Today is an important day for a few reasons - it’s the anniversary of the day Rich and I met, for one thing!

Sneaking a snog...

It’s also the day my eggs are due to hatch…and the day the lambs are due to be born. 

But nothing seems to be happening, on either front. Rich is starting to worry, because he was off sick last week, and has taken off all this week to be available for lambing. He’s got to go back to work next week, no matter what, and the sheep don’t seem to be cooperating!

They just mooch around the shed, looking like huge fuzzy armchairs, and stubbornly refusing to give birth…

I’ve suffered some disappointments with my eggs, as well. I was all excited about my Buff Orpington eggs, ordered through the mail and lovingly set into my purpose-bought incubator. I turned them every day, and carefully watched the humidity levels, as instructed.

Great egg-spectations....

But on day 10 (the whole process takes 21 days) when we candled the eggs - which is a process of shining a bright light through the eggs to see if there’s anything inside - we discovered that ten out of the twelve were “clear,” or not fertile at all!

George did the candling for me, as he had quite a little business of raising chickens, and knows his way around a batch of eggs. He broke the bad news to me as gently as possible, and we sadly broke the clear eggs into a plate. Sure enough, nothing there…

I called the lady who sold me the eggs, and she’s very kindly promised to send me another batch after the ones I’ve got hatch. 

George examining the clear eggs

So now there are only a forlorn two eggs remaining in the incubator, looking a bit lonely. I’ve carried on turning them, however, and today is meant to be the day! I haven’t heard anything - they’re meant to be chirping and pipping and making some sort of noise. One of the eggs does seem to have rolled a bit - but I don’t know, I may have bumped into the incubator. 

I suppose the problem is that, as Rich says, “The animals haven’t read the same books we have!” They seem to have a knack of not following our timetables…

So, we wait…and wait…

In the meantime, Taid has the been ensuring that we don’t get  bored… He was driving along in Cardigan when the entire front left wheel simply fell off, hub and all - something that no one has ever seen before! Fortunately he wasn’t hurt, didn’t swerve into oncoming traffic, but actually kept driving, scraping along on the bare disc, until he made it into a bus stop. He now boasts that he has the only three-wheeled Land Rover in the neighborhood.

Taid shows off his 3-wheeler

He arrived home in some style, driven in a police car! It turns out that the policeman called to the scene was in school with Rhys, Rich’s younger brother. So the policeman kindly gave Taid a ride home.

After our initial alarm at seeing Taid in the policecar subsided and all the explanations were made, we all piled into the car and drove up to inspect the mysterious damage. No one could understand how it happened…the wheel really does seem to have just dropped off. We arranged to have it trailered back to the farm, and stopped off at the car dismantlers on the way home. 

Rich found an axle that would suit, and we hauled it home on the big trailer, along with some timber to re-do the polytunnel… 

Land Rovers are the vehicle of choice around here - you see them everywhere on the road. They’re tough, practical, and can get through the ice and mud of the fields…beside being objects of fascination and obsession for the males of the area, who are constantly fixing, improving and tinkering with them. Rich likes them because he can do all the repairs himself, in his specially designed pit. So he’s been busy fixing Taid’s Land Rover while we wait for the lambs for make their entrance. 

We’re just pleased that Taid wasn’t hurt. Now, a few lambs and a few chicks, and we’ll be well on our way to spring…

Snowdrops are out...