Tales from the Trenches

Sheep Update

2011-04-13T03:04:00.000-07:00

We found the lost sheep...... we had them all the time, Richard has been sent back to school for more practice in adding up, we counted the number of ewes on each load and made a list the he added them all up, WRONGLY.
After he and the children spent a couple of hours scouring the countryside for the missing sheep and worried all night, he checked his sums in the morning, and lo the lost sheep were found, and there was much rejoicing in the kingdom.
We will never let him forget this, its a good job he doesnt pay the bills round here.

Pictured above is little twin lamb, she is doing really well, feeding on her own and growing already, R says that the ewe would be much better off outside but it has turned very cold,( I am back in my wooly vest,) and it seems cruel to put such a tiddler out, but as soon as the sun shines.......
No more lambs yet.

Like Bo Peep we've lost some sheep!

2011-04-11T10:05:00.000-07:00

We brought our flock of expectant ewes home today for lambing time, they are due to start on April 19th, which is 5 months from when we put the tups in with them, they have all been scanned so we know how many lambs to expect. When they were all rounded up this morning we discovered that one ewe had jumped the gun and had prem twins, they were cold and muddy and one was much smaller than the other, so we gathered them up and their mum and I rode home in the back of the landrover to stop her jumping over the seats, or on her babies. Sadly the weaker of the two didnt live for more than a couple of hours, just too small to be viable, but the bigger of the two is doing well after we tubed it with some lamb colostrum. It was too weak to stand and suckle from its mum. They are tucked up in a pen in the barn and we hope all will be well. Oh yes its a girl! We trailered the ewes home, about 24 at a time over 2 decks, this load made me laugh as despite not being crowded the ewe at the front has her fat wooly behind pressed up against the "window". We counted each group out of the trailer into the field, and on adding up all the groups we discovered that we had 8 missing!!!!!!!! They were last counted on the 14th feb when we scanned them all, its almost impossible to count 150 sheep when they are all milling about. The land where they have been living has lots of small woods and Richard and the children have gone to look for them, its possible that they have been stolen in which case hopefully we can claim off the insurance, but I am quite worried about my sheeps.

Sad Cows

2011-03-24T06:55:00.000-07:00

This is a whole herd of cows who are desperate to go outside, they have been inside for over 4, nearly 5 months now, with only a short walk across the concrete yard to be milked twice a day. For most of the winter they do not linger outside on the yards, but dash back inside for food and somewhere more sheltered to stand around or lie down in. At this time of year, when the weather is warming up, and the sun is shining they just want to go outside and eat some grass. When they do it is spring madness, all these sedate mature ladies cavort about and kick up their heels, udders swinging wildly.
It makes me laugh, every year on the first day outside its just the same.

Sadly for the cows today was not the day, normally Richard nips over and shuts the shed gate while they are inside finishing off yesterdays food, after being milked in the morning. But we are mad busy organising seed being drilled by contractors so Richard had driven the tractor and trailer over to the field with a load of spring bean seed and I went in the landie to bring him home. By the time we got back the cows had found the open gate and were all standing facing outwards........
We had a quick discussion as to whether we could let them out but there are no fields ready, by which I mean there is lots of fencing down to let tractors in and out during the winter, and since we needed the yard clear for the milk tanker Richard filled the feeder wagon, put the food out and we squeezed the cows back into the shed, a bit like getting toothpaste back into the tube.
Truthfully there is not much grass yet, our organic pastures are always a bit slower to get going since they need the soil to warm up before the grass grows, everyone is very used to the effects of scattering tonnes of nitrogen on the fields wheras nature on its own is not as impressive.
Its been a busy day of ferrying seed and Richard to and from bits of farm machinery, life was much simpler when we were just farming one farm.

Busy day

2011-03-18T03:46:00.001-07:00

I meant to post this picture of F holding the lamb yesterday but forgot. It was taken on monday when she announced she had told everyone in her class about the new lamb and needed a picture of her holding it!
Lambs are quite easy to catch within the first 12 hours after they are born, but after that they have really found their running legs and dont want to be caught at all. We managed to grab this one but only because he got his legs tangled up and fell over. F was very keen to hold him until we tried to hand him over, we ended up with Richard holding her and the lamb together.

Its a gorgeous sunny day again today, which is good as we are off to vaccinate all the pregnant ewes, it has to be done 4 weeks before they lamb to protect the lamb as well. I had forgotten that I had also volunteered to take and collect some of the primary school children from a science morning at another school, this is the inbetween bit, I have just taken flapjack out of the oven and have a huge pan of half made marmalade waiting for me to have a couple of hours at home to boil it up. R has popped in to ask me to drop in at the vet and collect some extra needles for the vaccinating gun........ Some days the idea of a proper job is very attractive, apart from that I would have to do all the extras as well.

I might slap a bit of sunscreen on as a couple of hours in direct sun and I will be a crispy critter, its so easy to get burnt at this time of year, all that winter pale skin.

Farm Cats

2011-03-17T10:21:00.000-07:00

The cats are on the payroll here, they are vermin control and the business pays their feed and vet bills. They get dry cat food 2 or 3 times a day, if they are hanging around looking hungry and the plates are empty I feed them, I reckon that mouses must be scarce.
They were all feral cats originally, 2 are brothers and the tabby and ginger are half sisters, courtesy of the local tom and the cats on the neighbouring farm. We trapped them all at the appropriate ages and had them fixed at the vet, there is no unsanctioned breeding round here. We dont let them in the house, mainly because they dont want to come in, but also because they arent housetrained and they usually have dirty feet due to roaming round the cow sheds. They are a superb anti vermin patrol, especially Percy, the longhaired cat, he looks soft and fluffy but under all that fur is Atilla the hun.

We have had several lovely sunny days recently, not much is growing but its lovely and warm in the sun, so all the cats crash out in a nice sheltered spot in the garden.

We had our first lamb born on sunday morning, the ewe chose the only rainy day for a week , so it was a cold wet welcome for little boy lamb, despite that mother and son are doing well.

There are no more births expected for another 4 weeks, this one is early because the ewe was very poorly last year and had to stay at home to be treated regularly, she was sharing a field with the tups and nature took its course a bit sooner than planned.

Mea Culpa

2011-03-05T07:51:00.001-08:00

I've been too lazy to blog! Yes I admit it, I have had lots of good intentions, read other peoples blogs, made a note of things that have happened and then done nothing. Well not "nothing" nothing, but blogging nothing, I have felt bad about it, but not bad enough to do something about it. Sorry I will try to do better, I get so much from reading other peoples blogs and it seems rude not to give a bit back.

We had half term a couple of weeks ago and I went down to visit the family in Berkshire, we stayed with my Ma and visited and went out with my sister and her children.

We went to see the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, and I definitely recommend it as somewhere to visit. Its not really for tiny children, out youngest was 7 and she loved it but I would think that under 5's would not get much from it.

Its a huge collection of stuff from around the world gathered together by Lt. General Pitt Rivers, it was bequeathed to the university in 1884 on the condition that they built a museum to house it and appointed someone to teach anthropology. The original collection has been added to over the years and includes lots of weapons, decorative items, religious artefacts, models, clothing, and more.

My childrens favourites were the shrunken heads and the mummy, I was very taken with this totem pole which stretched up 2 more floors and the beautiful woven gratings in the floor. Oh yes also the toilet facilities which are clean modern spacious and unisex cubicles, which are great when out in a female parent only group of mixed children. Its always a worry sending little boys off into the male toilets.

