Flood!

I was awoken this morning by a distress flare - the sheep had abandoned ship in life rafts. My hopes of a quick fix to the barn flooding problem hadn't worked after all. In fact the 36 hours of torrential rain have produced exceptional conditions here - even the pond was flooded. Seems I will have to lay drainage outside the barn - a big job. In the meantime I built two large sleeping platforms for the sheep out of wood left over from the woodshed, above the flood level, which will do for the moment.

When the rain abated I took the tractor for a spin, down to Paul's field to collect all the fencing. There are some very steep muddy sections and with the rain it would be a stern test. A huge logging crawler with chains on it's wheels was stuck there for a month in lesser conditions. Although the very worn front tyres (which need replacing) struggled for grip, the little beauty crawled it way slowly up through the mire. A job which used to take half a day of ferrying loads took less than a hour.

With the early snow, people are already ski touring here and providing it stays cold a trip is on the cards.

Apologies for the recent lack of photos - more on their way soon.