The waiting game...

The bad weather this week has actually made me quite grateful that no lambs have shown their woolly little heads yet. This morning however is beautiful and would be a good time to come into the world.

The girls however were more interested in standing around looking pretty than getting down to the serious business of producing lambs. 

 After we had checked the flock, Fox, Whisper and I had a good stretch out and a play.

I think that the dogs are missing their swims in the lochs since even Fox relished a wallow in this muddy pool, and he usually hates getting muddy if he can avoid it!

Home for breakfast now and then back over to Brenfield. The folk there are trying to talk me into competing in a Kelly Marks competition tomorrow so perhaps I'd better take Alfie into the school for a bit!

Cuddly Sheep

Kate is such a little sweetie. Every time I go in the field she trots over and isn't happy until she has been petted. She even nudges under my arm like a dog. She's my PAT (Pets As Therapy) sheep :-)

Happy Birthday

It was my birthday on Saturday, which means that I have now entered my 30th year of life. Does this mean that I am now really am an adult? As of next March I will be "in my 30s" and no longer "only in my 20s". It's not that I find it scary particularly, but it does make me think about everything I have achieved, or otherwise, during this long growing up phase.

That's quite enough serious thinking for one morning, much more important is showing off the photos of what was a really rather lovely day marred only by Chris' being too ill to enjoy it with me. It was a day to put my current state of stress to one side as far as possible and try to enjoy just being.

The day was beautiful, a perfect picture of everything that is good about spring: the long awaited warming sunshine, the signs of new life peeping out everywhere, the near frantic singing of the birds battling for their breeding territories, the colours, the zingy scent of pine in the forests and gorse flowers in the hedge banks... no matter what else is going on in life, this combination can not help but make you smile.

The flock were keen to greet me first thing in the morning, although no one produced a birthday lamb for me, and Seamus the Highland bull in the field next door ambled over to say hello.

In the afternoon a lovely surprise awaited me: my wonderful friends at Brenfield took me out for a beautiful long ride. I was on Alfie who I have now ridden a few times and is becoming a good pal. He's helping me to regain my confidence and become a better rider. He's a real sweetie and has lovely manners although on Saturday all of the horses were rather full of the joys of spring!

The day was rounded off with a party tea. I even had to blow out the candles on the cake... although there wasn't space for 29 of them!

Caption Competition!

I took this today of the sheep having some relaxing time after their feed. But what is Girlsta saying to Gruna? And what does Lunde make of it all?

Answers by Saturday night please; I'll pick a winner on Sunday :-)

Long time no blog!

Hello Folks,

First off let me say sorry that I disappeared off the face of the planet for some time. I've got rather a lot going on at the moment but I shan't bore you all with it here. Sadly for me I have been missing reading all of your blogs and there's no way that I'll ever be able to catch up with all of them. Hopefully I'll be resuming normal blogging behaviour soon and wont miss all of those precious lambing photos!

Chris's Chronic Cluster Headaches continue to cause him a great deal of pain and prevent him from sleeping. The doctors have now decided that he needs an operation on his sinuses to realign the tubes, so that will be a two night stay in Glasgow hospital in the near future.

Fox and Whisper have been very accepting of their reduced walking time and my extended time away from them. They are both fast asleep at my feet as I type.

The Smali Flock are enjoying a new field with the best grazing they have seen since arriving in Argyll.

 Lambs ought to be a few weeks away yet, but it looks as though Smali Braeface managed to get his way with Gula and Geherda when he escaped as they are bagging up already! No harm done there since I considered using him before deciding to buy Galtress Ptolemy anyway. I am very much looking forward to Tolly lambs however.

I take great joy and peace from my time with the flock, and this time is all the more precious at the moment. Here are some photos so that you might enjoy some of this special time too; so take a moment for yourself and relax. Life is good.

Now all we need is for Geherda to stop pretending that she is about to pop and actually lamb!

"Who me?!"

Less than perfect yarn!

