Well here are the photos courtesy of our agents Greenslade Taylor Hunt!

Very depressing time at the moment as I have 15 vewes that were supposed to go to the breeding ewe sales and now are stuck here due to the ban on movement except direct to slaughter, for an unknown period of time which means I am going to have to feed then....AND the day before we got stood still again I had sold over 70 bales of haylage as I knew these sheep would be going 3 days later...........what a mess! Thank goodness the pigs went to the abattoir last Monday!

I have 12 lambs booked for slaughter tomorrow and another lot next week so fingers crossed they can go.

I hate to think how much this is costing bigger farms than us as I should have made about £600 on the ewes.............and my cash flow is not good, at least I don't have huge loans to repay like many farmers inevitably do.

I feel especially sorry for those who have lost their stock over this and those who will go bankrupt as a result of the crisis.

Hopefully we can get sold and moved as soon as possible and have a brighter future!

STOP PRESS!!

We are for sale! Well the house is! We have found are ideal small farm in Cornwall and now the race is on to sell! £455,000 or near offer will get you a 4 bedroom period house in the beautiful Blackdown hills with 9 acres of which 2 are pasture and 7 wonderful woodland. plenty of parking, outbuildings, etc and the opportunity to rent loads more land locally (I rent about 40 acres and a building within 2 miles) Pass this on to your friends and contacts, pictures to follow!

Fibrefest 2007 was a resounding succes for a first go at such a big idea! The photos say it all really........the main tent went up on bank holiday Monday and it seemed huge! We spent several days and several miles of baler twine marking out the stall spaces..........which were then marked on the grass with orange sheep marker spray! Tables and chairs were aportioned and the toilets, bins and garden shed info booth arrived. I now know more about temporary toilets than I ever wished to know!
The stallholders started to arrive from Thursday and the tent started to fill with wonderful stalls such as the House of Hemp and Devon Alpacas shown here constructing their stalls.

Gradually things began to take shape including the little village fair that shared the site. The Blackdown Hills food group had a big marquee and that started to fill with local produce and yummy food from such producers as Beech Hayes Farm and Jackie Rees.

By about 9.30 on Saturday 1st September the tent was ready and the weekend was opened by Brigit Strawbridge from BBC 'Its Not Easy Being Green'..................in the picture she is being introduced by the Chairman of Coldharbour Mill the local working wool museum.

The tents gradually became very busy and I had the opportunity to meet Ruth Paisley 'Woolly Wormhead' who had been running a hat design workshop and is pictured here with 2 of the participants.

On the Saturday night we had a relaxing evening drinking tea, spinning, knitting and chatting while the fantastic Cornish festival band Bagas Degol played in Ashill Village Hall

The last pic is of my stall as I just had to show off my new banner!

I have been on holiday!! well a week in Brittany France which was bliss! Whilst there I ran a sheep keeping course for beginners near Lamballe which was fantastic and the weather in that day was smashing! We were hosted by Renee of Cani-Excel with her lovely Ouessant sheep and Esmi the biggest and most placid sheep in the world!
We also went to a BBQ at Chateau Neuf du Faou where we met the lovely host Salamander from Brittany Friends forum and a selection of other very nice people. The picture id of the maritime caves at Morgat on the Crozon peninsula which were superb and very worth a visit. All the livestock at home were left in the capable hands of my eldest son George and 2 students - Noemie from France a wonderful girl with a passion for knitting and Niss from Germany who is a pedigree sheep breeder.
Got back and moved the lambs to new fields, attended a very muddy Honiton Show and then just when I was looking forward to going to run a peg loom workshop at the Big Green Gathering for Brigit Strawbridge who was launching a new charity 'The Big Green idea' news of Foot and mouth disease hit!
I didn't sleep a wink with worry on Friday night and didn't go to the BGG as it is on a farm and that would have been rather irresponsible as at that time they didn't know where it had come from! Feel desperately sorry for those affected, the poor man who lost his pedigree cattle and was in tears on the TV was heartbreaking.
Went to Exford show with the wool today well disinfected and with not a sheep or cow in sight. I had a lovely day and sold a lot of goods..........things have to get better eh?

