Have I been busy! Last Thursday we gathered up all 122 sheep and lambs and Jock the sheep shearer and his son came that evening and sheared them all in less than 3 hours! Well what with wool rolling and bagging we didn't get indoors until 11pm! On Friday we gave half the sheep a MOT.........wormed them, trimmed feet and resprayed against flies...........11pm dinner this time!

On Saturday we held a 'what to do with your wool' course covering washing, dyeing, carding, spinning and peglooming wool.............we all had a great time. An hour after the course finished Ren, a very nice person from Shaftesbury in Dorset arrived to travel down with me to near St Austell to join several other people from the 'Its not easy being green' forum at the Strawbridges house for a crafty weekend making loads of stuff from recycled and surplus bits and bobs to sell at the Big Green Gathering in August to raise money for a new charity Brigit has set up caled the 'Big Green Idea' It was a lovely 24 hours and some of the stuff made can be seen on the INEBG forum.
It was also very lovely to catch up with Dick and Brigit again as many years ago we lived in the same Dorset village and shared the school run! My older children were friends with theirs and remember them with great fondness. The picture is of the waterwheel featured in the TV series 'its not easy being green' which runs their electrictricity but was being repaired whilst we were there.

This must be the quickest update but I wanted to show you all the wonderful bags of home produced charcoal we now have! They are available at £3 a bag.............so let us know if you want some of this wonderful sustainable stuff that is not produced from rainforests like so much of what is found in the supermarket!

Yesterday we had 10 lovely people attend our bi annual smallholding for beginners course. The weather was very good and everyone really enjoyed themselves. The sheep in one of our fields took the opportunity to remove the stock fencing from one of the post and railed fields and escape into one I'd been saving for later.............must have borrowed the pliers as I cannot imagine how they did it!

More interesting stuff happening this week........the weather is set fair for a bit and hopefully we (and the bbc) will get to shear the sheep!........i hope so as we have a 'What to do with your wool' course next Saturday!
On Tuesday morning I am making my debut on the current affairs panel for BBC Somerset Sound (help! what do I know about current affairs!!)...........if you want a laugh you can listen on line!

Thought I would share with you some of the fantastic photographs taken in my area by Pauline Rook an amazing local photographer..............exactly where do I live? In the best kept secret in the West Country, The Blackdown Hills! This area is an AONB (area of outstanding natural beauty) situated basically between Honiton and Taunton to the south and north and Cullompton and Chard to the west and east.

Whats been going on in our woodland!
Well the charcoal burner has been working hard and the first of this seasons charcoal is hot off the press...............well cold out of the kiln really! Ben, a hardworking lad on work experience with Pete from Brymore school spent a long time sorting out and splitting enough wood for several burns. The picture shows the kiln at full burn before being shut down to 'cook'


We have also a lovely new coppice crafts area for our coppice craft courses with shave horses, pole lathes etc all set up and ready to roll in a beautiful setting...............courses for the autumn will be on the Woolly Shepherds website in a day or two and some are part of Somerset hedge week, a celebration of Somersets hedges

Things can only get better.......................I hope! As promised here our our cheeky Berkshire piggies...............4 month old boars due for the freezer in September.....
The lamb that had been chased by the children and badly injured could still not get up unaided after 10 days so the vet put her to sleep. He thought it was nerve damage to her back and torn ligaments and his opinion was that to try any longer was futile as she would probably never recover...........sad day and expensive! I am thinking of giving the parents of the children the vets bill.
Worse followed...............some sheep we bought in a few weeks ago, of whom the unfortunate lamb was one, had not been sprayed against fly as far as we knew, but were all shorn around their behinds and not at all dirty behind. We could not spray them as it was too close to shearing and its not good for the shearer to get residues from the spray on him. (we shear next week weather permitting) Well on Monday we found 3 had shoulder strike (blowflies which are a green bottle lay their eggs on the wool at the shoulder.....you can guess the rest) There were few hatched maggots so we cut back the wool and applied 'Spot on' which usually polishes them off....................but these were tough little b####rs and it didn't so yesterday Pete and I sheared 3 maggoty sheep..............luckily before too much damage was done. One is totally shorn the other 2 look like poodles and will have to wait for a full shear until next week as my back couldn't cope with more! ( Jock our shearer will do about 20 plus per hour!)
Got back to a phone call stating we had a dead sheep in another field!!! Dashed off with 4x4 and ropes (they always die in an awkward place) to find poor little Longly, one of my favourite Dorset Downs who has a tendancy to get over on her back and get stuck, necessitating frequent rescue had done it again, obviously after I last checked on Monday evening and before my check yesterday! (I check that group every other day as its overlooked by some houses who let me know if something is amis) She had got herself in the only dip in the field and rolled by the fence and got stuck. I felt very bad about it all as I manage my stock very well but I cannot watch them all the time sadly. She had 2 lambs but they are 8 weeks old, well grown and will be ok. Added to all thet Liverpool lost the European cup final so Pete was even more depressed!

