Sheep shearing.

Yesterday, John joined our local farming neighbour to help bring the sheep down from the high fells. The sheep had to be brought down for shearing. The day began at Bleak Bank farm at 5am! There were several farmers working together to round up the sheep from the top of Ingleborough and bring them down to Bleak Bank Farm. It was hard work, but thoroughly enjoyable.
Judy provided wonderful food for the various breaks, and John came home at 7 pm very tired, extremely well fed and very happy.

Bees

The Clapham Communiy Bee Project has provided 5 colonies for the village. We have been fortunate to be one of the selected sites to have a hive.

The bee group spent time on Thursday putting the hives together and making up the frames that go into the hives. It was quite a bit of work, but also a good social event.

Our colony arrived on Friday evening, and with help from Sue Manson and James Innerdale, who already have their own bees in the village, the new hive was set up and colony transferred successfully. It involved opening up the nuc (travelling) box and inspecting each frame carefully and then placing the frames into the new hive. A bee keeper is expected to find and identify the queen bee, which with as many as 10,000 bees can be difficult to do. Nevertheless, Sue spotted the queen, as well as a drone, so the colony is complete!

On inspection this morning, they look happy and the foraging bees are returning with pollen which is a good sign!

First efforts

This is our first attempt at blogging! We've been encouraged to by a number of people, including Christine Ryder at Scaife Hall Farm in Blubberhouses who's been full of fantastic help and encouragement, in starting our B&B business.

We've had a number of nesting birds in the garden. The prize goes to the pheasant sitting on 16 eggs under the lounge window, but there's also been wrens, blackbird, dunnock, tits & redstart. It was a real treat to see a pheasant with 3 very young chicks exploring in the garden yesterday.

Our new website has just been launched, please visit www.crooklandsclapham.co.uk