The only bad thing was no cafe or designated place to eat a picnic, there is a big grassed area outside but that's no good it it's cold and rainy, we ended up in the foyer to the natural history museum which also functioned as a buggy park.

The P-R museum is reached through the OU natural history museum which is a much more accessible scale than the London natural history museum, it's full of skeletons, modern animals as well as dinosaurs, stuffed animals from all over the world, and things that we ran out of time to look at. We will definitely be going back again.

Well Done Boys

2011-02-16T09:46:00.001-08:00

We had our sheep scanned on monday, a good day weatherwise since it rained on sunday and tuesday and indeed on monday afternoon, but the morning was sunny.
The tups had done good work as of the 150 ewes, only 4 are not in lamb and they will be off to market as soon as can be arranged. Of the rest we have 3 sets of triplets, 70 twins and 73 singles. One of the singles is due in 3 to 4 weeks time, the rest in April. The early bird is because she was in with the tups last summer due to a wound that needed lots of attention from us, having her here at home meant we could get hold of her on a regular basis to treat her. Anyway she will have to come home again soon and live with the calves so we can keep an eye on her, as its still too cold for her to lamb outside.

This is my oldest(14) who has just had his "twin blocks" changed for a fixed brace. He is somewhat daunted by the long list of dos and don'ts and the cleaning instructions and at 2.30 this morning he was a very sad boy as the discomfort of his teeth starting to move had woken him up and was stopping him getting back to sleep. His Daddy fixed him up with some paracetamol and sleep was resumed.
I sent him off to school with another paracetamol for lunchtime, and a note excusing him from PE for today. The Dentist said that it will settle down in a couple of days and become the new normal.

Our local National Trust House is doing some tree felling, mostly round the carparks but also this one from on top of the mound alongside their moat.

I am very sad to see it go as all my children used to play under it and run/jump/slide up and down the mound. I'm not sure why they are removing it,possibly a combination of health and safety and fears that the roots are causing damage to anything beneath it.
Anyway we will be having all the wood, bar some for the Hall itself which we will be storing for them.

I forsee lots of time with the woodsplitter in my future.

All Change at the Library

2011-02-13T09:34:00.000-08:00

Its going to be all change at our local Library, they are closing on the 15th Feb for three weeks for"refurbishment"

According to the Librarians this includes going "self service". Im not sure what this will entail but it doesnt sound like good employment news for the librarians.

The closure will cover school half term, which is inconvenient as I usually take the tribe down there for some book choosing and a bit of them begging for me to borrow DVD's, Wii games or Dsi games for them to play with. Its actually a good way of trying out games without committing to buying them. From previous experience something that sounds good ends up causing so much strife that I confiscate it. There is a small charge to borrow media items, usually less than £2 for a week.

The good thing about the closure at the library is that we can take books and media items out and keep them for the whole three weeks whilst only being charged for one week.

We have stocked up, for the children we have Lego Starwars for the Wii and Mariokart for the Dsi, also the new video of The A Team, we have a selection of the original ones so I hope they like this, I'm sure the special effects will be better.

For the grown ups I have the first series of True Blood, I have read all the books and love them and I watched most of the TV series but will enjoy filling in the gaps. Also the US series Justified starring Timothy Olyphant. I started watching this when it showed on TV but it was on late at night and I kept forgetting it.

I could get these out any time but 7 days is not long enough to watch 13 episodes so I dont bother, I have these till the 12th march.

Best thing is that all this cost about £7.

Good value and I will wait and see how the "refurbishment" turns out.

Some Days You Win, Others Not So Much.

2011-02-08T05:58:00.000-08:00

Our Dairy Herd is regularly tested for TB, this involves the vet injecting each animal with a tiny amount of both Avian and Bovine TB, then checking 72 hours later to see if there has been any reaction and if so to what. Its OK if you get a lump at each site, or if you just get an avian lump, but bad news if you just get a lump at the bovine site. The animal is then a "reactor" and taken away to be destroyed, the whole herd is put under restrictions, which means you cant sell any animals, and you start a retesting programme that lasts for 2 years.
Yesterday we finished our testing programme, with the 12 month interval test, We passed, or at least the cows did and we can now go back on the regular testing schedule which for our area is 24 monthly.
I couldnt tell anyone we were being tested just in case it jinxed it.

These are the bottles of the stuff they inject the cows with, 50 x 1ml dose, mind you the fuss some of the cows make you would think we were cutting their heads off. The Vet clips some hair off at the 2 sites on the neck and jabs them, we have to put every cow on the place through the crush, from the oldest to the youngest, new calved to those on maternity leave, even though its a bit of a squeeze for some of them.
For our milking herd of 65 cows plus followers it takes 3 to 4 hours, checking them doesnt take as long though its more stressful for us.
I dont understand why they cant develop a vaccine against TB in cattle, surely it would be more cost effective than testing and destroying thousands of cows each year, the scientists keep talking about a vaccine for Badgers, which we would have to trap and are not exactly easy to handle, apart from the whole issue of them being protected. We already vaccinate the cows for several diseases so one more wouldnt be a problem.

After the good news about the TB testing yesterday, this morning I got a phone call from our Milk Buyer, telling us we are going to be fined for over production!!!!!!
Apparently we produced 50% more than we had predicted in January, and we are only allowed an error margin of 20%, so we are fined 5ppl on the extra 30%.
I think its more that we under estimated than over produced, but now we are in the crazy position of slowing the cows down by cutting their cake ration, only slightly as otherwise we could have fertility problems. We cant adjust our prediction for February so must try to minimise the damage, we have redone the prediction for march.

The 3 sheep are getting used to being in the garden, I'm a bit fed up with sweeping sheep pooh off the path, and they will have to go before the daffodils come up.

Looks Like Starbug

2011-01-31T04:37:00.000-08:00

We have been having problems with the tank washer, which automatically cleans the bulk milk tank when it has been emptied. Its one of those machines that always seems to go wrong, water, pcb, iodine and steam add an electrical supply and you have breakdowns and malfunctions.
Anyway the latest manifestation was the pumps failing, of which there are two and this is one of them. After a very frustrating couple of weeks, during which Richard has been cleaning the tank by hand, we have two new pumps and new fuses, fortunately the little electronic brain seems to have survived to think another day.
Richard tells me that these pumps always remind him of Starbug from Red Dwarf, the little space ship they use to fly around outside the mining ship. Now he has told me it's all I can see when I look at this.

More sheep, well really its less sheep, these are the last 3 boy lambs from last year, we decided to sell the rest as store lambs, for someone else to fatten up, it would take us ages to get them ready for slaughter and we can do without all the extra cost involved in giving them extra feed. Next year we will sow some stubble turnips as winter feed, although several neighbours who have done that for this winter have lost most of them with the very low temperatures, they can't cope with minus 13 c.

These last 3 sheep have sore feet and so will go into the small paddock, when they are better we might sell them or just keep them for the freezer.

They are in the garden at the moment, with a notice on the gate reminding people to keep the gate closed.

Life Skills

2011-01-21T06:16:00.000-08:00

I'm wondering when is a good age to teach my children how to change the sheets and duvet covers on their beds.
I started doing mine when I went away to boarding school at 11, we were issued with a clean sheet and pillow case every week or so and told to put "top to the bottom and bottom to the laundry". We also made our beds every morning and those who had never done it before learnt pretty quickly.