On a good note I sold some old ewes last week and got the highest price for cull ewes in the market....................the market report stated Mr Grainger rather than Mrs which miffed me a bit!
I attended Wonderwool in Builth Wells in mid Wales at the weekend and had a wonderful time, sold an incredible amount of wool and other stuff, got interviewed for Simply knitting and Smallholder magazines and generally had a great weekend. Pete held the fort and I could not have done it without him!

Well I'm back! I really should post more but its so very busy here that I rarely get to take a photo to show you all! No more lambs killed by dogs thank goodness but one was unfortunately chased by a 4 yearold which panicked the group of sheep and it got trampled, sustaining pelvic injuries....50/50 chance of making it but where there is life there is hope!
The pigs are growing at a pace and are very naughty! They escape under the gate with a big shriek as the electric fence pings them only to be herded back immediately! The funniest thing I have seen was the Ouessant sheep chasing them around the field!
Lambing has finished at last and the last ewe had triplets, two black and white ones that look just like a friesian cow and a little white one. Last week I bought 9 very nice ewes and their 15 lambs in Taunton market for a ridiculously low price..........hopefully the prices will go up, but its lean days for sheep farmers at the moment.
I am off to Wonderwool next week and am dyeing, carding, packing, skeining and balling lots of wool ready to take with me. I will also be selling some super new lines including willow baskets that have wool wound in to them and special willow baskets for putting balls of wool in whilst knitting! I have also been working hard on the organisation of Fibrefest
the amazing celebration of fibre in the south west. Louise Cottey my fellow organiser and Steve Whitley of Corrymoor socks and me met with others on a very wet day to walk around Bridwell Park where it will be held.........what a fantastic setting! Book your stand or ticket now!
Talking of wool.......remember that post where I recounted how Alan Titchmarsh bought a cushion from me?
Well I have just received this and apparently he keeps it in his office and loves it!!!

What is more likely to worry and kill sheep? a pitbull or a nice family labrador?...........The labrador!! Now I know most people will not believe it but we caught 2 labradors sheep worrying a few weeks ago ..........luckily no sheep were hurt as they were interupted just in time but today we faced something much more serious.
2 weeks ago a nice strong lamb disappeared from one of our fields...........we were cross as we put it down to a fox. On Monday, a lamb who was one of twins (whose mother had only one half of her udder working so he was receiving a top up bottle of milk) had his bottle at 9am and was fine and jolly. At 2pm we received a phone call to say there was a dead lamb, it was him! His face was damaged but we put it down to crows discovering a body..............they can be quite nasty...........very odd though???
Today I gathered up the sheep and there was a lamb missing...........I scoured the field and found her.........with huge teethmarks in her head and neck, barely alive. We rushed her to the vet but she died 3 hours later. All the sheep have now been moved to another field several miles from this one.
Who did this..................well the suspect is a black labrador seen lurking near the field unsupervised by a villager...........please everyone keep your dogs with you at all times! Each of these lambs was worth £100 in lost profit, plus a vets bill, and when things are tight as they really are for us small farmers thats a lot of money lost to a dog whose owners are blissfully unaware of his or her activities!

Thought you might like to see some of my Shetland lambs!
We now have loads of lambs including another Ouessant ewe lamb!!
Unfortunately we had some losses too with a 2 week old lamb dropping dead in the field which was very sad and another 4 day old strong ram lamb being taken by a fox.

