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Back in June we travelled down to Ayreshire to Glennapp estate where they held an open day at one of the farms. The open day was for this breed of sheep called "Easy Care." For years Erlend has been dying to get his paws on some "Easy Care" rams ~ a breed created in Wales that has intrigued him. So down we went and Erlend purchased a fine Easy Care ram. And why not? Life isn't well lived if you don't try a few new things, take a few risks... If this breed doesn't work out well for us, no big deal. At least Erlend had a chance to try something he's always wanted to do! *Grin*

Mr. Ram showed up on the midnight ferry in Kirkwall last Saturday and so we headed out to collect him. He was not in the least bit impressed with being man-handled and so a small rodeo ensued in the livestock chute with Erlend and a helpful dock worker disapearing from view now and then, to the sounds of mightly scuffling... The ram was eventuallydeposited into a fine bed of straw in the back of the pickup truck. This breed just so happens to be horn-less and they also shed their wool so there was not much for the men to hang on to while wrestling with the lad!

Four miles from home the pickup died. Erlend pushed it into the Harry Potter's parkinglot while I did my best to steer from the passenger seat over an enormous pregnant belly. It was a fine, moon-lit night with only the ocassional shower of rain so we walked home instead of waking someone up to beg a ride. It took about an hour and a half and we were hardly able to pry our sleepy eyes open by the time we arrived at the farm at 2:30am! (We tend to go to bed around 10 - 11pm so late nghts are rough!)

Erlend put Mr. Ram into a 6' by 6' pen with Magnus, our Texel ram, so the two could work things out between themselves without being able to get far enough apart to do some serious damage. Magnus slapped the younger ram around a bit and now they are best buddies. A couple of days later Erlend purchsed another Easy Care ram from a local farmer but he's not here yet. Soon he shall be added to the pen for his introduction to the other boys! And in November the rams will be sent out, each to a sub-flock of yows.

As for the dirty bedding mystery... this one has me utterly baffled! Every time I do a load of sheets or comforter (downey) covers they come out still feeling dirty and smelling dirty!! And I use plenty of soap!! (Soap that happens to clean everything else just fine...)

This is disgusting and I'm getting tired of it! My linen closet smells like dirty bedding and there's nothing more nasty then curling up in bed in supposedly "clean" new bedding and it still smells and feels unwashed.

What gives??????? Do any of you more experiencd ladies have an idea what I'm doing wrong? We have three sets of guests coming and I cannot be putting them up in smelly bedding!!!!

Hissing Sid, Jo, and the little orange guy (Peach Crumble) were released from the stable a few days ago. (I stayed farrrr away from the litter. You don't have to twist my arm for that LOL!)

By the way, I was surprised that Erlend was so agreeable to us taking that third cat! I'll admit, I *was* batting my big brown eyes at him... But then again, he's rather fond of cats and it was only *one* more puss and they do have this way of earning their keep...

Did I tell you folk that Brodgar went missing three months ago??? My lovely little black puss that always went for walks with me?? **sniffle**

We've seen the three new cats darting about the farm so they haven't run off yet... though I haven't seen "Crumble" in a couple of days. Hissing Sid and Jo were rubbing each other in the doorway of one of the barns and both looked as content as can be ~ Sid even had a plesant expression on his face and he was being all blinky-eyed and cute. So it looks like the farm is their home now. Yay!

I've hit that crazy nesting must-clean-everything-including-invisible-cobwebs-behind-furniture phase. Problem is, with this "pubis symphasis" I can't like move in ANY direction except straight forward on a level surface with my thighs together so it kinda limits my ability to clean! Erlend very sweetly washed the windows because I was totally obsessing about them ~ that after a long day of farm work!

So, as I reached the next level of obsessive cleaning I started hauling junk out of drawers and boxes... (Er...you know, hidden junk just *might* sneak up on the newborn baby when I'm not looking or something!!) I know it's there... it's looking at me... Our livingroom ended up looking like a tornado hit and then Erlend went and purchased us some lovely new livingroom furniture. He took the old stuff away (except for the one raised chair I'm using) and we discovered that our previous cats, King Tut and Brodgar, had so kindly turned the carpet yellow behind one of the chairs and one side of the sofa. EGADS!!!

