June has been a bonkers month here at Grobdale, the build started up again after the lock down precautions, turning our tranquil quiet space back into a drilling and banging cacophony ..
kinda missed our building gang actually, but had forgotten how much noise they can make.
The man of the house hadn’t been sat around idle either and an oak frame porch at the front of The croft soon began to take shape.
The entrance is starting to look amazing, we have such a clever kilted wonder.. ( kilt only available for viewings in the hot weather).
We had a few new arrivals in June, first off 
was Polly a beautiful Trakehner (horse )came to Grobdale as a grass livery .Â
A friend we made earlier in the year contacted us to see if we could house another horse…like we are going to say no !!
Polly arrived one blustery lunchtime and immediately settled in, her and Lotte have become quite an item and its lovely to watch them grooming each other.
Bliss when you have a buddy to scratch the bit on your back you cant reach …Thanks Dee for trusting us she’s gorgeous xÂ
But not just one more addition to the family we had a few thousand arrive kind of middle of the month !… bees to be more precise.
I went on a course a few years ago at the 
advice of my lovely friend Paula ( who clearly knows what I need to do more than I do); and got a little insight into what was needed to keep bees, just in case in the future ….we had the opportunity .Well who knew huh , roll it forward a few years and we buy a farm and meet Gary Cook..
All of a sudden I’m shopping for a new outfit and more cedar than a girl would normally want ..
The days the bees arrived was quite exciting in a low key kind of relaxed way, unpacking them and settling them into the new cedar hive was Gary’s job I’m watching mostly and handing stuff over.. looking forward to seeing how this progresses.
What you can’t see from the above photos is how hot it was , the bees love it , but we were feeling the need for a dip ,
so of course you take the pig too , Nora loves a wander out , and a dip in the river was just what she needed.
Love making our pig happy ..
Porch Number two is taking shape, and slates are on order to complete them can’t wait to see what they look like ..
The cottages are coming on now and its the final push to get them completed.
First fit electrics and plumbing is almost done , internal walls , insulation, plasterboard and in two of the three the plastering is done ! Here’s a wee little filmy thing to see whats occurring..
As you can see , the windows and doors are all now in place along with the larch cladding. The building team are doing amazingly well coping with the bonkers extremes in weather along with social distancing measures.
( not too bad when you have three buildings , everyone can almost have a cottage to themselves)
End of the month brought us ducklings , finally one of the nests ( we have or had 4Â sets of mums sat patiently waiting for babies to hatch !!) came good and Lauren noticed that…
went into labour !
the Beginning of May, she was (if it was a baby bump) in her final trimester and looking pretty
.
lambs Henry and Harry , give them a grassier patch and move the bulldozers in ! Here’s the video 
to the livestock .. a good friend Jean had a pony that needed a home, so I couldn’t say no and when we met Gemma pony a  section A (tiny hardy sturdy little unit ) she seemed just the thing to keep Lotte company  … just got to get them used to each other and avoid the kicks !
but I’m doing it too, there’s an avenue of Beech trees, on my route to most of everything that is stunning at all the spokes of the leaf colour wheel and right now it’s on the turn. There will be more photos as it transforms
actually finally run out of water just as the rain started ,so a man needs a shower .. what does he do ? You guessed it ,he showered naked in the rain ..
we spotted another sheep up on the top , separated from the main flock , a tell tale sign she’s about to lamb so we took the kubota up to check her out . The lamb was coming so we hung on to watch , but it all seemed to be at taking a bit too long and 
she wasn’t going to let me get near and without a dog or a crook (or any sheep wrangling skills for that matter)  so we bombed back to the house and rang a man with a dog . Within the hour he had her caught,birthed , and  shown us how to tube feed the lamb . Mum and baby claimed the first stall in lambing shed and by bedtime the lamb was suckling as he should..
Grobdale of girthon 