However all the rest are 'so far so good' and I have just bought 6 more ewes and their lambs.
I am off to Berrien on Saturday evening for a few days and am leaving the last 4 ewes who are due in May in the capable hands of Pete! The BBC are coming yet again tomorrow, this time to film my sheep........why I'm not quite sure but will find out I guess!
We have recently had an exhibition of local wool and related fibres in the barn gallery next to the field in the picture containing 27 of my sheep..........very appropriate!








Fibrefest 2007................an amazing event which I will mention more of now has its own blog and website, do take a look and book your advance tickets online

4 ewes left to lamb in the first batch, we have had some very pretty Shetland lambs born in the last week, I will try and post some photos of them tomorrow. The Blackdown Hills Fibre group are holding a 2 week exhibition and sale at Littlefields studios in Bishopswood, a little village a few miles away. My Shetland sheep and lambs are providing the live entertainment in the field next to the studio! If you are in the area do come and see the lovely wool, socks, scarves, skins etc
I have a propagator full of sprouting seeds including some Rhubarb of a variety I have not heard of before!I have not grown rhubarb from seed before so should be interesting! peas and tomatoes are well up as are the chilli peppers and lots of herbs. Pink fir apple potatoes are chitting on the windowsill and I have asparagus and onions going in tomorrow so busy busy!
I have had a very poorly lamb who was born on Tuesday morning. His mother went down with mastitis and he was very weak. Happily with mum receiving antibiotics and the little lad having had several feeds by stomach tube he is now suckling both his mum and a top up bottle and I think he will make it!
I sold 2 shetlands that were too wild to handle easily in the cull ewes section of the market last week. They go straight for slaughter and to be honest it was the best option as it was unfair to pass the problem on to another unsuspecting owner. They were impossible to catch without stress to both sheep and human and would have made the grand national runners look slow!
New pigs (Berkshires) are arriving next Sunday and in readyness the pig area is being sorted out, which has meant putting back up the mains electric fencing we use to keep them in, it will be nice to have them for the summer as we have not had pigs for a year.
Must go and get some sleep now as I have another ewe who looks like lambing in the next few hours

We were on the BBC again last week..........a lot! BBC Somerset Sound wanted to record a day in the life of a sheep farmer at lambing time and it was quite a day! The reporter arrived at 6.30am ready for my early morning trip to the lambing shed! I was a bit aprehensive as sheep like to lamb in the hours before dawn for some perverse reason and you never know quite what you might find has happened whilst you were getting a couple of hours sleep! Luckily no one had lambed.....disapointing for the Beeb but a relief to be honest for me!
We then sorted out a ewe that had lambed the day before, trimming her feet, worming her and applying spray to prevent flystrike, and then applying the rubber ring to the lambs tail that makes it shrivel and drop off............of course i had to explain in great detail what I was doing and the sheep were required to baa a lot.....radio you know!!
We then visited the nursery field to see all the ewes and their lambs and lots of baaing was encouraged with a shake of a bucket of sheep nuts!
Back to my kitchen for breakfast and then off to a farm sale to possibly buy sheep or equipment!...............The reporter was warming to his task and I had to be interviewed inspecting lots and talking about the sheep on sale..................much to the bemusement of half of the farming community of Somerset and Dorset!!
Several people heard it all spread over several days on the breakfast show during the last week and reports have been good................for which I am truely thankful as half the farmers of Somerset seem to listen to it!!!..................and as one of the minority female sheep farmers in a male dominated industry I had to get it right or my street cred would not be good............they already tend to be suspicious of my pink wellies!!!

We have had some lovely lambs..........and our Ouessant ewe has a little ewe lamb today........Derek is a dad!......................and here are the first pics at 6 hours old!

Also as promised some pics of my lambs.........trying to get them to stand still is a bit difficult as they prefer to hurtle around the field in big gangs, much to the despair of their mothers!

Here is number seven posing and part of a group playing on the tractor ruts.

