Rosedean Ryeland Yarn - The Accidental Smallholder

Posted: Monday 9 May, 2016

by Rosemary Champion at 5:34pm in Smallholding 3 comments Comments closed

Well, Pixie’s teenies are doing fine. They’re quite happy having a bottle and sleeping with their mum. We had a wee scare on the Tuesday or Wednesday after they were born – when we went out to do the 10pm feed, the ewe lambs was bleeding from her back end. Phoned the vet and he said it was probably a wee membrane that had ripped as she passed faeces. She has a Hibiscrub bath and was fine by the 2am feed. They’re in at night and out during the day – the weather has been pretty good; dry, sunny but windy. Good lamb growing weather J

We’ve sold three ewes with six lambs at foot plus two gimmers up to Sutherland, to start a new Coloured Ryeland flock there. The tup lambs are being castrated tomorrow and a Louping Ill vaccine administered, then they’ll be off the following week. They’re going to a very good home – with beautiful sea views.

We had a very strange incident with the laying hens the other day. We usually have 32 or so eggs out of the brown henhouse – I went to collect eggs and there were three. Three! Following day, we got 17. We can only think that it’s crows so Dan’s put a bird scarer in front of the pophole. It seems to be working for now.

Weather-wise, it’s been a decent week – dry and mainly sunny, but windy. The fields have all dried up, so Dan should be able to get out with the harrow and topper and give those rushes a bashing. I’ve signed up for a Soil Association course on rush control without chemicals, on 7^th June. We sprayed once but even with a knapsack spot spraying, it made a bit of a mess. And we don’t really like using chemicals if we can avoid it.

All our potatoes are in and the brassicas are hardening off. Other veggies are coming away too and will be ready for planting out soon. The weeds are also doing well – I need to get into the fruit garden tomorrow and weed. I think our raspberries are failing – they look pretty poor compared to previous years, I think.

The highlight of the week was the launch of Rosedean Ryelands Yarn on Saturday, at “fluph”, a yarn shop in Dundee www.fluph.co.uk. There was lots of interest and we were delighted that well known knitwear designer, Kate Davies www.katedaviesdesigns.com came along. I’m really excited about this – with interest in knitting growing, I think there’s real scope for small producers of quality fleece and yarn.

Dan built me a new website with an on-line shop - www.rosedeanryelands.co.uk - so if you fancy some lovely, undyed DK yarn, swing by for a look  :-)