Growing Puppies, Missing Calf Turns Up, Autumnal Insects

The puppies are now two weeks old and have grown hugely. This morning was the first day when their eyes are properly open and they were so funny trying to lumber around their nest and discovering thier siblings. Up to now of course they have lived in a world of smells and warmth, needing to be in huddles for warmth and now with vision, albeit rather blurry, they can start to explore. This next week will see them rapidly change into jolly playful pups & hopefully if the sun is shining they will be able to play outside.

We have started calving and so far have had an excellent start with two sets of heifer twins which is very unusual. One pair of twins was real surprise to us as the cow had calved out in the field and when Elder Son & the Farmer brought her in they brought one calf with her, it being the only calf to be seen. The reasonable thought was that she just had the one  as twins are unusual as I've said.  However, 36 hours (!!!!) later our neighbour from the bottom of the farm appeared saying that he had found a very small calf on the woodland track between his place & ours, which surprised him & us not a little. On investigation this small creature was the twin to one brought in two nights before and must have been lying hidden in undergrowth and had then toppled down the steep wooded bank to the trackway. It was completely unharmed and perfectly fit & healthy. The Farmer  reckons it had fed very well before going to sleep in clump of bracken where it was so well concealed, which had seen it through its ordeal. It is extraodinary how well baby creatures can survive, though admittedly she probably would not have coped with another night out. Thank goodness our neighbour walks up the track every day excercising his dog in our lower fields.

We have entered the spider & daddy-longlegs season...they are everywhere. I am constantly having to clear them away from corners, unfortunately they are particularly fond of the holiday cottage & I have real battle keeping the place as free of them as I can. Old country cottages & farmhouses are much more organic than town houses, we have nature encroaching upon us at every opportunity, having had bats flying around in the farmhouse these last few evenings (though they soon find they way out through the open windows again) as well as the spiders, moths, daddy-longlegs & beautiful shiny black beetles than venture over the doorstep.

Labrador Puppies & Wet Nurse, Cors Caron, Red Kite Centre Tregaron

Yesterday evening we returned home from a day out to find my black lab Hattie, had produced eleven beautiful puppies and two more followed later in the evening. I must admit to being taken by surprise as I had not thought they were due until next weekend, but we now have three yellow, two chocolate and eight black puppies squeaking in a nest. Hattie is being marvellous though slightly shell-shocked by what has hit her, however, Poppy our old lab is once more taking on the role of wet-nurse. She is extraordinary...for several years now since she has had no puppies of her own, she has come in to milk whenever one or other of the dogs has had pups and adopts them without any difficulty. It is wonderful as it eases the strain on the mother, especially when the litter is as large as this one. We have litters only once in a while but each time Poppy rises to occasion..she seems to actively enjoy looking after tiny puppies and they thrive on having two mothers.
Puppies are not very photogenic when they are very tiny, looking like little satiny slugs, but in a couple of weeks they will photograph well.

Yesterday the Farmer & I went out with my brother & his wife who were staying with us for a day or so, to the Wool Museum in the nearby village of Drefach-Velindre. It was fascinating and the Farmer was very pleased to see the huge spinning jenny working which he had not seen before. We have been to the museum often as it just down the road, but this time we joined in the demonstration tour of the machinery which was well worth doing. The progress from drop spindles and spinning wheeels and looms in cottages to the huge industrial machinery of the great wool mills of Wales is a remarkable story and the museum tells it brilliantly.(http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/).

After the Wool Museum we went up to Lampeter where we had an excellent lunch in the small cafe that is part of Jen Jones Welsh Quilt Centre (http://www.jen-jones.com/) and then on to Cors Caron or Tregaron Bog, the famous and very special raised or floating bog in mid-Wales. It is now a National Nature Reserve managed by the Countryside Council of Wales (http://www.ccw.gov.uk/). A circular walkway has been over the bog and we walked this in glorious sunshine with spectacular views a cross the bog and up to the mountains of mid-Wales. The highlight of the walk was when my brother spotted an adder lying curled up at the side of the path, which stayed put long enough for us to get a very good look at it before sliding off quite leisurely into the undergrowth. None of us apart from the Farmer had ever seen and adder before despite our years of living and walking in the countryside.
After the lovely walk we repaired to Tregaron for a cup of tea at the wonderful & eccentric Red Kite Centre and Museum. The Farmer & I love this place...it is run by volunteers from the village who are so friendly and welcoming and they make a great cup of tea and delicious Welsh-cakes. A lot of visitors call in there expecting it be a kite feeding station of which there are a couple in mid-Wales, but it better than that in that it tells the story of the rescue of the red kite from near extinction and the amazing history of Tregaron and the drovers taking the cattle to London markets before the railways came into rural Wales.
The kite is now very well re-established and is able to fend for itself these day so the feeding stations are not approved of by many. They distort the population of birds in any one area by bringing too many to one place and therefore the birds cannot survive on their own in those areas as the food source is limited. The feeding stations have become tourist attractions and to the detriment of the wild birds that now have to rely them.

After Tregaron we headed back home and stopped at The Belle Inn at Llanllwni for an excellent meal during which we received a 'phone call from Younger Son to say that 10 puppies had arrived but everything was under control. By the time the 13th puppy had arrived it was about 10 o'clock and there were clearly not going to be any more. We settled Hattie and her large brood under a heat-lamp and left her to it. They were all fine this morning and between them Poppy & Hattie will rear the puppies without too much difficulty.