(The furniture is great! A brown sofa-bed and two wine-red wingback chairs ~ they take up so much less room then the older, "puffy" stuff...)

Ok, so, pregnant lady eyes cat pee stains furnitureless livingroom... you can just imagine what was going through my hormonal brain!! I promptly dumped a ton of baking soda on each yellow section and left it overnight. The next day I called our dear friend K~~~, a retired teacher, and asked, "Can I borrow your carpet shampooer?"

"Sure!" K~~~ replied and a few minutes later she arrived.

She didn't just arrive though! She came bustling into the house like John Wayne and set about removing all of the junk from the livingroom as fast as you can imagine! (Meanwhile I tried my best to help in my slow, can't-bend-over sluggish way...)

As if that wasn't enough, she then whipped out our vaccum cleaner and before I knew it she was on her hands-and-knees vaccuming all the edges of the room and dusting the base boards and vaccuming the cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling... and then she was vaccuming up all that baking soda and the rest of the carpet as well...

AND THEN she turned around and shampooed the carpet!!!!!!!

(I tried a few feeble protests in regards to K~~~ doing all this work but let me tell you, K~~~ doesn't take any flack. She made it known that NO I was NOT going to do any of this myself so I backed off hahahaha! We are glad that K~~~ is on *our* side...)

AND THEN she goes and sweeps the kitchen floor!! And with that, K~~~ bustled away and left us staring at the carpet in stunned surprise. I mean... it's practically glowing!!

So there you have it! Our livingroom carpet looks GREAT! It'd been three years since it was last cleaned and you can imagine what that water looked like with all that cat pee and coal dust... uuuuuugh!

I am so totally greatful for K~~~'s invaluable help! She was literally a God-send because even though I was going to force myself to shampoo that carpet... I wasn't looking forward to the pain! As much as I want to play tough-lady, the truth is I'm not fit to even run a broom over the kitchen floor. (Yet I can walk four miles??? I DONT GET IT!) It must be something about when you walk forward on a flat surface your pelvis moves one certain way... and when you sweep etc it moves the pelvis another way + you have to bend somewhat. Walking HURTS like the devil but not nearly as bad as even the slight twisting and turning/bending while sweeping, mopping, or vaccuming. That's my guess at least...

Tough lady I am not! So thank you K~~~!!!!!!!!!! And thank you Erlend!!!! Such wonderful, sweet people.

But seriously, I'm not surprised. Good people are found everywhere in this world!! Earlier another friend, F~~~, came down and helped me to do some MAJOR clutter-busting upstairs!! I mean... she really cracked it out and now the upstairs is looking sooooo good! You know it must have been a good job if a nesting pregnant lady is actually *satisfied*...

Oh ~ while foaming rabidly at the mouth in persuit of preggo-lady HOUSE CLEANLINESS I dropped some 拢拢's on some much-needed cleaning tools from Lakeland. Ah well, money spent on cleaning tools is never wasted! I can't wait until they arrive!! I've always enjoyed housework but now I'm totally LOVING it!

I could get used to this... hehehehe

I'm still having to stand up most of the time but I've noticed that my feet ache a lot now, since this past week. They never ached before with all this standing so that's odd. My pubis symphasis has also gotten worse but that's not exactly surprising seeing as how I'm pretty much due any time now. The baby is 3/5 engaged in my pelvis and my Aunt and also the midwvies have told me this means s/he's putting a lot of pressure on my pubis so that explains the pain.

I eat standing up with my plate on a stool that is perched on the table. Erlend and I have become accustomed to this odd arragement but the other night we went to some friends' house for a church gathering and dinner. We called ahead and explained about the stool... and so, there I stood stuffing face from atop a stool... even though everyone present were well-loved friends I still felt like a weirdo hahaha! We all had a good laugh about it.

I'll admit, I can't wait to return to eating while sitting down like the rest of society hahahaha!

