To pastures new ( part 1)

So one of the young rams  need to rejoin the crowd we have.  And they aren't always the most  cooperative hen it comes to moving them .

 So the one on the left (Aragon) is the one that needs to be  moved.

And get him to be caught ( food is a good attraction)

And then catch ram and load into trailer

And deliver.

A passenger

we needed to take a sheep about a mile down the road to a neighbour.
Weve got a 8' trailer  (used here) but its a lot  of hassle to  put one sheep in it, hitch it up , etc etc etc

So there is a more straighforward solution

The easy (well,easier) way to pick up sheep

Eric, Ernie and Edwin (they are a bit nervous)

1. Take trailer to Stromness ferry terminal

2 . Leave trailer at Ferry terminal, to be loaded onto the Ferry 

3. Ferry takes the trailer to Scrabster and Phil takes the sheep to Scrabster and puts them in the trailer 

4. Ferry brings trailer ( with sheep) back to Stromness

5. return and pick up trailer after its been taken off the ferry 

Job done  !!

Getting ready

 On the Beaufort Scale greater than 55 mph is Force 10, greater than 64 mph is Force 11 .  So it will be Force10.5 !


its going to get a bit windy, so they say. Its really the first decent storm of the winter - 40mph gusts don't   count.
So we have to get ready.
We've gone round and tied down the sheep trailer

And cleared away or immobilised  a number of loose items that  might get blown about

I reckon the chick houses  will be OK - the wind will go through them. And if it does move them , they will end up in the hedge.  We shall see

And Im not alone  in getting ready

Not the Hay Wain

So we need some hay. Sadly we dont have a cart and horse and a stream , as Constable did.
We've got a trailer. And a car. And a neighbour with hay.
So we need to put all three together.
 

A trailer

A hay bale

  And with much huffing and grunting and pushing  and the help of the neighbour, we got the bale in the trailer.

A very tight fit.

 So getting the bale in wasn't that easy ( we should have put some cardboard on the trailer floor. Its corrugated, to stop things (ie sheep) sliding about.

And we transported it home.  it took three of us to get it in . ow there were only 2  to get it out.  and it too long to reach in and pull.
So the answer - empty enough hay from the side door.  Get in the trailer. Lie on the floor . And push .

Mission accomplished.

So for next time, some big sheets of cardboard. get the thing on the cardboard , leaving enough to pull vigorously to extract the hay bale.

Farewell, Fraser

We have only been looking after some of the sheep that we have currently.
And today is the day for some of them to go back to just outside Inverness.
So Fraser , having done the business ( we hope) is on his  way back together with some  Boreray ewes.
We separated them last night and penned them in a   hurdled-off bit of the field 

 And then Dougie and his trailer arrive to take them away .

And so they went