Haymaking and Showing

Well, we attended the Tendring Show on Saturday as planned - wow it was hot! The sheep really didn't want to be there - the rams huffed and puffed across the field in the morning, snorting at us and swinging their heads in a bid to be let off the leads. Noah spent most of the day when not in the ring flat out on his side sound asleep - oh to be a sheep.... Anyway the long and short of it was I don't think they all performed at their best but we achieved a 2nd place for Jacine (shearling ewe) - judge said that the top 3 ewes were cracking and it was a very close thing - a 3rd for Noah (shearling ram) - judge said he had a phenomenal top line but preferred the fleece on others - 2 4th places for lambs and a 5th for my aged ewe Mable. Not a bad result - must try harder for next year!

So, now we have finished showing for the year we can get down to some real work! All the show sheep plus a couple of spares, 8 in total, need to be hand sheared, so we set about that task yesterday and completed 2 of the rams between us, which took about 3 1/2 hours per ram! Don't think we will make much money at shearing do you? Still good job done and just before the rain which was much needed - will have to wait for the others to dry out now.

We also managed to get the hay in before the downpour too - whew! Only two thirds cut as the mower hit a concrete block and broke a something or other (not that good at mechanics!) but all that was cut has been turned and baled - fantastic hay and smells of summer breeze! The girls will love it! Got 80 bales into the barn but couldn't face the other 80 - they are still sat on the trailer, under cover, waiting for me to get up the strength to move them - perhaps later this week!

So down to serious work - more wool sorting, honey harvesting and hopefully a bit of felting! Watch this space ...............