My children are 14, 12 and 9, and whilst the 9 year old would probably struggle to change duvet covers and the sheet, she should be able to manage the pillowcase, and the other two with a bit of tuition should be OK.
I realise that it may be hard for them and make their arms ache a bit but I dont think it's unreasonable. Generally I dont ask them to do much in the way of housework, a bit of bedroom tidying and setting the table for meals, also putting stuff in the dishwasher.
Part of me feels that it is my job and since I dont work off the farm I do have the time to do it, but on the other hand these are life skills, like tying laces and telling the time,and since I do intend for them to leave home eventually they should learn them.

I think the time is now, I will proceed with a plan to offload all the things I hate most, hoovering, changing beds, sewing on nametapes and buttons. The children might leave sooner than planned.

Who Needs TV

2011-01-18T03:51:00.000-08:00

Our oven died just before christmas, inconvenient but no great loss, I still had the Rayburn to cook with and the old oven was one that we bought for £40 about 8 years ago.
Anyway we ordered a new oven, after consulting Which, the consumer report people, and it arrived last week. It is so shiney and new I am almost afraid to use it, but I forced myself.
This is sunday where I turned some leftover pizza dough into something pizza-ey for lunch, it had bits of blue cheese as well as cheddar on top and the children were facsinated by the different ways the cheeses behaved when heated, the fact that this oven has a light that works just made the whole thing better.
They stayed there for ages and I had to kick them out of the way to get the food out of the oven. As entertainment its not quite as good as reruns of Top Gear but its way better than CBBC.

Sorry about the carpy photo, I cant remember how to do macro on my camera.
This is a cows tooth, its about an inch square in size and we found it balanced on the edge of a water trough in the cowshed.
We find about 2 or 3 a year, mostly outside, which is amazing considering how relativly small they are. The children suggested that the cow had carefully placed the tooth hoping for a visit from the tooth fairy, if so she was disappointed as after a wash and brush up the tooth has gone into school for show and tell.

Good Deed for the Day

2011-01-12T13:24:00.000-08:00

I went to give blood this evening, I've been donating blood since I was 19 and am up to 45 units now, which considering time out for 3 pregnancies is not bad.
I do it because its the right thing to do, it doesnt hurt or cost me anything other than time, and I used to come away with a nice glow of righteousness at having done a good thing for society as a whole. I have O rh negative blood which is the universal doner, means that in a crisis they can put it into anyone and it wont cause a problem, so I have always thought it even more important to give blood.
My spouse works in a fairly high risk industry as regards accidents, and I wont let him give blood as at 6'4" and only 11stone he has nothing to spare.

As time passes I find the whole rigmarole of giving blood more and more irritating, I hate the questions that they ask each time, I feel I am being asked to justify being there, now they tell you to drink a large glass of water before you donate, and if you say you have already had a drink at home they seem to think you are lying to them.
Occasionally I have cancelled an appointment because I was ill or was pregnant, OMG you'd think I was trying to get out of paying income tax, Its none of their business why I cant make it, they behave as if they are doing me a favour.
I come back all cross and angry with them and feeling that I wont go again, so far it has worn off by the time 4 months is up.
One of these days it wont wear off and I wont go back.
I reasise that I have a problem with people telling me what to do and hopefully I am the only one who feels like this, otherwise our brilliant system of freely donated blood will fall apart.

I should have called this "rant for the day"

Its Been So Long

2011-01-10T08:39:00.000-08:00

Wow its been ages since I posted as I have been reminded by my loyal reader, thankyou Fluff!
I find that its one of those things where the less I post the more it takes to get me to get on with it.
We have done christmas, with all the trimmings, tree, pudding, snowy landscape, frozen water supply to livestock, tractors that wont start, broken oven.
Despite these things we all had a great time, my brother in Brisbane said it rained all day for them and though he loves life down under he misses cold chrismas .

We had a particularly perfect tree this year, Richards sole christmas task is to choose and buy the tree, I do the rest, cooking shopping wrapping etc, most of the presents come as a big surprise to him.
This tree had stood in a bucket of water/ice in the barn until chrismas eve and on bringing it into the house we found it was full of snow, not much chance of that melting outside so we stood it on an old sheet till it was frost free. Its great now the children are old enough to help with the tree and to have an opinion about what looks good as opposed to how much can we get on it!

We cooked the pork in the solid fuel rayburn, instead of stuffing I rubbed the inside with crushed fennel, salt and garlic and it was delicious, I couldnt get the crackling to crackle but it didnt matter. This is my flaming christmas pudding, I have a bottle of grappa made by one of my brothers in laws, it is completely undrinkable but boy does it flame!!
The tupperware in the background is full of home made brandy butter, if you let it defrost too much it separates, and thats my excuse for not putting it in a bowl.

It seems ages since christmas now, the children are all back at school and the snow is long gone, mind you it is also a long time till spring. We noticed that one of our boy lambs must have escaped with his manhood unaltered as he has been happily tupping away at the girl lambs. They are now separated but we will have to scan the girls in case any are now expecting.

Hopefully I will keep on posting now I have started.
Happy 2011 everyone.

Winters Icy Grip

2010-12-22T15:49:00.000-08:00

Well the snow came back at the weekend, not much for us but the temperatures were really low and all the dairy water froze again, Richard put us back on the mains as the spring supply is frozen . We have managed to keep one of the troughs for the milkers going by piling mucky straw round the supply pipe, but we are carrying water to the heifers, in 25litre drums, the children can fill them but cant pick them up so thats my job and boy can I feel it, ibufrofen is my friend.
These were taken at 4pm today on my way to feed the sheep, these are this springs lambs, and should be tagged and on their way to market but we were sent the wrong pliers and the new ones have been in the post for 2 weeks now.
I think the sheeps were worried when I stopped short and got the camera out rather than wrestle the sack of nuts into their troughs.
And yes that ewe lamb at the front is having a pee!!!!! I didnt notice till I got the pic on here.

This is happy sheep, 97 of them all competing for their share of the food.

We are giving them hay as well in a ring feeder but they spend a lot of time scraping the snow off the grass.

Our lowest night time temp has been -13 c , and we are not getting above 0 c during the day, even with sunshine. My days are revolving around watering and feeding beasties, ditto the family and a bit of christmas preparation. Tonight my oven decided to die, it cost us £40 about 8 yrs ago so no great loss, I dont rate my chances of getting a new one before christmas so all oven cooking will be in the solid fuel Rayburn, that will be fun.

I dont think we are predicted any more snow, just low temps till after christmas, and though it makes life hard it is beautiful.

We had a drink and a few candles for the Solstice yesterday, we couldnt see the eclipse as we had cloud, but we all thought about the days lengthening and the return of spring and summer.

Off to bed now with my hot water bottle to keep my toes warm.

Another Day

2010-12-18T10:34:00.000-08:00

A wall of straw arrived today, it's actually a lorry and trailer but from this angle it looks like a wall. The driver was undoing the straps while Richard got out the Manitou handler to unload it all, nearly 22 tonnes for the cows to lie on.
We keep our cows in a shed on deep straw rather than cubicles, which means that we use a lot of straw over the winter, the shed is cleaned out every 4 to 5 weeks and the muck is piled up in the fields to compost after which it is spread. Our soil here is very sandy so the composted muck is really good for it.

