Malt's first lambs arrive!

Just had to do a quick blog to say that the first of Millhouse Maltster's lambs were born last night - but not to me! Do you remember the four Wensley girls that belong to my friend Kirsten?

They came a visiting in October in order to take advantage of Malt's services! Well, Elisha, who we thought had not been served as she had no raddle marks on her (a raddle is a harness that you put on the ram which holds a coloured crayon - this crayon marks the girls backs once he has served them) gave birth to triplets in the early hours of this morning. She did it all on her own, first time lamber, and had 3 beautiful girls! How amazing is that?

Mother & 3 girls doing well!

Meanwhile we still sit and wait for Rosie to have her lambs - she looks more like a walrus every day!

Triplets and More!

Thought I had just better update you on how we are doing on the lamb score! Life has been a little quiet on the homefront - everybody seems to be wanting to hang on for better weather. We did have a natural break at the beginning of Feb but seem to be all stations go again now!

So on Sunday morning, Serena gave birth to a lovely girl - big and bonny - her name is Bea.

And on Sunday evening we had our first set of triplets to another black girl called Mystique - the first one was breach and a little on the small side. He struggled to start with a bit so he had a night under the heat lamp and improved greatly. He is now back with his mum and doing ok - their names are Mary, Mungo and Midge!

All the lambs have been white unfortunately so will not be able to register them. We tried an experiment with our blacks this year putting them to a white ram that we knew threw black lambs last year. In theory we should have 50/50 white and black lambs but so far we are all white - so experiment doesn't seem to have worked this far - we still have some to go so we continue to hope!

This week should be busy with another 7 due to lamb - watch this space for hot off the press pics!

T x

And then there were 7!

Just thought I would send you a quick up date on progress .....

We now have 7 lovely lambs - all doing well and seem very contented to be in the world. Mums are doing an amazing job feeding as always.

Here is the role call ....

This is a grown up Josie and her mum Candy - she is huge now at just under 3 weeks!

This is Venus - eyes on stalks as usual - with her boy Mo

Next came Ginger - unaided at midnight - with her girl Nutmeg

On the same night but not with the same efficiency Jessie with her twins, Owen and Jessica

Then late one Saturday afternoon after waiting 7 hours for her lamb came Maizie with her boy Jude who was determined not to be rushed!

And last, but certainly not least at the moment, comes Truffles with her little girl (she always had girls!) whose name is Joanna

We are having a bit of a lull now but normal service should be resumed hopefully later this week!

Just thought I would also pop in a quick picture of Cottontail my lovely Golden Guernsey goat, who is expecting twins on 7th March - now she is enormous and still a month to go!

Well, she did it!

Well, Venus finally had her lambs yesterday afternoon. She did have a boy and a girl but unfortunately the little girl was born very weak and had a lot of fluid on her chest which we just couldn't clear so she only lived for about an hour. The little boy however is full of beans and coming along very nicely - but, spot the deliberate mistake - he is white as you can see - not really the desired colour for a Black Wensleydale. This will mean of course that I cannot register him as that is not permitted under the rules of the Wensleydale Association - Venus of course thinks he is totally adorable, which is all that really matters!

Venus in waiting!

This is him about 15 minutes old - I think his name will be Mo as we promised Ali's daughter the next lamb would be called Mo as that was her preferred name for Josie, who of course didn't suit it at all!

I am also £5 worse off as I predicted Venus would lamb early and just to be completely awkward as is her want, she produced on her allotted day! Hey ho!

Joy and Sorrow!

Well, I think I tempted fate yesterday by doing my blog. I was going to wait until the first lambs had arrived but got impatient - and then needless to say, have been up most of the night lambing now!

The first lamb arrived, virtually unaided, at about 6.00pm - a really cute little girl who we have called Josie (named after her dad Pyghtle Joseph, who is now abiding in Northampshire looking after another flock of Wensley girls). Both mum (Candy - known as 'the Candy man') and daughter are doing really well!

During all of this fuss, another ewe, Tillie (my favourite!) decided that she might quite like to have her lamb too. Well, it was clear that something was not quite right as she had no udder or milk at all. She spent most of the evening laying down, then standing up and generally feeling really uncomfortable. I checked her at midnight and it was clear that something was starting to happen. I called my friend Ali to help and after about half an hour it was clear that I was going to need further assistance as her womb was refusing to open to let the lamb out. I called another friend Maria who is much more experienced than me, for extra assistance - it is now 12.45pm. Well, to cut a long story short at 2.45am we finally got the lamb out - a little girl which had been dead for some time - very sad. Mum is ok but fed up bless her heart. Poor Tillie - next year girl!

No news on Venus yet - full of milk and ready to go - who knows - today maybe?

T x

Happy New Year!

Well, I can't believe we are the middle of January already - what happened to the time between Christmas and now?

We have been very busy getting ready for lambing which is due to start any day now. In fact I was hoping we would have had one or two new arrivals but I think because of the awful weather the mums have decided to hang onto them a bit longer - do you blame them? I do have to say though, one or two are looking decidedly fat and fed up! So watch this space for the first photos...... My friend Ali and I have a bet on who will be first - don't let me down Venus!

There has been a lot of exciting things going on though in other parts! My great friend Nicola at Halfpenny Home has now launched her website and great it looks too - do check her out and of course she is selling my yarn - including a special chunky with silk that I have had spun for her - catch the website here. Nic has also written her first book - I have ordered an advance copy so can't wait for March! It is available through Amazon here.

There have been new goat arrivals to - just look at this little one!

A friend nearby bought this little goat Eve and a friend from a lady who said that there was just an outside chance that she may be in kid - despite just being a kid herself still. Well it soon turned out that she was and that an arrival was fairly imminent - despite having been reassured that it was an October mating therefore not due to March. Well look what arrived a couple of days ago - isn't she just gorgeous - her name is Milka and she is sporting a cut down 100% cashmere jumper just to keep her warm! Mum and babe are doing really well ......

Well, that is all the excitement for now - hoping for some babies of my own soon!

Don't forget I will be at the Orford Country Market now every Saturday between 9.30 and 12.30 in the Town Hall - if you are in the area, just drop in!

T x

Christmas Shopping Evening

We are once again having our Christmas Shopping Evening in Orford on Thursday, 9th December 4pm - 9pm in Barts Hall, Broad Street, Orford IP12 2NQ.

I will be there with lovely cozy warm winter knits as well as wool and felted jewellery, along with many other crafts including jewellery, beautiful cushions and lavender bags, cards & wrapping, prints and scrummy Christmas fayre.

We will be serving refreshments, so why not come and spend an hour doing some last minute Christmas shopping and share a mince pie with us?

Hope to see you there!

T x

View our poster here

https://acrobat.com/app.html#d=*KnKSi96igcXWocqqiYR6A