TeamWork.

A: What, they are on a holiday for a year?
B: Jup.
A: Don't they work?
B: Well I guess not...

T&H: Ofcourse WE WORK...what are you all thinking, that this is a holiday??? : )

Every day we are taking care of the livestock! We have to bottlefeed some lambs three times a day. Black Victoria is abandoned by her mother and the spotted one is part of a twin, we give them some extra milk because the mother has wounds on her udder. Thereafter we leave the sheep out and give them hay and fresh water. And ofcourse stalls need to be cleaned and fences need to be repaired. Then every morning we make a big batch of food for Viktor! Viktor is a Big Old Belgian Horse, he needs extra food during the hard winter because he lost a lot of weight, he's in his late twenties. So we mix some Alfalfa cubes (compressed hay cubes with a high consistancy) with grain. Before putting the ingredients together we soke the cubes in hot water. When we leave the house with his bucket full of fresh food he's already waiting at the gate going crazy...isn't he beautiful!

In the evening the sheep have to go back inside and ofcourse it's dinnertime, fresh hay and water, mjamie! Several times a day we control the herd to see if there are any newborns or any troubles with mothers and babies! Most of the sheep have given birth already so it's getting quiet in the nursery.

Next to all this we asked Rosemary if there were any other specific things she wanted us to do while we were at her farm and she said: oh not really...but maybe I want a gate on the barn on this side of the pasture...so guess what: WE BUILD ONE, a perfect fit and it looks pretty neat, what do you think? T&H Carpentry Service. You ask - We deliver!

 

So on a farm there are billions of jobs and it never ends so I can assure you that we are busy all the time!

I guess now it's time to tell you the story of Thurber and Juanita. Thurber is an abandoned basset. Rosemary took him in the house last week because his owners did not want him anymore. He's odd eyed (one brown - one blue) and his frontlegs are deformed. As far as I'm concerned the whole basset breed is deformed but who am I. Anyway he's enjoying the farmlife so far but he has to learn how to behave among the animals and the other dogs. 

A few days later we were visiting a farmer called Juan. He had a five days old baby-ewe in his house...she didn't eat and wasn't doing very well. Juan had his hands full bottlefeeding a dozen of lambs, he barely had time to do anything else so guess what...we took the poor little baby home and called her Juanita. Her ears were all swollen because they had been frozen. She couln't move them so they were just hanging next to her little head. She looked very sad and she was breathing very heavily while making an awfull noise. A kickstart and some antibiotics helped her through the first days and she slowly started to drink. The fact that she was still alive was good, all the other thing were bad. Above all this, the confused basset attacked Juanita twice. Her condition was terrible but man she is a fighter.
Today's the first day that I really think there's a slight chance she's gonna make it. She moves her ears again, she begs for bottles and her breathing has improved. The only thing that still worries us is the condition of her backleg which has some dammage probably caused by the basset, we now call DisThurber. But I believe there is hope...for both.

So the life on the Tiraislin farm is pretty exciting and it's a fulltime job keeping everybody happy and alive! We learn, we built, we win, we lose, we laugh and sometimes...we cry!

Kisses

T&H.