On a completely different scale, I made a new cover for my ironing board. I have had that board for about 25 years, my iron is even older.

I have had several covers for it but am finding it difficult to find the right size, ironing boards seem to have grown, and the covers I could find were not what I wanted to spend several hours a week looking at.

So some fabric from Ikea and a short time with the sewing machine and voila new cover.

Well I'm pleased anyway.

Thats Life

2010-12-10T10:26:00.000-08:00

Last night we did a ceasarian section on a cow, well the vet did it and Richard and I assisted, in my case mostly holding the light and other things.
The cow was due to give birth any time now but R was not happy with how she looked, just not right, so we had the vet have a look at her, the calf was dead, and had been for a couple of days, it was also breach, which is coming backwards.
We struggled for ages to try and deliver the calf but it was huge and eventually we all agreed it was not going to come out that way without damaging the cow seriously.
So we set to to do a section on her, lying down as we couldnt get her up, all the problems of a decaying calf and uterine contents, in the cowshed, in the dark with hand held lights.
Kate, the vet did a fantastic job, we flushed as much out as we could and carefully stitched her up, 4 layers.
We left the patient sitting up with a big bucket of water, some hay and chock full of antibiotics and painkillers. Richard then started milking at 7.30pm rather than the usual 4.30.

I was going to take some pictures of her stitches, which run for about 15 inches down her side, but Richard just came in and told me she is dead. She just put her head down and died.

So no calf, a huge vets bill and now we have to pay to have a dead cow taken away.

Sometimes I hate this job.

Winter is upon us

2010-12-07T11:01:00.000-08:00

We had snow last week, and we've still got most of it. The night time temp got down to -13c which meant that most of the cattle troughs froze up and Richard had to try and drain every last drop of water from the milking parlour after washing or else it was frozen by morning. These are 3 of the farms 4 cats, Carrot is the orange female and the boys are Percy(longhaired) and Jack. The boys are brothers and started out as feral kittens born here, we trapped them when they were small and had them fixed at the vet and over the last 12 1/2 years they have become very tame. They dont come in the house but we do feed them as much as they need, ie a cat sitting by the empty plate usually gets biscuits. Carrot and her half sister Kitty came from the farm across the road, they too are fixed as I dont want to be up to the elbows in kittens.
It looks mean leaving them out in the snow but there are loads of straw bales in the barn and calves to cuddle up to and when they do come into the porch they want to go straight out again.

This was taken about 10am this morning, we had a high temp of -3c here today, but it's all beautiful to look at. We had a lot of freezing fog yesterday and everything is thickly crusted with frost today.

Baked a Cake

2010-12-01T10:17:00.000-08:00

I turned this into that. This is my maternal Grandmothers Christmas cake recipe, which I make every year, when the children were babies it lasted us till the end of February, but with 3 extra hungry mouths I try to eke it out through January. Sometimes I wish the children didnt like fruit cake.
I put nuts on the top instead of icing it and this year it's almonds and walnuts, the walnuts got a bit too toasted but I'm sure they will be OK.
I need to wrap it up and feed it with brandy every week and it will be perfect for christmas and beyond.
There is a family tale about my father serving abroad, I think he was in Singapore, while my Mother was back in the UK with me and waiting to give birth to my next brother. She and my Granny made an extra cake for my Dad, filled it with as much brandy as they could, in the interest of preservation, and sent it out to Singapore. I remember being told that they sewed it into a pillow case to make sure it was safe travelling. I'm sure it was the best thing about my Dads christmas that year.

Stirring It Up

2010-12-01T09:25:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I finally got round to making my christmas pudding, it's really not hard at all, and the only bit that takes time is steaming it, 4 hours now and 4 on christmas day.
In the bowl are raisins, currants, glace cherries, candied peel, breadcrumbs, grated suet and ground mixed spice.
To that I added 2 beaten eggs and a couple of tablespoons of alcohol, usually sherry or brandy but this year I had the end of a bottle of sloe gin so I used that.
Then everyone in the household had a stir for good luck, and I packed it into a pudding basin, covered it with a pleated piece of greaseproof paper.

Then a cotten square tied under the lip of the bowl and the ends tied together to form "bunny ears", this makes it easy to lift out of the steamer.

Then 4 hours in the steamer, making sure the pan is kept topped up with water.

I leave it to go cold overnight, then remove it from the steamer and when the cloth has dried out it can go in the cupboard till christmas day.

It goes really black from all the dried fruit, and if I remember I will add a sixpence carefully wrapped in foil.

I will be serving this with Brandy Butter, which is softened butter beaten up with icing sugar and as much brandy as it will hold. Its also great with mince pies.

Cold and Even Colder.

2010-11-28T10:16:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning (saturday) we woke up to a sprinkling of snow, not enough to do anything with but very pretty.
Richard came in saying that it had been -7c overnight but that all the water was still running.
It was very sunny and where the sun shone the icy snow melted but every where else it was still there at bedtime.
This morning the overnight temp read -10c and water has frozen to one shed, luckily with just heifers in it who dont need much water, so they are just getting on with what is already in the trough.
We decided that the rabbits and chickens needed more shelter than their respective hutches/houses could provide, so we spent the afternoon clearing enough space in the barn to bring in a group of heifers who were still outside, and in front of their gates are now two hen houses complete with runs. The rabbit hutch has gone in the calf shed.

So milking is late again but all the vunerable livestock is under cover.
Ill take the camera out tomorrow.
Its -7c outside already at 6.30pm.

Tup Tup Tupping

2010-11-25T10:44:00.001-08:00

These are our four charolais Tups, big boys arent they? They have spent the summer doing nothing, bit of eating, bit of wrestling with each other, but mostly they have just spent the time in the paddock doing nothing, or not the thing we keep them for.

Now is the time for them to do their thing.

We brought them into the shed to check their feet are OK and dont need trimming, then we loaded them into the trailer and took them up to the field where the ewes are.

Here are the ewes, they all homed in on the LandRover and trailer as soon as we arrived. Richard is mixing up some Raddle, which is a sticky coloured paste we smear into the wool on the tups chest, so that when he rides the ewe it marks her bum, and we can see they have been working.
This is the last tup leaving the trailer, you can see his orange chest.

I think he looks keen.

This is the four of them heading off to sort out the girls.

Who were very pleased to see them.

If you look in the middle of the group here you can see the boys getting busy.

Richard went back today and reported that there are LOTS of sheep with orange bums.

The tups will be left there for 4 to 6 weeks then its all over for another year.

Stir up Sunday

2010-11-21T07:37:00.000-08:00

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
This is the collect for today in the Book of Common Prayer and gives the name "Stir up Sunday" to the last sunday before Advent, which is traditionally when christmas puddings are made.
It is traditional for all the members of the household to give the pudding a stir before it is steamed.
Christmas puddings like rich fruitcake last really well, and just need resteaming before use.

I am not making my pudding today.

I am not in the mood and so will make it later in the week, and no Mum I havent made my christmas cake yet either.

The fact that I know the collect for today can be blamed on a convent education, probably also to blame for my complete lack of belief in any sort of god. Its not just a kneejerk reaction but a result of too much thinking about it and having to defend my position to devout christians.
When it comes down to it I just dont believe, I accept that I might be wrong but if there is an all knowing God, then whatever I said they would know I was lying.
I am happy in my lack of belief, we come from nothing, we go to nothing, we are here by a happy accident and in the grand scheme of things we are unimportant.
Still I will make my christmas pudding and cake to celebrate the passing of another year.

