On Wednesday, Rich came in looking worried.

“There’s a lamb in the field that’s been attacked. I need you to come and help me get some medicine on it.”

I grabbed the tea tree spray and the summer fly ointment that we’ve been using on Glenda, our prime Saanen milker. She’s been fighting a teat infection and an abscess ever since we came back from honeymoon…and she finally had to have a penicillin jab, which means we can’t drink her milk for 21 days. Disaster!

We hurried out and Rich caught the lamb - it has shallow tears in the skin around its neck on both sides, and was looking very traumatized. We sprayed the cuts with the medicine and dabbed the thick oily yellow stuff on to keep the flies away, then released it.

“Doesn’t look like a fox,” Rich mused. “Maybe a dog?” He’s been tracking and shooting foxes for 20 years, and is the person neighbors call when a fox is eating their chickens.

The next day he came in again, white-faced. “Something has caught and killed a lamb in the field. Eaten half of it right there.”

I didn’t go rushing out this time - some things you just don’t want to see!

The lamb had been killed in the middle of the field, which was odd - usually dogs will chase them into a corner. And it’s head and rib-cage had been eaten - also strange for a dog or fox, which will tend to eat the hind legs.

What was it? we wondered.

Taid reported seeing a huge cat around the farm a few years back, and something large ripped the head off a dead pig that Rich once pegged to the ground as bait for the red kites. There have been persistent rumors of wild cats in the Welsh hills. People scoff, thinking that it’s impossible, but apparently back in the 70s a lot of people were keeping large cats as pets, and released them into the wild rather than upgrade facilities according to legislation that was passed. So there may be black panthers out there!

Rich called the police, and we heard back almost immediately from the Welsh Assembly Government. they asked us to send pictures, and are sending someone out to take a look on Monday - seems that they’re taking it very seriously.

In the meantime, we’re keeping the unhappy goats penned safely up in the barn - the goat field is right next to the one where the lamb was killed, and the woodland at the bottom of the field suddenly looks dark and full of menace…

I love goats.

No, really, I do. They’re affectionate, intelligent, they eat weeds like nettles and thistles and brambles, and in return they produce delicious milk that is non-allergenic and curative for eczema, asthma and acne. They’re small, athletic and graceful and they adore being around human beings. One goat can produce enough milk to keep a family in healthy milk, cheese and yogurt. What’s not to like?

Whereas cows…well. They’re big, dumb, slow, heavy, expensive to feed, produce liquid poo that makes a horrible mess and milk that most humans can’t digest properly. There’s just no contest. How did people ever give up goats and settle on cows anyway?

So, we’ve been acquiring goats. When I first came to the farm, the barn was empty. Now we have eleven - count them, eleven! goats. Every stall in full. When we go in to milk in the morning, there are heads and lovely liquid eyes peering over every door, and the air is filled with reproachful bleating.

One of our recent additions is Smoky, the pygmy goat. Smoky is young, only about three months old, but she’s so naughty that for some reason she seems older. She simply can’t be contained, and despite having an enormous pot belly, she can squeeze herself through a hole in any fence and go where she chooses. The other day it was raining, and she was missing from the field. (Goats hate rain, on account of not having any water-proofing in their coats…) When I got anxious and went looking for her, I found her in the barn - she had let herself in, to get out of the wet!

Smoky’s roommate is Eira, the two month old kid who was our first home-born prodigy, produced by our star milker Glenda. Eira is delicate and elegant and white, and if she had a horn she would look exactly like a unicorn.