Bumble bees, haircuts and gardening – must be spring!

The bumble bees are flying again, always a welcome site. They’re bouncing on the window a bit just now, much to Lily’s disapproval.

Speaking of Lily disapproving of things, she had her haircut the other week. So instead of the fluffy wee beastie you can see at the top of these pages, she’s in Jack Russell mode again. Still a few straggly bits to tidy up, then I’ll take new pics of her. She was much better behaved this time too. Once I get past the face and nose, Lily tends to settle down and just lay still for me. I need to move her around sometimes, but all the years shearing sheep make light work of a wee dog!

We have sun and warmth here today, so I’ve been gardening. Now the hedgehogs are going to be out of their winter beds I’m gathering up all the leaf piles from the garden. We popped into town for a fork and some grass seed and a variety pack of container plants for some colour in summer. I’ll be picking up some young Bacopa plants too. Last year my 2 Bacopas died with the frost but they flowered from April to December (no wonder they pegged it by January!) and I think they add a real cottage garden feel to my hanging baskets.

I’m going to try building some sort of water bath for the birds too, and one for the hedgehogs, foxes and other passing traffic. We’ve got some branches lying around the garden after Darren took dead wood down from one of the trees, so I’ll have a better look and see if I can use what’s available to me. Then get a sturdy ceramic bowl for the ground beasties.

Doonies Farm

Doonies Farm is a rare breeds farm in my home town of Aberdeen. I’ve become involved in setting up a website for the farm and I would love it if you’d take the time to look at the site and offer us any help that you can.

The animals at Doonies are rare breeds, from Eriskay ponies to Castlemilk Moorit sheep. Doonies provides a role in conserving the gene pool of these wonderful animals, and letting children and adults learn both about farming and the animals themselves. If you’re in Aberdeen and have time to visit, I’d recommend you go along. Calves and lambs are being born at this time of year, and we hope to hatch out chicks from our new incubator too.

If you can’t visit, there is plenty that you can do to help us. We’re trying to raise the necessary cash to safeguard the future of the farm and the animals and then we have plans to improve the site and add things like a canteen, shop and an indoor facility for showing visitors the animals; whether for an educational purpose or simply to provide cover from our lovely Scottish weather! You can contact us through the website or donate funds via Paypal.

A little dose of cuteness

This isn’t one of my wee beasties, but still cute. Enjoy!

more animals

New directions

Since moving to London, it’s become harder to think up interesting stories to post here about my menagerie. So, while I’m stuck away from my own critters, I’m going to start writing about “wee beasties” in general rather than just my own.

So, to start things off, here’s a London beast that I still love – the grey squirrel.

They’re often blamed for the rarity of red squirrels, but I still find it impossible to hate them. In the parks in London, these little guys are so cheeky that I’ve had one climb my leg and jump into my camera bag looking for peanuts. Another decided that while I was sitting down drinking a can of coke, I’d make a great cushion for said squirrel to eat his peanuts on. Grey squirrels are like big gerbils when they eat – both paws turning food over. They happily take food from your hand and you’re really unlikely to be bitten, because they learn that biting won’t get them a reward of some nuts. The only thing that seems to phase these little guys is the pigeons who try and snatch peanuts.

You can find a few more squirrel pics in my Flickr photostream here.

I missed a photo of this little guy as he was upside down with back legs sticking up out of the bin, but I got this shot before he left the scene of the crime!

Hamish makes contact with his first ferret

Our golden retriever, Hamish has developed quite a sweet affection for our ferret Stickypaws, the two of them often kissing noses as Hamish passes his cage. But we’ve always been careful to not let the dogs get too close to Sticky because he sometimes tries to nip noses and we didn’t want a fight breaking out. So you can imagine the *eek* when Hamish was standing in the hall waiting to get into the lounge and Sticky, popped his cage door and leapt out, landing on top of Hamy’s back! Luckily, the two of them were more interested in comparing their size differences than trying to scrap with each other. Swift intervention on Darren’s part in grabbing Sticky before he slithered off. Ferrets aren’t the most agile members of the animal world!

Here’s a photo of Sticky in his bag that he likes to ride in when we go out for walks.

