Its time for the lambs to be weaned at Houghton and Aglionby, this means separating them and taking the lambs to clean pasture, which hasn’t had sheep on this year. Obviously this is a fairly stressful time, although the lambs seem to take it better than the ewes, who spend several days vocally complaining about the situation. The lambs have gone to Wallace field and are enjoying being all together in a lush new grass field. They have also taken up a new hobby of escaping, much to everyone’s annoyance. The ewes are having the mother of all mothers meeting in the paddocks at Houghton. As the flock has been split for a little while now there is a lot of catching up to do, sheep are such sociable animals, and its obvious they are glad to be back together again. Every time I walk past they all come to the gate to glare at me, I assume to make their feelings known about my part in taking away the lambs, although they gave me enough bruises at the time to punish me. Soon enough they are happily munching away, before long it will be time to start the cycle again.
The greenhouse has got a little overgrown at Willowford, the squash and tomatoes have taken over and you can barely see out the other side. With a little vicious pruning we sort out the mess and discover a cucumber plant that has been beavering away and has made two giant cucumbers, good find.
Harriet the heifer has reached 30 months so has gone to the abattoir at Lockerbie this week. I’m sad to see her go but at least we can be safe in the knowledge that we have given her a great life and that she will be feeding people very well indeed, after all this is her purpose. Some time in the near future I’m to spend the day at the abattoir, I think it’s important to see the process through to its end, after all I enjoy looking after the animals and I enjoy the end product. I mustn’t shy away from it.
We have taken some of the boys from Wallace Field to Thacka Beck to do some conservation grazing for the wildlife trust. They are keen to get started and are soon lost in the dense grasses. This is an area with a lot of dog walkers and they are very interested in the new arrivals, Longhorns are a pretty impressive looking lot!