(I'm typing standing up with the keyboard on a stool. These Orkney stools are invaluable!)

So, time for a hot cup of tea. CHEERIO!

The "back end" (fall) has arrived and farmers all around Orkney are asking one another, "Thoo still have kye oot?"

"Aye. But no for long."

It is the great season of... The Bringing In O' The Kye!

For us it started two weeks ago with Erlend bringing in some of the heefers and stots "tae save grass for the coos"... and so the freedom of summer ~ the freedom to leave the farm in the evenings ~ was curtailed and the winter routine of feeding the kye each morning and each night started to set it, although on a small scale.

In a way it's a relief to bring the kye in because while summer is free and fun it's also a time of loose ends. Because of the long hours of daylight you are never sure when the farm day will end. 10pm? Midnight? And there is not much of a routine so it often feels as if you are floating from one day to the next. I never know when to set the table for tea ~ 6pm? 8pm? I can't get ahold of Erlend on the mobile phone - should I eat my tea now instead of waiting? I'm awfully hungry...

Winter brings with it a hard-and-fast routine. Kye fed at this time in the morning and this time in the evening. Breakfast at this time, tea at that time. No guesswork necessary!

Erlend likes to bring the kye in when they are not soaked with rain which is tricky during the back end in Orkney! Today wanted to bring in a batch of older coos-with-calves from the Grenabu field (not sure about the spelling...). I like shifting older cattle because they know the drill. Had they been young kye I would have declined to help because I'm just too heavily pregnant and I have to move reallyslow ~ not good for runaway youths that try and get past and around me!

But first... there was Coo #86, already in the byre and looking like she was in some serious pain! Her arthritis was not agreeing one bit with the concrete slats so Erlend decided to move her to a bedded pen. This is how it is with cattle farming in Orkney: you are forever playing a gigantic game of chess! The only bedded pen available was occupied by our Angus bull Torf and I was merrily scratching his enormous neck. "We'll hiv tae shift the bool." Erlend announced.

My hand froze in mid-scratch. "What's this 'we' stuff?" I gulped.

"Yer here tae help, no?" Erlend wondered.

Torf stamped his hoof impatiently and I resumed scratching behind his huge noggin. "You know I don't work with bulls!" I protested.

"Wha...?" Erlend eyed Torf - his ears were drooped like airplane wings, his muzzle nearly touching the ground, and his eyes were rolling towards the back of his skull. He was positivly melting under my touch! "He's no gaan tae do anything tae you!"

"Erlend, he's a bull. Enough said." I announced and then, "I'll go and hide behind the byre doors at the other end and watch just in case you need me to call an ambulance." It's not that I don't trust Erlend... I just don't trust "bools"...

"Aye." Erlend muttered as he shook his head and walked away. I could read his thoughts perfectly: Women... My farmer man often forgets that not everyone has grown up with massive bulls as a matter of course!

Well hey! This woman's personal motto is: "When in doubt, wimp out!"

It's kept me alive thus far...

Of course when Erlend went to the other byre to get Torf's new pen ready he discovered that the gate had been broken by energetic stots and so he had to spend fifteen minutes doing repairs. While he worked I went back to Torf and resumed my scratching. He has a fine head for a bull: wide forehead and tapering into a tidy muzzle with huge ears that don't miss a thing. Each time I scratched behind one of those massive lugs he'd tilt his head into my digging fingers and shut his eyes...

When everything was set Erlend comenced shifting Torf while I watched from behind barn doors and gates. My husband is Boss Moo around this joint and the cattle know it! They don't seem to notice that they out-weigh him by several hundred (or thousand!) pounds... Torf is no exception. Erlend swung his gate open and the bool eyed him wearily. "C'mon, then!" Erlend barked and Torf bolted from the confines of his pen, down the passage way (where he gave a few delighted bucks) and out into the gated square.

