The tail end of Winter

This season has been mild, as climatologists predicted.  The one exception was a brief arctic blast which turned the rain into ice, and then several inches of snow.  With the return of the rain, the thaw was rapid.

Winter has also been rather dry, which suits the sheep well.  As ever, the waterfowl hardly care.  We have obtained fresh straw bales with which we make nesting shelters, and already there are eggs hidden here and there.  The ducks in particular show signs of feeling broody, as do some of the bantam hens.  This bodes well for the coming breeding season.

Since we have bred so few of our ewes, we do not expect very many lambs this season, but that was by design.  Mercifully the mild weather has also meant that we only had one lamb lost - a sickly, late ewe lamb.

This coming springtime should be a time of development for us.  We shall be obtaining a powered press for our wine, to help speed the production of large quantities, and we shall also be planting more trees and taking delivery of a couple of dozen hides from the tanner.  What we shall do with them remains to be seen, but lambswool jackets sound like a good idea.