Wall weekend!.................Phil who I met on the recent permaculture course kindly gave up 4 days to come and start the rebuilding of our wall, taken down earlier due to becoming unsafe. Here are some of the before and during pics taken by Phil, assisted in the rebuilding by our super wwoofer Lisa!And here is Phil with his handiwork! This is a great help as it means we can carry on with it as time allows.Meanwhile Pete was competing the same weekend in the Blackdown Hills hedgelaying competition which was fiercely contested, I was selling my woolly stuff and demonstrating the art of pegloom rug making in the Blackdown Hills Hedge Association marquee.

Here is Pete and his hedge ....................we all thought he would do really well, it was neat, very well laid and with very little use of the chain saw







The judges took a very good look.....................................................but decided to give the prize to someone else!
Nevermind there is always next year, when I am intending to compete as well! ( Look out Pete!!)
Lambing is now well underway and tiredness rules for the next few weeks as sheep have to be checked several times a day. I have also bought some more sheep, been recorded by the BBC and attended a very good farm sale with the BBC man in tow! details and pics to follow shortly!

Spring is here.....isn't it?
The Beeb came and recorded...... for the radio thankgoodness! and on talking to the reporter he now wants to do a feature on the life of a smallholder at lambing time.............not sure what the sheep will think about that but I said yes!

Here is a pic of the rescue sheep all looking better, even the one who was very sick is now putting a little weight on her bad leg. She is the sheep in the picture whose body you can't see.....just as well really as she is a bit of a sight.

On Sunday it rained like stair rods so I did some dyeing with wensleydale lambs wool using logwood, a reddish tree bark, which, when some bicarb is added to the boiled bark liquer turns it blue and the resulting wool is pictured along with some yellow wool which was dyed with onion skins......lovely isn't it? I was very pleased and now it will be used to make a cushion cover.Lisa our new wwoofer has been busy on the veg patch clearing out the compost heaps and bins and adding it all to the raised beds. The tyre tower is our new wormery and you can see we have loads of kale still to eat. Some bags of woodchips have been bought for the paths between the beds as being ion a slope and being clay its a bit like a ski slope!

The ewes are due to lamb at any minute which means early morning and late night checks as well as the normal visit here are the expectant ladies in their overnight accomodation and one of the older ladies known as 'scrag end' posing for the camera!

What have I done! I went to a meeting in the village last week about heavy goods vehicles using the road through the village as a rat run. The local MP was there and the district councillor........after listening to the problems that comprise of another road down from the hills banning heavy lorries due to subsidence I mentioned that the water main outside our house has fractured 6 times since Christmas and we have noticable cracks in the road...............Well the result is the BBC are coming tomorrow to put it on their breakfast show!!!! Yikes!! They are going to film me, the house, the road, and the deputy chair of the Parish Council.......and all whilst trying to get 2 dogs walked and 2 children to school!
I will let you know how it goes!
We have our first wwoofer of the year arriving tomorrow and I have loads of work for her to do in the veg plot. I am also planning some major earthworks to terrace what is our steeply sloping lawn into a veg garden. The weather however is totally against all my plans......it just will not stop raining! Whoever said global warming wasn't happening! I am praying for some dry weather as the sheep start lambing any day and its like paddyfields down in the village where I have 23 in lamb ewes in a 12 acre field with a barn.
I have been dyeing loads of wool today and its come out lovely shades of green and blue, I will add it to my pile of new colours when its dry.................at least it takes my mind off the weather and the BBC!
Fibrefest 2007 in the Blackdowns is going to be launched next week the website will go live very soon...........its going to be amazing so come to the Blackdown hills for a few days in September i can promise you will not regret it!

I can't believe its nearly a month since my last post! I must get more organised and post more often!
I ended my last post telling you that I would report on my permaculture course.............well what can I say.........a fantastic few weeks were had at Monkton Wyld Court Picture is of all of us permaculture people at Monkton Wylde............I am hiding at the back!

