Back to the matter in hand...

There is still a fair bite of grass about and the stock is mostly in bouncing good health. The new Galloways have come down off the hill, although at the time of writing there are still 2 missing.

On balance, I’m delighted. Only 2 strays from a herd of miscellany, put together piece-meal as they were.

(I won’t deny that I’ve had some luck in the way they’ve settled in but I would hesitantly point out that there was no small amount of thought went into the process as well.)

The South Devon cows are looking for some grub, having reared a reasonable crop of calves who are now weaned and indoors. The mummy sheep are in with the daddy sheep, leading - we hope - to an abundance of little baby sheep in due course.

Black sheep of the family
The remnants of our historic Scotch flock (referred to in a 1910 court case as "The Devil's Sheep", your honour) have come back off the hill with a good lot of ewe lambs and are looking fine.

One of the sheep had a black mum and subsequently produced a black lamb itself

The line within that flock that are quite fittingly black skinned and black woolled, so narrowly escaped eradication last year that I have hardly stopped holding my breath and crossing my fingers.

All the black adults were lost but one of the white escapees had had a black mother as I recall and subsequently produced a black ewe lamb.

I’ll tell you the whole story of that flock one day when we’re all a bit older.

The weaned boy lambs are fattening straight off grass and we’re selling the resultant product at a comfortable pace.

Diversifying into telepathy
The sawmill is fairly frantic with one conversation that must be reported:

"Hello Mr Coaker, would you be able to supply me with a piece of wood for my mantle piece?"

Taking on the mantle

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