In times gone by

Did I mention that we have been spending Easter on the farm in Somerset for 30 years?  I think I did in yesterday's post.  (If I wasn't so bone idle I would check up.)  In those early years I thoroughly enjoyed singing for my supper by doing various jobs around the farm.  I have helped erect new fences for the deer fields where the corner posts have to be sunk four feet into the ground and because of the lack of cash to have the job done professionally, Julian and I had to dig the holes manually.  I have mended fences, rounded up stray cattle and horses, fed the animals, installed a milking machine, dug a trench for a water pipe across the rock-hard yard, made gates, taught calves to drink from buckets...  a whole variety of things.  This year, the weather was too bad to have a fire to burn all the brash from a chestnut tree that Julian had pollarded and the only other job I had was to hold the scarecrow as Julian knocked it into the ground.  This crittur was meant to scare not crows but foxes, to prevent them taking the new-born lambs.

The sheep are a Hebridean variety. The lambs are black but the wool changes to a dingy blackish-brown in the adult animals.

The rest of the time was taken up with talking, eating, drinking, reading, crossword puzzles...  In other words, it was a lazy weekend - and none the worse for that!