Calf watch - any moment??

Clearly my last call that Hainoa was imminently going to calve was totally wrong as it was nearly a week ago.
Doug has moved Bluebell in to the small field by the house (that we call the hay field) as she appears to be close. Pins have softened although I didn't think totally gone when I checked just now.
The bump has possibly dropped - which suddenly makes it looks smaller and is the calf turning over ready to exit.

Udder not crazy filled up. The teats start sticking out sideways just about as they give birth.

I would like her to get on with it and do it while I am home for the weekend

But I am sure she will do as she pleases!
Hainoa and Islay have still not bagged up (udders filling up) so their udders look like little shriveled things. Heifers (cows that haven't had a calf) often start to grow a fuller looking udder weeks or even months before they give birth. Maybe highlands do it less than jerseys as Bluebell did it very early...

This is Buttercups udder. We think that possibly Bluebells teats will get bigger when she has this calf. They grew a lot when she had Lismore. It would be good as her back ones are just a bit small for hand milking whereas Buttercups are bigger which makes it much easier.
The black bit on the rear right there is a nasty cut which is just about healed now. Not sure what she did.

New Post Box

Ok, not the MOST exciting news. But it has our number on it making it fractionally easier for people to find the house. It is bigger so the postman can fit some parcels in it and the best thing is that it is a proper French one. We didn't realise when we bought the other one that the postman has a key that fits all the french post boxes. So he can get parcels in but they are safe inside.
The attachment to the pole it comes with is a bit feeble so he better put anything heavy right in the center!

Wasps

Doug spotted a small wasps nest in the tack room of the stables and decided to scrape it off with a spade before it got any bigger. However this angered the mean wasps inside and he got stung twice. His wrist and hand have swollen and are horribly itchy but hopefully he will survive!
The nest and some other smaller ones have now been removed. We might bug bomb the room just to be sure if we see any more hanging around.

Bread

Looks good huh? I have been making sourdough bread and pizza every weekend.

Carding Alpaca wool

The guy we got the highlands from (and who owns the bull they recently went to visit) also has alpaca. I mentioned I am learning to spin and he gave me some alpaca wool - we recently lent him our horse trailer to take some of his cows to a show. I have finally got round to starting to card it having washed it some time ago.

I am planning on spinning it with a drop spindle, but am feeling tempted to buy a 'proper' spinning wheel - but where would it GO??? There is a travelling one by Ashford though!

Is Hainoa about to give birth?

Here is a picture of Venus. She is growing well. Hainoa and Islay went to visit the bull on the same day that Buttercup was AIed with Venis. They stayed there for two months, so it should hopefully be sometime in the next 4-6 weeks that they give birth depending when they came into heat.

I thought last weekend that Hainoa's pins had gone, but I couldn't get close to Islay to check. Doug checked and decided they had not. This weekend I think they have! However her udder has not filled up and normally the pins go 24-48 hours before giving birth (they are tendons at the root of the tail that hold the hips together)

Not really much of a bump, compared with the jersey's anyway. There is some mucus

This was taken yesterday, the tail is meant to lift up a bit at the top when the pins go. I don't see that here really. So we just need to keep waiting. Surely it will happen soon!

Broken Laptop

For some reason my laptop has stopped responding to its mouse and keyboard. This makes it hard to blog as the stupid blogger website doesn't work on ipad very well (I can do short text only blogs but that is it). I have an appointment with the laptop hospital tomorrow so hopefully that will fix it...