So this afternoon found Floss and I sitting in the car waiting for our farrier playing that well known game of “Name that Precipitation”.  The weather ranged from rain to sleet to snow to hail all in the space of 30 minutes.  But we both agreed it was “bloody cold”.

The farrier arrived and we took him straight to Leradale to trim the Minions’ feet first.

We usedthe gable end to give us shelter from a cruel wind that seemed to come at us from all directions.

And of course, we always had “help”.

It was very windy – gusting Force 8 (I can only think in the Beaufort Scale or I get frightened).

Seriously, it was windy. I have proof.

The little ones behaved beautifully – easily caught and hooves trimmed.  And then we went back to Thordale for the others.  I am now warming up drinking gin.

Every day, I see my huge piles of bagged wool in the stables and I think to myself “I must wash some and use it for my sheeple” and then I promptly forget and do nothing.

So today, with my instructions from a previous blog, I washed what I thought was ‘Ster’s fleece.  (Yesterday, I washed Ster’s fleece which turned out to be ‘Bert’s – but it came out very well).

There is very little difference in them.

I just do a large clump a day and I had it all ready.  Water very hot and lots of it.

I remembered to put a some cold water at the bottom, added the bonkers hot water and then 5 elephants of Fairy Liquid (count up to 5 elephants as you squeeze the bottle). Then swirl but don’t make bubbles to mix it all in.  Bubbles make life impossible.

Then completely immerse and soak for 20 minutes (I set a timer and went and hoovered the sitting room).

Then rinse, rinse, rinse in slightly cooler but still very hot water, not agitating just soaking.  This is my method of drying and, yes, yesterday we found Pepper bouncing around dragging the wool around the garden!

I told the dogs to leave it all alone.  Ted promised faithfully.

Pepper said she would try but she wasn’t making any promises as it was THE BEST FUN EVER!

So now ‘Ster’s wool is drying.

I hope I keep his gorgeous curls.

I will wash everyone’s fleece eventually.

I spent my afternoon combing.

Monster’s brush and a piece of suede.

It worked very well. I only combed a bit.

Enough to make this little chap.  ‘Bert’s wool is gorgeous to work with.  Much nicer than I thought. I don’t know why it has taken me so long to do this.

(note-to-self – keep the original wool washing instructions handy, like at the top of the blog!)

I found Harrel-the-Barrel happily munching everyone’s haynet. He often does this – stays in the shed while everyone else goes somewhere else.

And then when Maggie heard my voice (I was telling Harrel that he should go out and find his friends), she came running up to see I was secretly feeding her son biccies.  Ever the optimist is Maggie.

I spent my morning doing all the things that needed doing and then I went into my shed for the afternoon, followed by Lambie.

He was in one of his moods.

The Greta Garbo one.

So I had to settle for taking photos of Lambie’s glorious carpet-quality fleece, which smelled faintly of sheep.

Yes, I said “carpet quality”, Lambie. You know it, I know it.

Lambie went to sleep while I was making a sheeple.

Sheep can sleep standing up, I think.

Lambie also had a little mooch around the room too.

And then he finally plonked himself down.  We listened to an audiobook together while I worked at my sheep.

Edna joined us.

And she was a good girl (which means she didn’t pee).

Edna followed me back to the house, with her daughter, Madge and I gave them some gingernuts.  Lambie went off to sulk somewhere else.

The daily Minion trip is no chore. Their winter field is just 5 minutes away and I know they are looked at regularly by my very helpful neighbours too.

In all weathers, Leradale is truly a beautiful place.

Everyone was sensibly in a sheltered part of the field happily stuffing their little faces.

It was very windy interspersed with some violent quick flurries of rain, hail or something falling out of the sky.

Is this Silver’s adopt-me face?  He looks pitiful. I think I just caught him at a bad moment.

This is typically known as “Chrysanthemum” bottom (and no, I did not have to look up how to spell chrysanthemum, though I did double check I had got it right!)

Fivla looking a bit wind blown.  She is keeping the weight on so far this year (we were feeding her this time last year).

Fivla with her adopted son, Albie.  He rarely leaves her side because she might have an extra carrot.

And Vitamin on a mission.  This is one determined old lady.  She looks like she is about to tackle the Woolies Sale so she can buy all her Christmas presents for the next year early!  None shall pass.

They all seem very happy….

…. despite Silver’s miserable face earlier – he seemed to cheer up after a carrot or two.

Feeling ever so slightly wind-blasted, I went home.