The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Introduce yourself => Topic started by: Treud na Mara on April 07, 2014, 01:25:02 am
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Just realised I've been posting away and not introduced myself....I live in Caithness now, having bought a croft with 11.5 acres of land which runs down to within about 200m of the cliffs here, just 10 miles south of Wick. My OH is characterised as a Duracell bunny for his seemingly limitless reserves of energy - myself - not so much ;) I am 60 and he is my toy boy of 59. Before moving here we had kept chickens (for about 3 years)and a couple of Pygmy goats (for about a year) and helped a local farmer by having three pet lambs on the bottle till weaning. OH spent a week with the farmer lambing but didn't actually even see a birth, although got plenty of practice ringing tails and testicles :o So not huge livestock experience. However we agreed to take on the livestock on the croft as the previous owners had come to the end of their resources and just wanted to take the money and run, so we got 22 assorted sheep, 1 wethered angora goat, a fine looking cockerel, 4 buff hens and five month old chicks. This was at the end of October last year. We arrived to find every internal gate on the property open - so 8 rams - 1 registered Jacob, 2 Ryeland, 2 Soay and 3 Heinz 57s all chasing around the assorted ewes - 2 Blackface, 3 unregistered Ryeland and 7 mixtures. With 2 rigs added for good measure. So the last five and a half months have been a fairly steep learning curve for us both. We had joined the Scottish Crofters Federation last summer when we were still just looking for a place so we asked if there was someone nearby who would be prepared to mentor us and after a shaky start when we were advised to cull all the sheep as most of them weren't even tagged and we had no idea of their health status, we were sent our Crofting Angel who has endless patience with us. And a trained sheepdog, which we have managed without - the power of the feed bucket :) So far three of the sheep have given us 5 live lambs completely unassisted and one stillborn. We have planted about 1300 trees. Someone gave us another 8 chickens and two of the original chicks turned out to be cockerels, which we re-homed. And now the girls are in overdrive laying. I spend about 2 weeks in every 6 looking after my father, who has Alzheimer's,in East Lothian, so I have missed out on two of the lambings, but I will be back home tomorrow so it will be my turn to do the night time checks for a while.
I realise I could easily be accused of over sharing here but that's what happens when I start. I'd just like to say that I LOVE this site and it's been so helpful already. And thanks to darkbrowneggs I now know what I want to do next when I'm too old for this crofting lark. Thank you all. Oh and the name Treud na Mara is gaelic for the crowd by the sea, which is our flock name, seemed appropriate as the house and croft are called Tigh na Mara - house by the sea. However a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and we now know that we are actually in the Norse area of Caithness (roughly north of Lybster) but in our defence I would say that we didn't name the croft! Enough already :wave:
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Lovely reading :)
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Hi and welcome from the Borders. :wave:
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Hi and welcome to the forum :wave:
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Welcome! Hope we might meet you at the Scottish Smallholder and Grower Spring Gathering on 31st May at Thainstone Agricultural Centre, Inverurie :thumbsup: www.scottishsmallholdershow.co.uk (http://www.scottishsmallholdershow.co.uk)
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Welcome to Caithness :wave: Been here 14 yrs, love it ! We have :pig: :chook: :dog: :goat: :horse: :sheep: :&>
The Boreray we have will hopefully be lambing this week :fc: Look forward to hearing about your adventures !
We stay out at Bower, between Wick and Thurso :thumbsup:
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Welcome! It's lovely to read of your adventures so far :thumbsup: .
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Hello and welcome from Wales :wave:
Great story so far, look forward to hearing more. Sounds like you should have a blog, if you don't already...
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:wave: and welcome from Shropshire. Don't apologise for long posts. We love 'em.
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Love the intro and relate to the rambling ;D
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Great intro, have a lovely picture of your first arrival with those sheep :o
The history of the croft is interesting and :D Enjoy being part of a busy, chatty forum :sunshine:
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HI and welcome from W.Yorkshire, what a great way to introduce yourself, and what an introduction to crofting for you ;D . Hope you wintered well up there.
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Thank you all for your warm words of welcome. I spent 10 hours today on my rail commute from East Lothian. That Beeching man must be spinning in his grave - over 4 hours for the Inverness to Wick - even I can drive it in just over 2. Anyway I am posting this with a Jacob tup lamb on my lap. OH had to rescue him from his mum before he was butted to Norway. Maybe it was because of his big head! Anyway another hour and it's my turn to go check the other mothers to be. A, mostly, Soay looks like she could be next, so hopefully she will just get on with it. Mild night too so :fc:
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Welcome! Hope we might meet you at the Scottish Smallholder and Grower Spring Gathering on 31st May at Thainstone Agricultural Centre, Inverurie :thumbsup: www.scottishsmallholdershow.co.uk (http://www.scottishsmallholdershow.co.uk)
It's in the diary!
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Welcome to Caithness :wave: Been here 14 yrs, love it ! We have :pig: :chook: :dog: :goat: :horse: :sheep: :&>
The Boreray we have will hopefully be lambing this week :fc: Look forward to hearing about your adventures !
We stay out at Bower, between Wick and Thurso :thumbsup:
Thanks neighbour :fc: for your lambing.
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HI and welcome from W.Yorkshire, what a great way to introduce yourself, and what an introduction to crofting for you ;D . Hope you wintered well up there.
Can't quite believe it so far - OH says he thinks we are months ahead of where he had hoped. I put it down to positive mental attitude, and those Duracell batteries myself :thumbsup:
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Hello from another newbie. We moved to a smallholding on the Herefordshire/Powys border last summer. I can really relate to your comment about duracell man. This was the nickname my husband had on workparties where we used to live. I can't keep up and learnt to accept that years ago. I just pace myself and plod along. I will be 60 next month and my toy boy is coming up to 58. Our first goats are arriving next week and the weaners the week after. We have spent the time in between fencing, improving outbuildings and starting veg beds, and planting 1361 trees!
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Aren't we the lucky ones to have found such gems to share our dreams with. :thumbsup:
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Hey guys, Michael here. Lovely to meet you all this week and a big big Thankyou for your perseverance and refusal to cull all the sheep, especially the super Ehwaz Trusty, our very first home bred lamb! Hope you have a great time doing all you have planned and please call if ever we can help.
My best
Michael
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Only just spotted your post MKay. Our last visitor has gone today so we'll be getting back to cleaning dirty tail ends and all the rest. Don't forget to pop in for some eggs when you're passing next ;)