Life on the 59th Parallel
May 31st, 2008 by SpinningGill
Things have been busy up here. The sheep all eventually had lambs - a total of seven lambs (three of them boys) out of five sheep. The boys were duly ringed and will be kept for at least a year to get a fleece off them.
We have a new addition, Tan, a three-year-old working sheepdog. I’ll work out how to post a photo or two later.
Apr 23rd, 2008 by SpinningGill
That is to say, waiting for the ewes to lamb! The signs are all there, and three of them are into their due date range, but still no lambs. They’re in the small paddock to the south of the house at the moment, as they objected to being kept in the byre. It just means that I need to go out more often to check them in the night, especially as the wind is a little stronger tonight and rain is forecast.
Apr 3rd, 2008 by SpinningGill
A day of mucking out and dosing sheep. The cross byre - where the horses are stabled - needed a good mucking out, so Barnaby’s half got done today. I did this whilst waiting for F to come with her sheepdogs to help round up the sheep for worming etc. She is so good with her dogs - I’m full of admiration for it. The Shetland sheep took a bit of penning as they’re so skittish. The Hebrideans and Jacobs on the other hand are getting better. This may be because they’re in lamb and are slowing up a bit.
After dealing with the sheep, F and I had a good long chat about the dogs - how to handle them, how they react to sheep and a bunch of other stuff.
I brought the horses in tonight (they were out last night as it was mild). Tomorrow I’m going to put the Shetlands in the horses’ field before I put the horses back out - it should be less chaotic doing it that way round.
Apr 1st, 2008 by admin
Hello. This is the web site of Andy and Gill. We live on one of the outer Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland. We are just starting to build this site so please pop back soon and see how we’re getting on.