Away Day

2010-11-20T07:42:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy week, or rather parts have been busy and the rest seems so.

The Organic inspection went well, no slapped wrists, just record more stuff next time and more forms to fill.
That night we went to see Red at the cinema, we almost decided we couldnt be bothered, but having organised babysitting we had to go. It was a good movie that we both enjoyed, since I admit to having a huge crush on Bruce Willis, I am not the most impartial of critics but it also starred Helen Mirren, John Malkovich and Morgan Freeman and was funny. There are not many films I feel inspired to watch these days, no horror, no tragic endings, nothing too clever or too stupid, no boy meets girl. I like the Bond films, the Bourne trilogy and the Die Hard films, not sure what this says about me as a well balanced adult but Hey Ho.

On wednesday I left the children all ready for school, clutching their lunchboxes, for R to drop off, while I wizzed over to Crewe and got on a train to London to meet up with my sister. We had a lovely time, mostly talking with some eating and drinking, a small amount of shopping, mostly looking and lots of walking around London.
We started on Marylebone High St, home of Scandium and Divertimenti, then Piccadilly and Fortmun and Masons to buy their Fortmason Tea, we also had the most expensive cup of tea I have bought in my life and though it was good tea it was not that good! Then Covent Garden which I used to like 20 yrs ago but now dont, and finally a bar where we drank and ate till it was time to wend our respective ways home. I got home at 10.30pm, and as it had been rainy and windy all day I dont think I missed anything.

I had a great time with my sister, it felt very self indulgent , as children there was a lot of competition between us and I was a horrible older sister but now we are very good friends.

And no we didnt do anything cultural, no Galleries, shows or museums were visited on this trip.

Christmas is coming, soonish.

2010-11-15T04:06:00.000-08:00

Well it will be for these birdies.
They belong to a friend of mine who is a bit of a smallholder, they have a couple of pigs, about 7 sheep, hens, ducks and these, oh yes and a pony but I dont think she is destined for the pot.
They live by the village hall carpark, where we all park while dropping off and picking up from school, and since turkeys are quite good at flying and like to roam around and forage, they are regularly terrorising both children and parents.
My children are very taken with them, they look kind of prehistoric, and are suggesting that we could rear a couple next year to eat. It would be fun especially if they nip next door to the National Trust to supplement their diet with a spot of picnic foraging.

I have made some Damson Vodka this year, mostly because the damson harvest was good and the local Tescos had a good deal on Vodka, its just sugar, damsons and vodka, left to infuse for 6 weeks or so, then strain out the fruit and bottle the now flavoured vodka. I'm not sure if I will keep it in the freezer or treat it as a liqueur, what do you think?

This morning was frosty and clear, my favourite kind of morning, and here it is easy for me to start the car early and leave it running for 10 mins to defrost before the school run.
We have a min/max thermometer outside which said that it was -3 overnight which feels wintery to me. Being parsimonious we dont run our central heating (lpg) unless we have visitors or the daytime temp is below freezing, but rely on the Rayburn in the kitchen and a wood burner in the living room, this means that the bedrooms are never very warm.
The children dont seem to notice, but last week they mentioned that they were cold in bed and I realised that they still had summer duvets on their beds. I dragged out the sorry pile of winter duvets and realised that some of them were very old, one was mine at boarding school.
So now they all have new 12tog winter duvets, and it is even harder to get them up in the mornings. Tom has been telling his sisters not to lie on his bed as they will squash all the togs and it wont be as warm!
The new duvets came from a company that supplies soft furnishings to the trade, hotels and suchlike and I have had sheets from them before. They are hollowfill rather than feather as machine washable has a lot going for it with children.
The best thing about the new duvets as far as the children are concerned is the BOX, which is huge and has stood up remarkably well to being worn by my three. I dont know at what age children grow out of wanting to play with the box, but not yet.

We have our Organic Annual Inspection tomorrow, so R has been doing his homework and making sure all the records are up to date, We also have our Farm Assurance inspection so he and our student are sweeping the cobwebs off the parlour ceiling and polishing the bulk tank.
The tank is doing its part by the thermometer choosing now to fail, there are 2,an internal one to regulate the fridge unit and an external one to show temperature of the milk, its the outside one that has croaked, last night it reckoned the milk temp was -5 and this morning it was reading 40 c, both wrong as the milk was actually about 4c which is where it should be. R has spoken to the refridgeration engineers and they are coming to replace it........ more expense.
Hopefully all will go well tomorrow and R can stop worrying about his paperwork, as a treat we are going out to see Red with Helen Mirren and Bruce Willis, who just gets better as he gets older.
On wednesday I am going down to London for the day to meet up with my lovely sister and have some quality child free time, its only 1 1/2 hrs from Crewe to Euston and R is in sole charge of the offspring, I will be back by 10pm and I am leaving supper ready to heat up. Its a carefully chosen date to have no after school commitments for either of us and has been planned for about 6 weeks now.

Blast from the Past

2010-11-11T10:15:00.000-08:00

Yesterday The 1st Battalion the Mercian Regiment marched through town on their return from deployment in Afghanistan.
We went to support them, whatever I think of the politics of where our Armed Forces serve, I strongly believe in supporting the troops. And having grown up with my Dad a serving Officer there is something about a band and men marching in uniform that calls to me.

Most of the local schools gave us permission to take our children out early, I only had 2 of the 3 as no2 child was on a school trip. We drove into town and did some creative parking, then waded through the crowds to where a group of friends from school were standing.
As is the way of things we were in plenty of time and had to wait anout 30mins for the parade to arrive, there were about 500 soldiers of the Mercian Regiment and also some Gurkhas who had been deployed with them.
Little F was very happy waving her flag and chatting, but Tom was bothered by lack of information, when exactly were they arriving, where were they marching and what was going to happen? One of the primary school teachers had a programme which she lent to us, with loads of useful information in it including a map of the town center with the Parade route marked on it, he was much happier once he knew as much as possible about the situation.
Actually given that it was a big crowd of total strangers behaving in a fairly random way he did really well. I am constantly amazed at how well he manages so many situations that he would have crashed and burnt in a few years ago.
Both children loved the marching and the Band, also that the soldiers all carried guns, much discussion as to whether they were loaded, also the Gurkha soldiers with their Kukri knives on their belts.

I loved the marching and the shouted commands and the precision changes of position.

I'm really glad we went as they deserved to have a big crowd cheering and shouting, The Regiment lost 12 men and over 80 injured, many with lost limbs and some of those injured were there in wheelchairs.

The children looked at the soldiers and saw brave men, I looked and saw boys, other mothers children, and I was reminded of a book I read years ago called "The Gate To Womens Country" by Sheri Tepper.