Thirteen of us from diverse places including France spent 2 weeks completing our permaculture design course, this enables us to have the skills to design not only our gardens, allotments and farms in a way that reflects the permaculture principles but also our lives in general. I found the whole process fascinating and the fact that we already tend to organise our holding and our lives around these principles but could still learn a whole lot more was very rewarding. I did find some of the sessions a bit difficult as occaisionally the theories being put forward didn't actually work in practise as I well knew having tried and tested them in the past at home............but that didn't detract from the rest of the course. The people attending were wonderful and one participant Phil from 'up north' is giving up some of his time off to help rebuild the wall that Mohammed took down in November.....................if anyone else wants to come and help on the wall as a wwoofer please register with WWOOF and come down too!
I am now the wwoof host organiser for the southwest so if you are reading this and want to know more about being a wwoof host let me know!
Kerry who was on the course is moving to Galicia in Spain to set up a permaculture based holding, her progress can be checked out at her blog

I have been incredibly busy catching up since the course finished. My sheep are due to lamb from the end of next week and its so wet and soggy underfoot that they are struggling sometimes despite there being 23 of them in a 12 acre field. They have a dry shed to go into if they want and two long hay feeders full of haylage, so all in all are ok............I just wish it would stop raining!
I rescued 6 sheep last week from a very nice lady who was very distressed because she had been left with 14 sheep after domestic problems. I took one ewe who had the biggest abcess on her foot I have ever seen and she is having antibiotic injections every day and dressings changed every 2 days. She is a right state but I think she will pull through as she also has a lamb which gives her the will to live...............this poor lady didn't know a thing about sheep and the foot problem was caused by untreated footrot!
My daughter Rosanna and I spent an eventful sailing from Plymouth to Roscoff to check on my little house and take delivery of a cupboard. I have never been on such a rough crossing........it was actually quite exciting, reminded me of old war films!.............on the way back we sailed late and as we were travelling overnight we started with a good nights sleep, rudely interupted by the rough sea at 2 am when I almost fell out of bed!
Still, I love going to France and the sea is usually quite calm...............now due to lambing I will not be able to return until May.
I will be converting quite a lot of our lawn to veg beds and hopefully installing an outdoor wood fired hot tub made from clay and an old bath this spring/summer and will try and post some decent photos as I go!

Hedgelaying, storms, wool dyeing and permaculture have all featured in the past couple of weeks.
We have been running some amazing courses on our holding and in the surrounding countryside, at times in extrodinary circumstances! On a beautiful warm unseasonal January day several people met to lay a hedge. It was a typical hedgethat had been left to grow up but had had the sides trimmed. The hedge was a double one in that there were actually 2 hedges on a very wide bank, the one on the far side belonging to the adjacent landowner. These shots show the hedge before it had a manicure from the trainee hedgelayers! Well 6 people who had never laid a hedge before tutored by the expertise and skill of Pete went on to produce a very nice result 6 hours later as shown in the photo of some of the proud hedgelayers here! One can hardly believe what can be achieved until looking at the before and after photos.
On the day of the great storm a dyeing for the terrified course took place and some beautiful colours were produced, not only with chemical dyes but with madder, onion skins, logwood and sandlewood. Unfortunately the power was cut off half way through but in true pioneering spirit we battled on over the rayburn using a torch to see what we were doing as the storm clouds rushed across the sky outside!

I am just completing a Permaculture design course and fantastic it has been too, I will update next time on the course, the venue and how we will be incorporating permaculture principles more fully into our lives and our smallholding

Peg looming course took place on Wednesday with 4 lovely ladies all of whom made wonderful creations using a variety of fleece types including Jacob, Shetland, Dorset Down and Wensleydale X
Some was natural and some had been dyed into a variety of colours. The picture shows everyone hard at work with lots of bags of wool on the table.
Silk was also used of the kind that is ofter spun into sari silk, but this was unspun and therefore when combined with the wool made for amazing colours as seen in the picture..........this bit of peglooming is going to be made into a bag.
On Thursday I had a sheep moving day and transferred the Ouessants to a new paddock up on the top of the hill near the house. They have a little pig ark type shelter and are very happy with tons of grass to eat. The Shetland ewes joined the Dorset Down ewes and several animals had a bit of pedicure carried out as they were suffering from the wet ground. However everyone looks very well and they are getting racks of hay and haylage along with a high energy lick to keep them all in tip top condition. From early February they will be fed ewe nuts too to make sure they have enough condition to prevent twin lamb disease which can be fatal.
The lambs also have hay racks out in the fields which are kept topped up with hay or haylage but they will not have extra feeding as they are all fat and happy!
We have a hedgelaying for beginners course on Monday, Dyeing on Thursday and Lambing for the novice shepherd on next Saturday. There are one or two spare places available on some of the courses if you want to come along!

