While Ken stayed home to care for the farm, I headed off to Wales again to continue my judge training. The goal is to become an approved judge for Black Welsh Mountain sheep eventually.
My journey started with an uneventful flight from Grand Junction to Dallas. Next, I flew overnight from Dallas to London Heathrow, took the tube to Paddington Station, the train to Newport, another train to Abergavenny, and finally, a taxi to the Beavan Family Butcher Shop.
The Beavans were featured in the BBC program Lambing Live. I made email contact with them and arranged to stay at their B&B for my first few days.
Most tourists are not that interested in butcher shops, but I enjoyed talking to Huw and Jan about the issues of running a small butcher shop. They cater to local trade, providing fresh, locally-raised meat and eggs.
After my visit, I was off to Great Tre-Rhew Farm, the home of Kate, Jim, Trevor, and Anne Beavan. Their B&B is to the left in the picture below.
As soon as I got my stuff in, I was off to watch as Jim sorted lambs (while trying not to get in the way). He was sorting out weanlings and checking his ewes’ teeth and teats. Some ewes were sorted for culling, and others would get another chance at lambing. The culls got a spot on their rump so they’d be easy to spot later. I hope I didn’t get in the way too much. Here are some pictures of the process.
I really liked his chute setup. I don’t think it would work for us because of the horns on our rams, but it sure was convenient to work a bunch of sheep. If we had all polled sheep, it would be fine. We moved the sheep to new grazing areas afterward.
I really liked this old stone water trough. I wonder how long it’s been there? I enjoyed this beautiful cottage garden as well.