Hamish hits London

Finally, my golden retriever, Hamish, has made the trip down to London to join my mini family here. It’s so good to have him around, and I’m glad to report that he’s getting to know and playing with little Lily. We’re taking it slowly so there aren’t any fights, but it’s very obvious that they want to be together. Both boucing and playing in the garden today, Hamish seems to have forgotten his age, which is wonderful to see.

New addition to the family

There’s a reason I’ve not been posting much recently. She’s called Lily.

This is Lily before we got her, with all her face trimmed “smart” -

It wasn’t a difficult decision whether we should get her or not – how could you resist that face?

My wee bundle of fun has been living with us for nearly a month now, and we love her to bits. She has started teething properly now, so we have toys and chews all around in an effort to occupy those little teeth. Eating humans is still much tastier, but Lily’s a smart wee pup and she’s settled down a lot in the short time we’ve had her.

We decided that as I was just going to be working a few hours in the morning each day, it would be a good time to get a young pup and settle it in before the big dogs move down. Sadly my first jack russell, Candy, had to be put to sleep at the beginning of October, and it was just impossibly quiet when I came home from work. So, after some searching, many phone calls and a trip to the dog home, we put an advert on Gumtree and heard about Lily. She was worth the wait.

Each day Lily seems to get more fluffy, she’s got a much thicker coat than even a wire-haired jack russell, and her wee legs are fluffy. Her tail isn’t that long, I guess schi tzu tails aren’t long, just fluffy. She hasn’t developed a pom-pom tail yet, but she enjoys chasing what tail she does have, when she’s not hunting down my slippers!

Moving time!

I’m going to be working and living in London for…Well I’m not sure how long yet! Darren and I got fed up of living apart, and my mum planted the seed by suggesting I work in London. I felt it was a lot to ask my folks to babysit the animals, but they know the opportunities I’d have, and my earning potential here vs London. If mum hadn’t said it herself, I’d have been too scared to ask. But it just wasn’t making sense to live up here in the short term.

I’m going to miss many things, most obviously family and menagerie, but the way I see it is this. I could spend years up here traveling 3 hours of the day, spending a fortune on diesel and earning basic wages temping and working the market. Saving for a house via that method would take a long time. I can earn more and take most of it home in London. I can live with the guy I love, train up, find a myriad of markets and experience London life properly. Strange for a country lass to want that, but I do love London

I’m going to move the animals down as and when I can provide somewhere for them. In the meantime, tomorrow is packing day before I travel to London on Saturday.

Or maybe not!

I’m still having lambs. Well not me personally… Typically the day after my last sheep post, I had 3 lambs. All white. I’m sure one of my sheep is a secret web surfer. I can just imagine them round the laptop reading. Pointing out the stories about themselves, then laughing that I’ve announced the end of lambing season.

The good news is that I’ve had 2 beautiful lambs and another 2 are moorit (red-brown) and fill a gap in my flock colour wise.

One cutey was a white ewe lamb with black panda eyes, a black nose, 4 little black socks and a spotty tail. So adorable. We had a really heavy night of rain the evening after she and her twin were born, but I’m glad to report that Monty breeds remarkably tough offspring. My folks and our neighbours all lost sheep, my parents sadly lost several lambs. I had no losses which amazed me. I really expected the worst.

The following day my other cutie was born. A black ewe lamb with white belly, white cap and 2 white socks. I hope it warms up for the last set of lambs, most have been rained on since they were born.

I’m now going to pretend I didn’t say we’d finished lambing here, because that’s tempting another population explosion. I think I’ve doubled what I had when I made the last post here. Oops!

I’m also hoping that the weather eases off in the next few days, so I can get essential work done; like foot trimming and worming, before I’m off to London again. It’s always sunny when you want to work inside and raining when you don’t…

Finished lambing?

Monty the ram had a very brief liaison with my ewes last year, and I’m almost hopeful that the lambs are all born now.

Current total is 12 lambs

Most are black with bits of white on their heads. Monty seems to be leaving that as his calling card this year! I have a moorit (brown) ewe lamb and ram lamb, several black all over and not a single white lamb to be seen. I had a good few white lambs last year so that’s a nice balance. And 8 were ewe lambs. I don’t think I’ve ever had more ewe lambs than ram lambs. And not one needed any help from me. In fact I had a hard time catching most of them to spray their umbilical cords. Pure Shetlands are born running here!

Of course having typed the above, I’m guaranteed to go out and find 10 white ram lambs were born overnight. But let’s hope not!