Clipping Time at Hill Top Farm

Took out some tea & coffee yesterday to Laurence, Michael & Gladys who were busy shearing sheep in the end barn - by the way shearing is referred to as "clipping" up here in upper Arkengarthdale.  Its hot sweaty work wrestling the sheep over onto their back to get started clipping and then holding them down & twisting them over as the clipping progresses.  The very strong handsome brown tup (called Chris evidently) took two of them to wrestle him over and surprisingly when he is clipped he is black underneath although his fleece is dark brown.

Michael was using a battery driven electric set of clippers whilst Laurence was using hand shears - interesting that when Chloe was doing her Anglo Saxon & Viking history degree at Newcastle she showed us stone engravings of that period - over a thousand years ago - showing shears exactly the same as the ones Laurence was using.  Probably Viking settlers who came here to Arkengathdale (In old Norse "the valley of Arkil's enclosure" evidently) were also grumbling about such a sweaty hard job long before the Norman invasion?  I'll get some shots of clipping to post shortly - today they are taking a rest from the job but they'll be back at work on Monday.

We are preparing Hill Top Farm to put on the market during August after the painters have finished the huge job of clearing-off the loose paint from the cement render on the front of the house and doing a full repaint for us.  Yachtsman say that ones boat never looks smarter than they day you buy her & the day you sell her - obviously this also applies to buying & selling houses.  There is of course a mass of jobs to do such as re-sealing the cast-iron guttering on the front of the house - a job I have been putting off for about 2 years - now its done.

Collapsed Section of Wall

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Another job to be done ASAP is the repair of a fallen section of dry stone wall to the West of the house.  The section I have already repaired is not so good as walling done by Laurence or Michael but its OK . But it takes me about 5X the time they would take.  If anyone ever wants to learn stone walling there  is an excellent course run locally at the Middleham Key Centre.

My Previous Rebuild (maybe scoring 7 out of 10)