Hello and Happy New Year!
Well all the sheep survived in the capable hands of Sarah a friend from down the road whilst we had a well deserved few days in France. However yesterday we had a rather traumatic day. My eldest son George, on his last day at home before returning to uni in Bangor, helped me gather up the rams from their various groups of ladies and put them in their batchelor field. All was well until a phone call from a friend whose house backs on to the field indicated a problem. We rushed down to find my newly purchased pedigree Dorset Down ram Herbert (who was very overweight on his arrival, and who I have spent the last 8 weeks trying unsuccessfully to slim down) had died of a heart attack! I had to then phone the fallen stock help line to arrange for him to be collected by the casualty wagon and drag the body to the gate to await collection today.
Very sad as he was a top class pedigree ram and I was planning to use him on all my ewes next autumn............he was expensive too! Still nevermind, these sad things happen. One a good note I found out that I had come 3rd in the novice class of the Dorset Down Flock competition, where they come and inspect all of your flock...........not just the pretty ones, so I was well chuffed as it was only my 2nd attempt and the competition is hot!
Just launching some new items on the Woolly Shepherd website including hat knitting kits and baby quilts that are filled with shetland wool. The one to the left here is a flower faries design but I will be able to do any design or colour to order.
I have new colours of banana silk too and some interesting hemp and nettle yarn.

Coming soon will be spin and knit kits consisting of fleece, a drop spindle, knitting needles and a pattern all in a little bag.

Christmas is coming and so are lots of Woolly Shepherd Courses! For example.....
15th Jan Hedgelaying for beginners 2 places left on the course with expert hedgelayer and qualified instructor Pete Grainger. 10 - 4 £35
18th Jan Dyeing for the terrified! Come and learn how to dye wool with natural and chemical dyes in the microwave, on the stove and in the oven! 2 places available. 10 - 4 £40
20th Jan Lambing and care of ewes and lambs, Get involved with lambing on the Blackdown Hills at the farm of Nick and Ruth Strange, especially aimed at beginners. 3 places available .10 - 4 £35
27th Jan Hedgelaying for ladies, an introduction to hedgelaying with a qualified LANTRA lady instructor!Come on girls show'em what your made of! 5 places available. 10 - 4 £35
Also courses in peg loom rug making, sausage making, permaculture, green woodwork, coppicing etc
Check out the website for more details
I was recently featured in Permaculture magazine in an article called 'Not so woolly thinking' written by Stuart Anderson of Permaculture in Brittany blog fame. Check out the article at the link on the blog and keep an eye on Stuarts blog......its very interesting!
We are spending New Year at the house in Brittany where the shutters will be going on and I will be taking a load more photos to put on the houses very own blog
It is now available to book for the spring and summer, its got all mod cons, having been beautifilly and sympathetically restored by a craftsman and has lime plaster walls, comfy sofa, lovely beds, amazing little shower room, and is situated 50 metres from the worlds best boulangerie and about 5km from the nicest restaurant in the area. Its £20 per night per group to book and sleeps up to 4........thats better rates than camping! Easter and witsun weeks are £250 per week and Summer £300 per week..........bargain!

Well its been wet and very windy and even the sheep are looking soggy!
We have had a garden wall taken down after part collapsed and this was done by our latest Wwoofer Mohammad from Birmingham who widened our cultural awareness being a devout muslim
I have been painting at my house in France
and had a very rough crossing both there and back when the journey took 20 hours! We spent the night using the Brittany ferries ferry 'Bretagne' as a floating hotel but whilst in Brittany visited some lovely people called Jenny and Mick Joseph who have a farm at Plouye called Le Coty
We also finished painting the walls and took delivery of a cord of firewood from a very nice local farmer. We will now be warm for our new year break.
Courses are booking up fast for the new year with hedgelaying for beginners and lambing for beginner shepherds proving very popular, check the website for more details of Woolly shepherd courses.