It's an Alien

2010-11-09T05:58:00.000-08:00

I'm talking about the little brown and white heifer on the left, she looks like a perfectly nice baby cow to me, but thats not what her mother thought.
She was abandonned at birth!!!!!, as soon as she finished calving the new mother moved as far away from her baby as the shed permitted, and even after the calf staggered to its feet and went looking for comfort and the milk bar, the mum was having nothing to do with her.
Needless to say this is not the usual way of things, more often the new mums spend so much time licking the new arrival that it never gets a chance to sleep or feed. We only leave the calves with their mums for 24 hours, which seems cruel but the cows have far too much milk for one calf and dont let it down in the parlour if they still have the calf, leading to mastitis for the mum and the trots for the calf.
Also the longer you leave the calf with its mum the more attached they get and the more misery when you separate them. We dont breed for good parenting in dairy cows but we dont often get a calf quite as abandonned, anyway happily for "ET" (named by the children) social services (us) have saved her from a short life of neglect and she has a comfy pen with lots of straw, a friend to play with and a "magic mummy" to feed her lots of milk.
She is getting her own mums milk, we do a quick delivery after milking time while it's still warm.

On saturday we moved the lambs onto a new field, we needed to redeploy some of the same electric fencing so in the meantime they went in the farm yard....... and the garden.
They have done a lovely job on the grass, its been too wet to mow, and I moved my precious agaves in their pots to safety on top of the table.

Unfortunately sheep dont seem to like leaves so when the children offered to rake them up I was very happy, I didnt even mind having to wash all their clothes after they all rolled in them, then moved onto giving each other rides in the wheelbarrow.

Feeling Autumnal

2010-11-06T09:41:00.000-07:00

The last few days we have come outside to a toast crunchy carpet of leaves, most of the leaves get blown away in our garden but we have a beautiful Acer tree next to the utility room that must be a bit more sheltered, since they do seem to stay around for a while. Well that is the ones that dont end up in the porch and the kitchen.

This is the tree midway through shedding, it's a lot barer now after a couple of days of heavy rain.

These were taken last week of this years lambs, we have separated them from their mums and brought them back here for a few weeks.

I was all prepared for a very noisy couple of days, and nights, as they bawled for their mummys but the timing must have been about right as neither the ewes or the lambs seem very bothered.

I took these out of the bedroom window early one morning last week when it was cold and clear, the lambs were camoflaged against the frosty grass, but soon went to stand in the sunshine.

We have eartags for them and will have to round them up, tag them, check their feet and sort out some of the males to sell, we are keeping the females to increase the flock.

The Last Time, this Year.

2010-10-23T09:27:00.000-07:00

Old tyres have to be one of the things I hate most, I dont think I ever thought about them before I got involved in farming, but now I hate them, and I must move hundreds every year.
We use them to hold the silage sheets down ontop of the silage clamps. Silage forms the main part of our cows diet during the winter when there is no grass growth in the UK. It is basically grass or other chopped herbage that is pickled in its own juice, for the spods it is anaerobic fermentation, that is without oxygen.
We dont make it all at once but throughout the growing season, and eachtime all the protective plastic sheets have to be rolled up and removed, another layer of grass added, rolled down to squeeze as much air out as possible and all the sheets replaced, followed by the dreaded tyres. These are full of rain water, dirt and the odd chunk of mouldy silage and are heavy, I dress up in waterproof trousers and top whatever the weather as even if the day is hot and sunny you get showered with dirty smelly water each time they hit the ground. Most importantly big gloves as the tyres also have sharp bits and occasionally a rat hiding in them!

This was one of our clamps today after we cut the last 10 acres of Lucerne yesterday and added it to the clamp, we finished putting tyres back on at 9pm as the contracters had been delayed with a sick cow at home, and didnt arrive till 6ish. It needs more tyres but we decided that we needed to eat and go to bed more, it has rained all day today so it may be tomorrows job.
This is the other clamp, you can see where we have already started to feed some of it, the cows are still out but will be stopping in at night soon.
This clamp doesnt need as many tyres as we have gravel bags and a better type of netting over it, when we have some spare money we will get more but tyres last forever and my labour is free!

Men are from Mars?

2010-10-15T06:34:00.000-07:00

Since we have had such gorgeous weather this last week, I have worked my way round the house changing all the beds and towels, I try to do this when the drying conditions outside are good as we dont have a tumble dryer and it takes much longer on the airer.
I noticed that my husbands bath towel is completely worn out and actually falling to pieces, wheras mine, bought at the same time from the same shop and just a shade different in colour, is still fine.
We have the same number of showers, and they are always washed together and dried together, so why does his towel wear out ages before mine?
I suggested to him that he must rub harder than I do to dry himself and could he be more gentle on the towels!!! Needless to say this got a look of amazement.
I suppose I should rotate the towels taking turns to have each one to wear them out more evenly, but he has always used the darker shade, so I will probably just buy another dark one for him and carry on with mine.
Men are truly different from us, they just look similar on the outside.

Wish List

2010-10-08T06:03:00.000-07:00

While we were in France this summer we finally went to explore the Ile de Noirmoutier, which is at the northern end of the Vendee and is reached by a big bridge or a causeway, we had a lovely time, picniced on a rocky beach, discovered that F is terrified of Limpets, but not what is so scary about them.

While we were mooching along a marina sampling the local ice creams we passed by a cafe with some gorgeous chairs outside. The style and the range of colours just called to me and I took a picture to remind me of them in case I was ever looking for some.

Much to Richards relief I spared everyone the embarrassment of me going over and looking for a manufacturers mark, I have a history of this sort of thing, and that was the end of that.

Till last week when I was looking through a magazine and saw the very same chairs pictured on the terrace of a house in Sweden, the article said the chairs were made by Fermob, a French company and widely available.

These can go on my wish list for when we have plenty of spare money......... unlikly ever to happen but till then I can look at the picture.

Bad Girl

2010-10-05T04:07:00.000-07:00

Occasionally we get a heifer that gets into the habit of helping herself to some milk from another cow, we take calves away from their mothers at 24hrs old and rear them in groups with milk from buckets with teats on.

Most of the time they drink the milk, are weaned at 12 weeks and never have any interest in milk again.

Currently we have two heifers who still take milk from any cow who will stand still for them and this is bad for the cow being milked, bad for the rumen of the cow drinking the milk and bad for us because the milk is not going on the tanker.

The only way to stop it is to fit the sucker with a spikey nose ring so that when she is "making up" to her milk supplier the spikes hurt the cows udder and she wont let the other cow suck. Its unfair but it has to be done. It doesnt hurt the cow wearing it as it is only tightened to hold it in place and doesnt pinch or break the skin, mind you they do spend a while trying to shake it off and when they get kicked by the cows they spike it hurts.

It is very effective and now we have one heifer in the milkers wearing one and one heifer in a mixed group of dry cows and young stock wearing one.

Nice colour eh?

Nearly Headless Nick

2010-08-12T13:24:00.000-07:00

About 5 or 6 years ago I found a lump in my neck, after the initial panic I made an appointment to see my GP, the first told me he couldnt feel anything and the second that there was a definite lump, probably a benign cyst. Still I found myself in outpatients having it checked out within a couple of weeks.

Checking it out meant an ultrasound scan and a needle aspiration, basically they stick a needle straight through the front of your neck and into the cyst then suck out what they can, giving it a bit of a wiggle to make sure!!!!!

Its not exactly painful but a really horrible feeling.

Everything came back OK, just a benign thyroid cyst, not uncommon in middle aged women,though they were at pains to point out that this only meant the bits they had checked and who knew what could be going on round the corner.

Since then I have been back every 6 to 12 months for continued checking and testing and my very nice consultant has continued to recommend that I have the cyst and that side of the thyroid gland removed.

