The sheep get a new home

Today my hubby finished building yet another shed the shelter for the ewe lambs. They are in the top of our two paddocks and have no real shelter to speak of. The boys in the bottom paddock have the benefit of the woods at the bottom to shelter from sun but the girls have nothing really. It's taken him quite some time to figure out the design as it had to fulfil quite a long list of criteria:

• It had to be sturdy - to try to make it survive the strong winds we get up on our hill. 
• It had to be light and airy enough that the girls would actually be tempted to go into it (sheep are notorious for ignoring all manner of offers for shelter). They have been, thus far, sheltering from the strong sunshine we've had under an old flappy tarpaulin we erected for them in the corner of their field whilst we thought about their permanent shelter. Once we managed to work out a combination of knots that would elude Flossie - our naughtiest sheep - it worked out quite well, but there's no way it would afford any protection from the elements during the winter. 
• It had to be portable - so that we didn't have to get the planning department involved and so that if the ground got poached around it in the winter, we could move it elsewhere in the field
• It had to be big enough so that when we eventually breed the girls (they should be going to a ram next year) then they'd have somewhere large enough to lamb in.

Hubby has managed to incorporate all of these features and the wood arrived this week in order for him to begin building it. He decided to build it on our driveway, as the field is quite sloping, and tow it down later - once fully built. It didn't take too long in the end and I'm certainly pleased with the result. Our neighbour towed it down in the end, as he has a 4x4 and so could use much lower gears to tow it down gently (and not pull it to pieces, thus ruining hubby's hard work).
The girls were thrilled with the arrival of their new house, not least because it was being pulled by A CAR!!! Our sheep get ridiculously excited at the arrival of motorised vehicles in their field. I have no idea why. They will fawn over them like they are long lost members of their family, jumping up, sniffing, licking, trying to get in...very odd behaviour in a sheep I'm sure you'd agree.

Daffodil asking Jasper for a fuss...

So, after having given the neighbour's car a good going over, they turned their attention to their little wooden house (after a brief detour to visit Jasper in his pushchair - they also have an unhealthy attachment to the pushchair and Daffodil has a particular fondness for Jasper). Suzie marched straight in, and baa-ed loudly (amplified by the enclosed space) - scaring the bejeezus out of the three young children who were also in there investigating. Suzie is the matriarch of our mini flock and so if she approves, the rest will follow!



Here they are chasing the 'sheep kennel' (as Ellie called it!) down the field...

"Hey! Come back with our house!"

I am thinking of making a sign to hang outside the shelter, to make it seem more homely. I was going to call it 'Tŷ Dafad ('sheep house' in Welsh) as these sheep, although a Dutch breed, came from a Welsh flock and our family is mostly Welsh! Hubby's suggestion was 'Mi Casa Ewe Casa'! Any other suggestions?

Well, here it is! The inaugural blog post!

I have absolutely no idea if anyone will ever stumble across my humble little blog but it will, nonetheless, provide an outlet for my incoherent ramblings thoughts. I hope to write about the children, progress on our house renovations/works, sewing (possibly some tutorials) and perhaps the odd bit of recipe sharing! First and foremost I want to share real life. I'm not a Stepford wife or Nigella Lawson and doubt I ever will be. My house is cleaned and tidied fairly regularly (particularly in those frantic 10 minutes before a guest arrives) but isn't immaculate. It used to be a lot better pre-kids but with all three of them at home at the moment it's a thankless task trying to keep it show-home pristine, much as my husband wishes it was. The kids do drive me to distraction on occasion and I do admit to resorting to cBeebies once in a while, in order to give me a break whilst the baby is sleeping!

I guess the first thing to do is to introduce myself:

I am a thirty(something) year old harrassed mother of three little darlings, un-domestic goddess/wife of a hard-working husband, sewist extraordinaire (not really, but I do have a teeny tiny sewing business - www.facebook.com/byebabybunting - that provides me with a pathetic modest income) and more recently an accidental smallholder.
The latter sounds more grand than it actually is - we actually only have eight sheep (Zwartbles breed) at the moment and they'll be reduced to four come November (shhhhhh, don't tell them that!!). We may have chickens and ponies by next year but as we are also saving for a much needed extension - that came in at quite a lot more than we were expecting - then the other livestock may have to go on hold for a little while!

As for the little darlings themselves...First we have Ellie, the eldest at the grand old age of nearly five. She is the peacemaker of the family; a lover of animals, food and books. She's about to start school and is desperately excited about it.
Tabby comes next. She's three and a half and suffers from that terrible affliction, Middle Child Syndrome! She has three main aims in life: to have hair as long as Rapunzel (a rather ambitious wish as she currently still has very little hair!), to beat her big sister in a running race and to eat as much porridge each day as she possibly can.
Jasper is our last, and most definitely final, child. He's almost 10 months and a complete menace joy. He's been crawling (in a Platoon extra, shot in the legs manner) for three months now and we are thinking of hiring him out to building firms due to his uncanny ability to locate even the most hidden wires/cables in a room. He is a generally chilled out, happy, smiley baby but if he is remotely hungry or tired then the whole world is quickly apprised of his situation.

My husband is a metrology engineer. Ever heard of one of those? Nope, me neither. It means he gets to go and visit places like F1 factories, aerospace and military installations and measure stuff for them/sell them stuff to measure their stuff. It's all terribly exciting and glamorous. Actually, it really isn't, but he's a bit of a geek so he loves it :D
In his spare time, my darling hubby is a bit addicted to building sheds. We currently have three in the garden and he has just designed a playhouse for the girls that will be being built soon (he assures me). He's also just in the throes of designing a shelter for our sheep. No doubt it will be bigger and better than they actually need but he'll have fun doing it, which is the main thing.

I think that's probably plenty of writing for a first post, particularly one that doesn't actually have any readers yet! Further posts to follow hopefully...