A great weekend! I spent all day Saturday and Sunday as a demonstrator of crafts at the Rural Living Show in Taunton. I sold quite a bit of wool, sari silk and several pegloom rugs and lambskins. I also took orders for fleeces, courses and even an order for some dyed wool for tying fish flys! Many people were interested in ordering pegloom rugs and I hope these become a reality. I chatted to so many people and renewed aquaintance with some I had not seen for years, all in all very enjoyable. I also met the mayor and mayoress.....!

Hedgelaying is now in full swing and we have several courses in the pipeline. The first of which is hedgelaying for beginners on the 15th January. If you want to come on theis course its £35 for the day..........very good value, even if I say so myself.
The pictures are of a Blackdown Hills hedge and from a hedgelaying course held for contractors last year

Busy busy! Last weekend I attended the Hestercombe Christmas fair. What an event! Us stall holders had to be there Friday evening and all day Saturday and Sunday.....exhausting! But it was really good as I sold lots of wool, sari silk, banana silk and lambskins. I also took 5 bookings for peg loom courses. I was next to a stall called Plum duff & Stuff which sold home made Christmas puds......I can vouch for how good they are having sampled it liberally.
Yesterday I and several others of our group of women trainers GO12
were launched as part of the Women in Enterprise event in Taunton. I now have lots of enquiries about hedgelaying for beginners and hedgelaying for ladies as I am a trained and qualified hedgelaying trainer! My husband also teaches it as well as laying lots as part of his business. To book a course take a look at my website The Woolly Shepherd
I also sold three crossbred ewes today to a fellow smallholder who bought over a consignment of lambskins from his smallholder neighbour who raises all sorts of breeds of sheep and buys in others for rearing for the freezer. As a result he has a n amazing assortment of lambskins all killed and tanned in Somerset. I sell these along with those from my own lambs on line and at various markets and fairs....I am at the Rural Living Show just outside Taunton this weekend so do come along and say hello and browse through the skins they start from £45
Here are a selection!

And introducing Derek!! Here he is along with his new wife! He is about the height of my knees and very pleased with himself! He and the 3 others have all settled in well and have 2 small paddocks and a shelter for their comfort.............very pampered this as the only time my other sheep have a shelter is when lambing!
The other picture is some of my Dorset Down flock with Henry the ram ( re christened Gordon Ramsey by the family adjoining the field!) showing his raddle harness. All ewes now have blue behinds and he now has a green crayon attached so now we keep an eye out for anyone who is served a second time.
The weather here was warm and wet.....until last week when it suddenly froze, a bit of a shock but means beautiful days with wonderful autumn colours.

Ouessant ram arrives!..........known as Derek he is very small, black with an impressive amount of both horn and wool for his size! I am now waiting for some sunshine to take his picture and post it on the blog..........!
Meanwhile as autumn continues to be rather warm I have just collected some veg from the plot. It looked so nice I thought you may like to see it, and theres plenty more despite the polytunnel looking a bit bedraglled nowand the beans having seen better days! We grow a lot despite being nearly 1000ft up on a north facing scarp! Also in the picture are todays eggs and some of the incredible amount of Apple and Blackberry jam and apple chutney we made, all with free fruit!
Yeaterday the rams were issued with raddle harnesses, (the big rams that is not little Derek) and now Stan the Shetland has a red crayon on his chest, Henry the senior Dorset Down a Blue and Harold the Junior Dorset Down a green. They have now been released with their respective hareems! The idea of the harness is that I can tell who has been served and when, I write this down and in 3 weeks time (the ewes oestrus cycle is 3 weeks) I change colours and wait to see if the ewes have held to the first service or have returned in season.After another 3 weeks I then change colour again and anyone with 3 colours on their bum is probably not fertile and will probably be culled. The rams stay in with the ewes for 10 weeks and then go back to their batchelor pad behind the local Suzuki garage!
Last Saturday we had a pegloom rug course here and some lovely items were started and either finished or taken away to finish at home. We have some super courses coming up so check out the Woolly Shepherd website for details!