I followed via the other end of the byres and peeked through a crack in the other byre door just in tome to see Torf come charging into the other byre. He immediately pounced on a pile of silage with gusto. "C'mon, beuy!" Erlend grumbled as he walked up and poked the bull in the neck with a stick. Torf turned and trotted away but then he began to flirt with some ladies in another pen. "Move it, beuy!" Erlend called out as he slapped a large bull buttock. Torf looked startled and he quickly bolted for the waiting pen. Once inside he began wooing the heefiers in the larger pen beside him.

Prince Chan, the other Angus bull, saw this from the other end of the byre where I was lurking and this set him into a jelous roaring rage. I walked over to his pen and kicked in some nearby silage ~ a hungry bull soon forgets about the womanizing antics of his rival! Prince Chan tucked into the silage with a grunt of of satisfaction while I scratched his shoulders and things calmed down.

Now it was time to bring in the calves and coos! The trick to getting our kye out of the fields around here is to get them to follow me and then, once they are all out of the field Erlend shuts the gate and I get them to turn around and follow him! So, this group of coos and calves came thundering out of the field mooing their heads off and just when it looked as if I might be trampled I waved my arms and said, "Shoooosh...shoooooosh..." The key is to let them know what you want without making them panic so the arm waving cannot be frantic. "That's it, ladies." I cooed. "Easy does it now..."

Since these were older coos it was easy ~ they paused in mid-stampede, mooed at me a few times, and then the entire group did a tidy about-face and headed off towards the steading and the warmth/dryness of the byre. (And the silage!)

I waddled along about 1/4 a mile an hour - deffinately not fast by any means and so by the time I arrived at the byre Erlend had everyone inside of their respective pens. Old crippled Coo #86 was in the straw-bedded "calf creep" next door - this is the place that the calves can go, via a small doorway, to escape their huge mothers and the few grumpy old matrons that have no fear of butting calves out of their way.

Upon spying the other coos ol' #86 heaved herself to her feet and lay down in the little doorway where she stuck her head through into the other pen and lowed wistfully at her fellow cows.

"Ah, great!" I muttered.

"Pity sake." Erlend grumbled.

"She's going to block that doorway and then the coos will roar all night long for their calves that can't come through for a sook!" I growled as #86 eyed us disdainfully - not only is she a coo but she's an onery ol' coo that will not think twice about slapping a calf around if it tries to get past her - and any humans while she's at it!

"We'll hiv tae divide this pen in half and pit her over there." Erlend said as he gave his forehead a tired rub. "Aye..."

Coo #86 responded to this by rising up onto her knees and drinking deeply from the nearby water bowl. For nearly five minutes!! She shifted though when Boss Moo came into her pen and soon she was resettled in deep bedding out of the way of the calf door and we could breathe easy.

Until it came to be bedtime... that's when we could hear it: one coo roaring for her calf. Once a coo gets it in her mind that she wants her calf to come, she will not give up roaring. Once a calf decides it wants to stay in the creep on the warm bedding, it will not budge an inch. So every fifteen seconds or so our nightly peaces was shattered with a loud, "MOOOOOOO!!"

By 3am my eyes were bloodshot and I had developed a twitch in my left cheek. "MOOOOOOOO!" Fifteen seconds. "MOOOOOO!" Fifteen seconds, "MOOOOOO!"

I rose at 4am for my dose of pain killers. "MOOOOOO!"

"MOOOOOO!"

(Same coo! Still going at it!)

7am the alarm went off. "MOOOOOOOO!"

"MOOOOOOOO!"

I groaned. "Erlend, we have to find out which coo that is so I can duct-tape her mouth shut tonight."

"Aye." Erlend groaned in exhausted reply.

"By the way, good morning, husband!"

"MOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

"Good morning, my dear."

"MOOOOOOOO!!"

"If that calf doesn't go and have a sook he's going into the freezer TONIGHT!" I growled.

"MOOOOOO!!!!"

It had been a lonnnnng night... "the bringing in o' the kye" is a lovely seasonal tradition but it brings with it a few MISERIES. One of those being screaming coos that will not shut up for anything... (Sometimes I make Erlend get up and go poke calves through into the creep so I can get SOME measure of sleep... this, usually after several nights of MOOOOOOO!...)