31 December 2012

A Year of Green Hills: 2012

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By January the lambing is in full swing and Teddy enjoys his first lambing season. At least I think he does.

In February Bubbles has twin lambs that look just like her, Teddy meets some cows and decides he doesn't like them and lots and lots of lambs are born.

March is month still in the depths of lambing. Suckie adopts two lambs after her own sadly dies, Pip helps to save a lamb from the brink of death (photo) and Pip's dad appears on TV.

In April not much really happens except I take a few nice photos of Teddy with a lens I borrowed from college.

May had a sad ending to the month when we said farewell to Fly at the age of 19.

A happy first birthday for Teddy in June.

In July a dog sat on a tractor. And it was good. (Plus I passed my driving test - yes!)

In August Pip helps to make lots and lots of silage.

A new ram called Crosby arrives in September.

October tortures us with heavy rainfall. Jack turns ten.

Nothing much happens in November, apart from I decide that taking photos of tractors is good fun.

In December lambing begins again, we celebrate Christmas and I get a new lens.

30 December 2012

Christmas Day Was a Long Way Away

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I'd been waiting for weeks, but on Christmas morning I was finally able to open my biggest Christmas present - a shiny, new 70-300mm lens. And it could zoom very far indeed. I was so thrilled I had to use it straight away! I went with Dad to check the sheep on the land we own in the local area.

They were so close now!






And after a fabulously festive and flavoursome Christmas dinner, it was the dogs' turn to get acquainted with the new lens.

Flying dog...

Flying slobbers...

Flying Sheila.


Suspicious Pip.





This is just about the cutest photo ever. It just is.

29 December 2012

A Joyful Noel

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On Christmas morning Tilly the ewe had to be brought into the lambing shed. She wasn't about to give birth but she was stumbling around and lethargic. We treated her for two of the possible causes and left her on a warm bed of straw, hoping for the best. After Christmas dinner, we checked on her again. She was about to give birth. She had a huge male lamb and Dad had the the rather sweet idea of calling him Noel.


And the even better news is that Tilly is back to her usual self.

24 December 2012

Suckie's Christmas Stroll

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With the ewes in the shed I was able to take Suckie for a nice walk around the yard.






The weather here has been very wet so poor Suckie's soggy wool was parted down the middle.

And of course, because it's Christmas, I couldn't resist having some fun...



Oh, bless her. She was very patient with me. Thanks, Suckie.

There's just one more thing to say:

From all of us!

22 December 2012

Starting with Three

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And so it begins...

Having just brought the first flock of ewes indoors yesterday, we woke this morning to find three extra sheep in there. These are the first lambs of the season.

There's a girl:

And two boys:


I'd almost forgotten how cute lambs were at this age.

21 December 2012

Happy Pip

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Today Pip helped us to make a bed for the pregnant ewes in one of the indoor pens. We rolled a round bale of straw around while Pip jumped onto now and again for a stroke. She was happy to see the job done.