I've borrowed a spinning wheel from our group this week. This evening I enthusiastically washed, dried and carded some of Sheilhope Gruna's lovely wool and then attempted to spin it into yarn. Gruna has a decent staple length and the fibres are very fine. Next time I might give Sheilhope Gula's a try however as it is longer and looks as though it might be a bit more forgiving!

It was my first time going it completely alone and, to be honest, a bit of a disaster! After many false starts where I let it get too thin so that it broke and whizzed around the bobbin, I managed to keep going and use up all of the wool that I had prepared.

I think that my main problem was in the preparation of the wool. Not all of the little bits had come out of it (not enough washing and carding I suppose) and there were odd little bobbly bits too. Do I have to sit and pick out all of these? Or am I doing something wrong in the carding process?

Practice, practice, practice!

Lobos del Rio: a meeting with the river wolves

Fellow Purple Cooer Tattie Weasel has tagged me. My challenge? To reveal a memory.

This required some thought since, though having only 28 years behind me (nearly 29!) I have many memories of wonderful and exciting, and not so wonderful let alone exciting, things that have happened.

But one of my favourite memories? It has to be of my encounter with the "Wolves of the River" in the Amazon Basin, Peru while I was working as an expedition journalist for The Times in 2001. Note that my own photos are mostly slides and I don't have a slide scanner so these are "borrowed"!

I had joined the Biosphere Expeditions Research Team during the summer following my second year of University. At that time I was getting more seriously into writing and was Science Editor for the University Magazine; a position which earned me an award from the Principal for Outstanding Service to the Student Body. Ah the days of being really appreciated!

I was desperate to join one of these amazing trips into the wilderness collecting data and was sure that other folk were bound to be interested in hearing about it: who knew, I might even get paid to go! I was right. One phonecall to the editor of The Times later and I had myself a commission and even some cash in advance

Before long I found myself stepping off a plane with my friend Leigh, who had decided to make the trip too, into an unknown world of temple-like trees, bizarre bugs and painted parrots.

On a rare day off from collecting behavioural data on parrots or recording species along forest transects, a group of us took a trip down river to visit Sandoval Lake, an Oxbow off the Madre de Dios. We walked through a local village and, for a few Sol, were allowed to borrow one of the locally made canoes.

Soon we were gliding across the mirror calm muddy waters, gawping at the gaudy macaws in the towering trees, smiling at a basking turtle complete with a butterfly on his nose, waving excitedly at long-nose bats roosting openly on the trunks of the palms and laughing at the ungainly movements of hoatzin as they lumbered noisily in the bushes.

This place had a profound effect on me, it immediately got under my skin and into my soul, I felt a deep connection with the place though why I cannot fully understand. I've been to many incredible places, but I will never forget the feeling of deep calm that I felt out on that lake.

We paddled towards a dark little creek leading off from the main body of water; it looked like a set for Anaconda or Congo with its dark waters and overhanging vines. 

As we slipped along day-dreaming we were suddenly brought back to earth by splashing and high whistles. We glanced at each other, "otters" we whispered excitedly. James, our friend and guide for the day, skilfully paddled our canoe silently toward the sound. Sure enough, there appeared the eight heads of a family of giant river otters. They regarded us calmly for a moment and the adult male periscoped high out of the water, his large liquid chocolate eyes showing no sign of fear.

The giant river otter, locally known as Lobo de Rio [wolf of the river], like so many rainforest species, is now extinct from much of its former range. Fur hunting from the 1940s until 1970, decimated the population. Add to this overfishing; mercury contamination of the water by gold miners; irresponsible tourism; and the fact that 12.5 million hectares of rain forest are felled every year to provide us with plywood for our DIY projects and grazing space for our fast food, and you have a problem which isn't going away soon. 

Finding us of little consequence, he turned tail and led his family casually off into the swamp forest, squabbling and whistling as they went. We turned so as not to disturb them further and paddled back to the lake, each with an indelible grin on our faces. Let's hope that I'm not among the last to experience such an amazing encounter.

So who shall I tag? Hmmm
Denise over at Being a Smallholder
Maalie
Garrett at Ramsay Farm
Rayna of North Star Shetlands
Corinne at Crosswinds Farm

Memories, light or dark, please folks!