Finally I gave in and on Monday I was admitted for surgery. After an initial panic that they might not have a bed for me, all went smoothly, I was first on the list and down in theatre by 8.50 and unconscious by 9.15, back on the ward at 12.30ish and managed to escape home by 3pm the following day. Mind you that took me threatening to walk out before the ward staff got the paperwork sorted.

It was a lot less painful than I was expecting, I wasnt sick after the anaesthetic and the surgeon had dosed me up with local anaesthetic along the inscision.

I just feel bruised and like I have whiplash, a stiff neck. I have an inscision along my lower neck, which currently is covered by some steristrips, a single stitch with a bead at each end. I'm not looking forward to that coming out as they just cut one bead off and pull it through, but as my sister reminded me they have cut a lot of the small nerves to the skin so it wont feel as bad!!!!

Heres a pic of the neck yesterday, 48hrs post op.

I dont think it looks too bad.

Roaming

2010-08-08T09:54:00.000-07:00

While we were in France my mobile phone uses french networks, and we seem to randomly change between them, sometimes while staying in the same place!
It doesnt seem to make much difference, I dont use the phone much on holiday, and then mostly for texting.
When we got back to Portsmouth and were heading back up the motorway I was hugely entertained to recieve the following message from O2, my network.
"Thankyou for travelling with o2 in Iceland"

Iceland!!!!! I was in France

Happy Holidays

2010-08-02T08:28:00.001-07:00

Me(after a few drinks) and Izzy one evening on the campsite.

Gosh a whole month has passed since I last posted, in that time the school year has ended and we have been to france for two weeks.
I think it has rained nearly every day since the beginning of July and the farm is now looking green and lush, while we were away in France Richard had left instructions for the relief staff to buffer feed the milkers and young stock with bales of hay and silage while the drought ridden grass recovered, and certainly despite being up to their knees in grass the young stock seem very disappointed each day that nothing extra arrives.

Our trip to France was not without problems, or its start was, our ferry was booked for 7.30am on monday the 12th and we planned to drive down to stay overnight in Berkshire with my Ma. On sunday morning I popped over to Tescos to pick up a couple of last minute supplies only to find that the car would not accelerate above 40 mph, catastrophe! I came home and got Richard to have a test drive which confirmed that there was a problem. Being sunday we could not get the garage to look at it till monday to I phoned and dalayed the ferry by 24hrs.
Then we just sat and waited till monday morning when we dropped the car at the garage and hoped it would be a minor and easily fixable fault.
No such luck, it was the Turbo and could not be fixed in time.
So we were down to plan B, which was go in the LandRover!

Anyone who has seen our farm vehicle would not choose it as a reliable method of carrying 5 people, 5 bikes and all the junk we need for a 2 week stay, let alone a trip to the Vendee.

But it was that or dont go at all, so it got a quick power wash outside, hoover inside, change of oil and grease some bits underneath. Then we loaded it up and set off to Grannys house..... at a steady 60 mph. I dont think I have ever driven that journey quite so slowly.
Richard decided that given the Landies advanced age, 20 yrs, and the fact that normally it does about 3000 miles a year, we had better take it easy. Also no radio and the roof leaks when it rains. Off to the beach for a picnic on the Isle de Noirmoutier.

But we made it, the LR did us proud and covered all 1400 miles with no problems at all, in fact it was a real handy place to dry swimming towels and cossies and started quite a few conversations on the campsites and in the various carparks we used.

It also makes a good drying rack.

We had a lovely holiday, mostly the sun shone, we ate and drank far too much and I spent many happy hours lying on the beach reading my way through the small library I took with us.

Routine maintenance.

The children swam and played in the pools, waterslides and even in the cold cold sea, we all rode our bikes, some further than others, and generally had a great time.

Really my only complaint was how long the travelling took us.

Happy Friday

2010-07-02T09:56:00.000-07:00

We went to bed last night with steady rain falling outside. Normally there would be nothing special about this, after all we live in the wet north west of England, the west side of the country is much wetter than the east due to the prevailing winds and the Atlantic.
This year has been very dry, I have heard mutterings about an imminent hose pipe ban, and the crops and grass are suffering. Overall we will manage due to the extra land we took on last aytumn but the problem is grass that the cows can walk to. We only have 100 acres here and though we are rotating the herd around it the grass is not showing much recovery by the time we need it again.
Hey, what can you do, If it's not too little rain it's too much, or at the wrong time in the wrong place.
Good job farmers aren't in charge of the weather.

This morning it was sunny again but everywhere was refreshed and smelled green, lovely.

I cant remember if I said before but of the 150 ewe lambs we bought back in the autumn, one turned out to be of the male persuasion, well sort of, he had been castrated and under a woolly coat it's a bit hard to tell what sex they are.
We only discovered a few months ago when R noticed him having a pee, ewes crouch to pee while males just stand there with a vacant expression while the pee comes from under their belly rather than their rear end.
Anyway this was cause for great rejoicing here in the trenches as I wont have to wait for any of this years boy lambs to get big enough to eat. Barbie, the sheeps new name, and short for BBQ went off to slaughter this afternoon, he will be hanging up in a cool dark place for a couple of weeks before being butchered for the freezer.
I brought the liver home with me and we will be having some for supper and I will spend the next few weeks looking through my recipes for lamby inspiration. We have never eaten much lamb, mainly because it is so expensive, so I'm looking forward to it.

We are working up to going on holiday, we have a milker booked and someone to check the sheep, its a complicated business leaving a livestock farm and R will get totally stressed out covering all eventualities. Once we drive away he can mostly put it out of his mind and have a relaxing break. We are going camping in France again which suits us all, not expensive, space for everyone, french food and wine to drink and R gets his agricultural fix peeking over the hedges at french farms. I have not stayed in many hotels and I always feel like I am there under false pretences, and frankly the thought of taking the children to a hotel is not relaxing at all.

Have a good weekend, it's my oldest girls 12th birthday on the 4th July so we will be partying.

Something and Nothing

2010-06-29T11:21:00.000-07:00

I cant understand why so many people dont use indicators while they are driving, do they forget, do they think its too much bother or dont they think about it at all.

Generally I am fairly law abiding when I am in the car, I try to only speed on the motorway and then only when the rest of the traffic is going that fast, I dont use my mobile in the car though I will pass it to a passenger to answer for me.

I'm sure I have lots of bad habits in driving but I do indicate. I think that not only is it good sense to let other drivers know what your intentions are but it's also good manners, in fact it is so automatic to me that I do it when there in no-one to indicate to. I drove back from Manchester late last night in splendid isolation on the roads and indicated at every turn and roundabout, very well trained.

The small town nearest to us has recently changed all the car parks to Pay and Display, there was a huge outcry and many meters of column in the local rag were devoted to all the arguments for and against.

As far as I am concerned it's fantastic, for the princely sum of 30 pence for one hour or 50 pence for two, I can always get a parking space. Frankly there is not much scope for spending longer than that in town, there is a WH Smith, Boots, Superdrug, sundry independent chemists, newsagents and lots of estate agents, banks and charity shops. Oh yes and the Library. Even including the Library I dont think I could spend longer than 2 hours there.

I realise that people who work in town have to park somewhere but it was almost impossible to find a space to park if you were just making a short trip. It still makes me smile being able to choose a parking space after years of not finding one.

I was coming home from Manchester last night after going to see the Scissor Sisters, I was thrilled by their performance which surpassed my expectations. I was not a big fan of Ta Da their last Album as I felt it was too middle of the road, nothing to offend anyone there and not very scissory but Night Work is worth the wait, and they do put on a good show.

