Very dry, cold and sunny here at Lee House.
Beautiful days, serenaded by the calls of the local buzzards defining
their new territories. Barn owls are out on the prowl as well so it
is good to see they have all survived the winter and chosen us again.
Sparrowhawks are using our wild bird feeders as takeaways and daily
selecting the odd blue or great tit for lunch.
Such beautiful birds both, the hunter and the hunted a rude reminder
of the constant flow of the food chain before our eyes.
The hawk comes about two or three times a day and is very often unsuccessful
so it is far from a forgone conclusion. Last year I found a Sparrowhawk
that had dived for a meal and misjudged, killing itself and the chosen
blue tit by hitting our kitchen window! For about twenty minutes after
the swoop, you can see all the little birds shuffling about
in the bushes, gossiping about the latest lunch victim and then it is all back to
normal stuffing the peanuts as if it never happened!
We have lots of little lambs careering around the place, doing their
usual formation escapee routines.
Like naughty schoolchildren, as soon as they are spotted wandering,
they turn tail and shoot off back to Mum to safety and to recount their
adventures.
Spring is edging it's way in, albeit slowly. There is almost zero grass
growth and the fields are looking like they could do with a good scrub;
they all look a bit grubby and frost burnt. We have now got all our
seeds ready for this years planting and everyone is getting excited
about how the veg field is going to behave THIS year? We have secured
an old implement to go on the back of our ancient Fergie tractor, and
the plan is to spend a little less time hand weeding and hoeing !! We
will be using a lot more protective fleece in an attempt to stop all
our browsing neighbours from eating it all before we get a chance to
sell it. At least this year we have a really good team to tackle it
all and hopefully it will all happen without a hitch ! ! Ha Ha!
We are just preparing for our new calves to be born, as well as loads
more lambs ! I will try to pack a camera this year so that I can get
some more pics up on our site.
Happy days ahead and see you all at market soon I hope?
Grant
