevered with patience and me on Sonny leading him and got him along the old road and back today.
It was quite alarming yesterday as the thaw was in full flow to see how fast water levels rose - our main stream and the river Derwent were both about to burst their banks at the peak and the lonnin was also flooded somewhat - it all went back down as quickly as it came up, thankfully.
This weekend I have got most of the inlamb ewes dosed for liver fluke as they were coughing a bit and the vet said it was a possible cause - especially as they have been living on wet pastures since about June. We have to dose them about every 10 weeks living in this flood plain. Very soon those having triplets will come inside until they lamb - the shed has a lovely new roof and just needs a hot pressure wash.

Gizmo -supermum!!

Gizmo has been scanned as having triplets - she looks happy, doesn't she!

from flooded to frozen in six weeks

Six weeks ago, the lonnin stream overflowed during the floods, washing a lot of gravel out which all had to be repaired. Now, its reduced to a small trickle under a thick bank of ice. Both the Keswick lakes are freezing over, too

New shoes but nowhere to go

Fizz and Sonny had their shoes put back on just before Christmas in anticipation of starting their 2010 fittening programme - I think their has been frost ever since! So, Fizz is still confined to his stable due to behaving badly in the field and laming himself when given the chance, and Sonny has the occasional day out on his own in the field due to his constant niggling of the others to (play)fight if he goes out in company. Buster and Roscoe go out during the day and Jaffa lives out but now has two rugs on.
On Christmas evening, we tucked Fizz, Sonny and Roscoe up in their stables and fed Buster and Jaffa at the gate at 5pm - four hours later the police called to say some horses were out, were they ours, and it was them - I thought they must have broken the fence, but someone had opened the gate, untwisted the barb wire round it and pushed it inwards to open it - A stray walker, a drunken prank or an attempted theft? Nothing has been ruled out and those that were not microchipped now are, which along with the ones that are freezebranded at least will help us to find them if they get out again and make it more difficult for people to move them if they are stolen.
Hopefully we will soon be able to get them all back into work, with several weeks of road work to strengthen the legs first, and then some local dressage classes before lambing starts.

Happy New Year 2010

Christmas has been and gone, with plenty of food and a little bit of drink, and an awful lot of cold weather. Its just getting colder and colder now and it makes life on the farm more difficult as most of the water troughs are frozen up and any grass there was is under snow or frozen solid. It is safe to say the ewes are currently eating us out of house and home! Each day over 100 gallons of water have to be carried by bucket to the cows and to the various fields of sheep.

The first batch of sheep were scanned on 28th December, and 14 are carrying triplets, so these have been separated to be given extra feed. Pixie, one of our older ewes and Rachel's favourite, was not in lamb so she has been chucked back in with Jarvis and if it works this time this will be lambs in June.