Will it ever stop raining? Hopefully in time for Fibrefest 2007 that is taking place on the first weekend in September! We are busy as ever and have the best volunteer ever staying with us! She is called Noami and is from near Lille in France. She is an amazing knitter and I will post pics of her hats soon!
Our lambs are getting bigger and the first ones went to the butcher on Tuesday along with 2 hoggets from last year (a hogget or shearling is a female sheep between one and two years) I am looking forward to the meat being ready as one whole animal is being made into sausages. Hay is going to be very expensive this winter and I am sooooooo glad I have 200 bales of haylage left over from last year! In this area no one has successfully cut and baled without rain yet and most people have not even cut any grass............a lot is flattened and rotting! Its going to be an even tougher time for farmers this winter.
I thought I'd post a pic of my champion goat taken in 1993 as several people have asked to see her. She was a British Alpine goat called Honeydown Mercedes and in 1993 became a full champion and also the highest milk recorded goat of her breed that year with 2,300kg of milk in that years lactation!!
She also gave the highest quantity of milk in a milking competition that year for her breed. I don't keep goats anymore but may start showing the sheep next year.....watch this space!

And introducing our new Kune Kune pigs! Kermit the little orange boar and the older and much bigger Miss Piggy! The little chap is 9 weeks old and his potential wife is 13 weeks old. They are so friendly and love to be scratched!
They will hopefully one day have lots of piglets, some for sale to other people who want smallish pigs and some to make sausages.

Thought you might like to see what a participant on the knitted felt course made with some of my wool dyed with madder! It was made by Vanessa who just happens to be the owner of ROOTS the most fantastic deli/shop/cafe in Taunton, Somerset which is our nearest town.
I have decided to sell all of my sheep that are not either Dorset Down or Ouessant and concentrate on these 2 breeds so if anyone wants to buy some sheep I have a few for sale!

Rain...........I have had enough! This evening a year after the last flood and 3 months after the new plaster had dried and the new carpet was laid disaster struck!
Torrential rain caused the road drains to fill to bursting and then unable to cope the water came down our lane at an angle and straight under our front door in a spectacular fashion and a torrent sped across the hall and down into the study!!!

We ran for sand bags, and anything else we could get our hands on and stemmed the fast flow............we now have the carpet up, the underlay in the yard and the house full of fans and dehumidifiers courtesy of the insurance company!

NOTE added Sept 07

The local highways authority has admitted the fault was their drains!!
They have now completed major works on the road and the culverts and even put in a little 'hump' along the lane as a token of their kindness.....this was after the legal team at the insurance company helped me to write them a letter stating they had better DO SOMETHING!.........A house 900ft up a hill should not have to suffer from incompetant councils and now we will never flood ever again...........and assurances to anyone who might be tempted to buy our house..........It is now safe from water!!! YAY!!

Learn to felt wool!! I have just put 3 amazing courses on the website
They will take place in the fabulous setting of West Hatch in the tiniest village hall ever seen! First will be Felting for beginners, making items such as mobile phone cases as shown in the picture. Second on will be 'needle felt' making animals such as this sheep and pig and the third will be cobweb scarves which are just amazing! Book on all 3 and get a 10% discount!

The tutor is Andrea Coleman and you will be amazed at what she can do with wool!

Found this very funny picture again by local photographer Pauline Rook and thought to myself that sheep are not so daft really! Ours certainly are not and Pete and I spent Wednesday in the pouring rain putting the rest of the flock through the turn over crate we borrowed from friends to make the toenail cutting less arduous..........the one shown in the picture is the same as the one we borrowed. Its less stress on the back but do not be fooled into believing the sheep co operates meekly like the one in the photo!! I have the bruises to prove it..........However we do not have worse backache than we started with!
All trimmed, sprayed and sorted they are now back munching their way through the paddocks and odd bits of grassland in 3 local villages.
I have decided to sell my Shetland flock to concentrate more on the Dorset Downs so if anyone wants some let me know.

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!