Madness in the night.

It rained again all day.  The puddles were so deep in the car park of a store I visited, I took my shoes off and rolled up my jeans and sloshed through the water to get back to the car barefoot!

But the garden is in the same state.  It is really waterlogged.  Two days of solid rain have caused that.  Funny enough I still had to water my hanging baskets as they weren’t getting any of the abundant rain.

But that wasn’t the madness I was referring to.  In preparation for the holidays, not only am I worried about the irrigation, but we had to make plans for the animals.  We have two secure paddocks that are escape proof and so we have taken the lambs and the goats out of them to allow the grass to grow so when we go away there will be loads for them to eat and all our friendly house sitter needs to do is top up the water and check they are alive and well.

So the goats are tethered in the back field loving every moment of being allowed to clear an overgrown corner.

The lambs on the other hand are in a makeshift fenced off area that served them well as baby lambs.  But they are almost sheep now and I found out at 1am last night that they need something a little stronger.

I woke up to the sound of one of the lambs baaing really loudly.  The goats and lambs are such tell-tales.  When one does something wrong – like escape or get stuck somewhere, its partner starts making so much noise as if to tell on the other animal and draw our attention to the naughtiness.

So I woke to the sound of loud baaing and then I listened again and heard a softer baaing, and in the fogginess of half sleep I realised they weren’t together.  That could only mean one thing – someone had escaped.

So I leapt out of bed and went to see what was going on.  The other problem was Hubby the Un-Gardener was away on a business trip, so I was on my own.  My gumboots had filled with water as I wasn’t really expecting this kind of rain in summer – early days that it is, it’s still summer.  So I was out there in my bare feet, in my PJs, in the dark.  I probably stood in sheep poo.

These lambs are not the friendly, docile calf club lambs who would do anything for a cuddle.  They had gone back to the farm.  These were the ‘other’ lambs who have had little human contact and definitely no eye contact and so not as easy to manage.

So there I was in the dark, in bare feet, by myself, in a lull in the rain – just gentle misty rain and I had one lamb inside the oval fence and one outside.   Not sure what to do I chased it round the fence a couple of times. Meanwhile the other lamb was running around on the inside of the fence.

I soon realised this was not going to achieve anything so I had a wee think.  The oval fence is alongside a hedge on two sides and the corner of the house was opposite.  So imagine an ‘L’ shaped grassy area with hedge on the back and bottom of the L and the house in the crook of the L and the ends open, with an oval fence in the middle.

Over to one side I spied a pile of wood so keeping the lamb in the far side in the hedge corner, I slowly dragged over loads of wood and blocked off one of the open ends.  Then I opened up a gap in the fence to create an inward spiral – muttering under my breath “this could go very wrong!”  Then I slowly chased the lamb around the fence away from the blockade and towards the gap.  The inside lamb joined in the chase, but when it reached the spiral it was turned back in the opposite direction – phew that bit worked.  Then the other lamb followed the line of the fence and the spiral pulled it in.  Without a moment to stand there and be surprised that my plan worked, I closed the gap and re-secured the lambs.  I then went around and double checked all the posts and made sure it wouldn’t happen again – well not that night.

Then I washed my feet and hopped back into bed completely unable to sleep.

How I had my zucchini today.

The rain caused 5 new zucchinis to grow, but I got them while they were little and now they are in the fridge.  They are the only ones there because I took advantage of the fact that the weather felt miserable and made zucchini soup.  The Joeyosaurus gobbled it up, however Tim the helper was away at school camp when we had the chips and so he is still very suspicious and didn’t eat much at all.

Come again soon – the boffins reckon the rain should be mostly stopped tomorrow.  Here’s hoping – I need to dry out.

Sarah the Gardener  : o )