Remembered by Muffin and Doing the Sheep Round

I'm just at the farm. I'm just standing with the cows who are now listening to me. They're having a bit of hay here. So we've got one cow is still due. That'll be Pip who's barking. Yeah, so we've got one cow that's still due. I thought she might have her calf any day but she's not had a calf yet. We've got one cow who's just looking at me here. The three calves, Toffee is lying down, Nutmeg's having some milk and Treacle is just having a look around. The cows seem to have a bit more milk now which is good. They were a bit light on milk for the first week but they all look like they've got more milk now so that's good.

So this morning I went out with Phil to go and check on the pregnant ewes. So we checked on one field and there was one sheep lying down who didn't look quite right. So I said to Phil that one's not looking okay. So we checked on her and she'd got a breach so Phil had to deliver that one. We checked on the others; everybody looked okay and there's a brick building so Phil had a look in there and there was another ewe in there who was delivering twins. So Phil delivered the first one and the second one wasn't ready to come out but was presented okay. So we left that one and that was it really. None of Phil's actual flock had any lambs today. These were some sheep from another farmer.

And then we went to have a look at the earlies and Muffin is one of those. So if you don't know, Muffin was a lamb that I bottle fed for a couple of weeks. He was one of three and the other two were pushing him out. A ewe only has two teats so if there are three it sometimes works and sometimes it doesn't. So I took him home and I had him in the potting shed. Are you enjoying that? She's just shaking a big chunk of hay around. So he came home and lived in the potting shed for a couple of weeks and I fed him round the clock every few hours and he got used to his bottle and yeah, we just were very close I guess. Obviously, I was looking after him all the time and when I let him out in the garden he would follow me around.

And then we brought him back to the farm because he was getting quite big and he needed more room and we put him on the milk bar but he wasn't very keen because he'd always had warm milk. So I was still bottle feeding him a couple of times a day just to make sure that he was fed. It's all noises here. I don't know if you can hear some of these noises. I'm not going to tell you what they are. And then we had the last ewe to lamb. Her lamb didn't make it and although Muffin was about three weeks old by that point, maybe even a little bit more, we decided to adopt him onto this ewe. Anyway, it worked. We left them in a pen for a couple of days and then they went into the orchard and Muffin would come running when I went in to check on them and to take her corn and hay and water and so yeah we still had this bond between us.

So today I'd been before to see the early ewes but we'd not been able to spot Muffin. Anyway, we sort of spent a bit more time today and I spotted him and then he spotted me. He didn't come all the way over because obviously he's part of the flock now and things have changed but he came to within a couple of feet and he recognised me and yeah so that was lovely. So hopefully I can go again sometime and perhaps he will come all the way over but yeah I was so happy that he remembered me because he was just a little sweetie and yeah I think we both adored each other.

So that's my day so far. I've done a bit of gardening at home and I've come now to do some gardening here and some planting in the smallholding, got lots of plants in the polytunnel. So yeah, that's what I'm going to do. So I'm very sorry Pip's barking. Let's just go and have a look at her, see why she's barking. It's only because she doesn't know who's here. Who's barking? Who's making all that noise? Hey, it's only me. So we've only got three sheep in here. They just needed a bit of TLC and a couple of the sheep dogs. So yeah, it's gone a bit quiet, you know. The three sheep, I think we've still got three in here. Let's have a look. Are you on your own? Oh no, there's another one. Where's the third one? Oh no, they're all here. So yeah, they're just having a bit of TLC. I think these are all pregnant ewes. But yeah, they just needed a bit of extra care. So they're here for a while. That sounds like a crow. Right, so that's it then. I shall be back soon. And yeah, thanks for listening.