Let it snow, let it snow, let it ......

Well, all right, it's only been 3 inches of the stuff. Relatives from habitually snowbound places like Canada, Scotland and, errrr, Cambridgeshire, can scoff. But it's been a dramatic week. The sheep have been posing for what, if we get out act together, will be next years Christmas card:

Why can't we get at the grass, then?

They've been getting noticeably woollier, and have reacted to snow with all the calm and tolerance of a habitual fruit cake-eater at Christmas, i.e. wondering why what they usually eat is covered with all the superfluous white stuff. They've been seen digging holes in the snow to get at the grass, while Sarah has been upping their hay rations.

Apple, a fit and healthy sheep!

Their health has also been an issue. Apple, following her attentions from the vets, recovered very quickly. But that meant we had to get the rest of them wormed. And the beautiful white carpet of snow was chewed up very quickly as the vets came and tried, with Sarah, to round them all up (the only day they could come, Richard had to be in London - or so he said!). Up and down, and up and down they went, much to the amusement of the neighbours. This lot can spot a gap between the advancing humans and go through it like a dose of salts!


Fortunately, they were all rounded up and done, eventually. Other than that, it's a matter of keeping them fed. We've bought a hay bale, which is so large it occupies most of the garden shed, and we're gradually working our way through it before spring comes. We're acquiring a new respect for farmers, who have to do this for many times more animals than we do, and must feel completely at the mercy of the elements.

Get stuck in, Girls!

Beyond that, we are contemplating whether or not Timothy Spall, as the Earl of Emsworth, makes a convincing livestock keeper. Still pondering. More on this at a later date.

Sheep-hoo-o-o-o-ey!

What a week! It's freezing cold now, though actually with nothing like the snow that the rest of the country has. But the drama as 7 days ago, when one of our sheep was ill - our first livestock crisis. Apple (pale-faced blonde) stopped moving around as much as the others and was right off her food.

It was all rather like the Empress of Blandings refusing to eat because all was not right with the world. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent of the universal hog call, Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey!, for sheep. We needed, first a vet, and then, when between 3 of us we'd been unable to get hold of her, a vet plus a student. Off her food, Apple might have been, but she could still move around.

And even then, when trying to corner the sheep, another of them bolted and leapt over the inner fence, that's meant to protect some hedging we've put down from being munched. That's a 4-foot jump from virtually a standing start. This lot can move.

Once we got hold of Apple, the vet suspected liver fluke, and after some medication was inserted up the backside (very disrespectful!) she was better within a day.

We also get some very good information from the vet about how difficult all sheep farmers are finding it at the moment. The rain in summer fell at all the wrong times, which means the hay is poorer quality than it should be, and remaining grass has been all munched out. It's noticeable, just walking around the area, how waterlogged the fields are.

We're tied to the weather now: at the mercy of whatever it does to us.