I can not remember going skiing this early in the season for a long time. Vratna has officialy opened its gates to skiiers and snowboarders alike as well as all the other snow enthusiast. We are one of them and were there at the opening, it was a lovely feeling and somehow squashed the in between time from March to December and suddendly here we are again. The slope was very nice at the very top but the lower section was crumbly, Mike said it was like boarding on ruff sea, another friend said it was more like skiing on nut shells. But we were all just happy and content at least I have not seen anyone with an injury which is a main thing. It is warmer today, got home about lunch time and it actually rained a bit but froze instantly not that brilliant but that has to be as well. We both felt great and had great big smiles on our faces today, Mike looked very happy, he is lovely and a pleasure to be with. I am very lucky to have him really.
After this weekend we are back to -10 or so they seem to think which would be much better, fingers crossed.
I sheared the sheep yesterday, you know we listened to the farmers program on BBC 4 yesterday and they were talking about shearing the fleeces of sheep or not as the case may be, but the chap said it takes 8 to 10 year to learn how to handle the sheep that you are shearing, me with our two ewes I am guessing it will be at least double the time, yesterday I really struggled trying to manouvre the older ewe, trying to pull her was a reasonable challenge, we settled for a second best unfortunately but I do try and make it as comfortable as I possibly can for them, they do let you know when they are not comfortable anyway and you don’t get very far with the shearing so a comfortable sheep is a happy sheep a happy sheep is a calm sheep and allows you to shear it. It works both ways. I don’t go as close to their skin this time of the year either I mainly try and shorten their fleece and cut closer on their tummy and round their teats so when they have lambs they don’t have to search for them or suck on the dirty woolI don’t like to do it close to them lambing. They look great. Well I think so.
Bees seems to be pretty well settled, I try and keep an eye on them make sure they have air going in, are able to fly out if they want to and with the top viewer open they can. I try not to go around them too much, disturb them. Fingers crossed and toes crossed and everything else crossed I will have a colony by the end of this winter season. I really realy hope so. But if I don’t there is nothing I can do about it. I will fight on, clean up and start again.