A couple of nights ago I was locking up and evicting the cats from the porch when I heard a strange noise outside, I looked and then nipped back in to get my camera and take a picture of this little chap.

I'm sure there are lots of small wild things like hedgehogs round here but we very rarely see them, I'm not sure this one will be back as he scuttled off sharpish after I let off the flash in his eyes, he was tucking into the left over cat biscuits for the farm cats.

Last night there was a toad sitting in the cat plate but it was raining and I didnt take a picture.

Not a Gardener

2010-06-26T09:49:00.000-07:00

I am not a gardener, not at all, and anyone that has actually seen my garden would agree that it is a wilderness. We keep the grass mowed and I do get occasional flurries of enthusiasm and tackle the weeds in some part of the garden, but mostly nature runs riot.
The children all know where the cream for nettle stings lives and how to apply it.
This rose bush thrives in spite of me, every couple of years I hack it back to a shadow of its former self and expect it to give up.

But no it keeps on growing and flowering, it smells gorgeous, particularly with the honeysuckle that has invaded and that I twine along the fence. I am less keen on the virginia creeper that takes over and strangles everything else so I might have to stir myself to pull/dig it all out.

Another welcome seasonal flower is this poppy, they are stunning and seem to glow in the evening light. They are made more precious by their short season of just a couple of weeks, still there is always next year.

Lambs are us

2010-06-13T10:24:00.000-07:00

Just in case anyone was wondering how the lambs were doing, as you can see they are huge and very noisy when separated from the milk bar!

We think that this is Lettuce with her mum and twin brother Cucumber.

And this is the shearing platform, the flat bit where they are shorn is on the other side. The strange white blob high up on the right hand side is a (willing) volunteer sheep to encourage the others up the race. She seemed completely unbothered by it and the girls fed her handfulls of grass.

The shorn sheep came out by Tom's feet and went up into the mobile handling system where we could give them a dose of fly repellant and treat any sore feet before releasing them back into the wild.

There were a couple of sheep who shot out of the shearing rig and immediately hurdled the fence and headed for the hills.......... They will have to take their chances with the flies till we next have them penned up.

I Think We'll Call Them Shorn

2010-06-13T09:44:00.000-07:00

These are our ladies in waiting, the big day has arrived, the shearer is here, we have the woolsacks, or "sheets" as they are known.
The slaughterman came with Moll the dog and son of Moll,( but he was confined to the lead as not being well trained enough for a big job like this,) and all the ewes plus lambs were penned up, about 150 of them. We brought the 4 tups from home, where they are waiting for autumn, and a few "sickies" who have been in the hospital field.
Harvey the shearing man arrived with a fantastic trailer that unfolded into a shearing platform with a race along the top to funnel the sheep to him, and a shute for the shorn ewe to escape down afterwards. Only a couple escaped the wrong way and had to be caught so we could apply the fly repellant they need in the summer.

And this is what they looked like afterwards, the children were astonished at what long necks they have. I just kept giggling as they all looked so surprised.

This is Harvey who has muscles like you wouldn't believe, actually if you saw him wrestling those sheep you would believe it!! That sheep didnt stand a chance.

We laid the fleece out and picked off any dirty wool then folded and rolled it up, then stuffed them into giant pillowcases which we will take to the collection center next week. This is Richard sewing up the woolsheet with the twine and wooden stake provided.

The children all worked like slaves, this is Izzy holding a fleece she has rolled, the pile behind her is the daggy bits we have pulled off.

It was a very long day, after milking in the morning they got all set up over in the field and shearing by 11am, I had to take the girls to ballet lessons in the morning then rushed back home, made sandwiches and got there at 1pm, they stopped for a quick lunch at 2pm them finished and got back home at 7.45, only to milk the cows again, who were not happy at being nearly 4 hours late.

Finally at 9.30 our student went home and Richard came in for supper, we were in bed by 11 and I think Richard was already asleep!

We had a great day but we're glad its only once a year and next year if it falls on a weekday I will be keeping the children home as essential workforce.

Whack-a-moley

2010-05-28T03:01:00.000-07:00

Its not all death and disaster round here, we have long periods of time where nothing dies, calves are born and life is good.
My oldest child would really like some goats, but we have said no as we have more than enough to do with the livestock we have and goats are even worse at escaping than sheep!!!! So he has some bantams, little chickens for those with normal lives, Richard had 50 hens when he was at school and an egg round so he thinks poultry is good.
Tom had 4 bantams but one didn't survive the cold winter and he is desperate for some more and thinks half term would be a good time to go shopping, watch this space!
I dont mind chickens and I love the fresh eggs, the yolks are so yellow that they make sponge cake yellow. The eggs are smaller than hens eggs so if I'm baking I have to weigh them into the mix, but since we only get 2-3 eggs a day I am still having to buy a few eggs and I usually use those for baking and save our own for boiling, frying and making into egg mayo or salad.

Tom has been doing cooking at school in design and technology, its a fairly random sort of cooking, ie not much to give you the basics but he can learn that at home and he does enjoy it. He is year 8, aged 13 and a lot of the children are not interested at all, I think it helps that he likes most food and is very eating orientated, LOL.
This week it was cheese and onion pasties, we had to supply a block of ready made pastry, cheese, chopped onion and an egg, and they were much tastier than I was expecting. The children want to have another go, so next week being half term week we can do so, I will make some pastry and we may add some bacon for added taste.

Our soil here is very sandy, perfect for moles of which we have lots...... Mostly they stick to the fields but occasionally we get one in the garden. At the weekend we woke up to a large mole hill under the swing frame, the children cleared up all the soil heap after I banned just jumping on it to flatten it. Later that day mr mole pushed some more soil up and it turned into a battle, eventually Tom built a small edifice over the opening, he used some bricks and plastered it with mud! Frances decorated it with flowers, as 8yr old girls do, and we went to bed.

The next morning Tom looked out the window and announced that we're goint to need more bricks! Mr mole had simply moved his molehill so a place with no bricks on top. I am not having the garden bricked over so Mr mole has won this battle, we will go back to removing the soil heap and otherwise ignoring it.

Mind you the cats are enjoying watching the earth move, maybe they will dispose of the mole for us.

The children have referred to the whole escapade as "whack-a-moley" or to my ears "guacamole" which makes me giggle every time.

Home Alone

2010-05-25T14:07:00.000-07:00

Once a month Richard goes to an Organic Dairy Farmers discussion group, they take turns having it at each farm so can be anywhere in cheshire, usually I look forward to an evening on my own, where I can get the children into bed in good time then have a couple of hours to watch trashy TV or just sit with a book and a glass of wine.
Tonight was that night so after I had turned the childrens lights out I was going to pour a drink and catch up on Greys Anatomy, but conscience called and I went out to have a check round the sheeps before it got dark, things have been fairly quiet the last few days as we must only have 15 or so left to lamb. But tonight I found a sheep with a little head poking out, not good as there was only a bit of one front leg showing which means it's bent up blocking the exit. Part of me wanted to go back inside and pretend I hadnt seen it but no way could I do that, so I went to open and close gates into the yard and get the crook to try and trap her in a corner so I could get hold of her.
It was not as difficult as I was fearing and I managed to catch her in the field, I have helped Rich with lots of sheep but never on my own, I managed to straighten the leg out and deliver the lamb but it was already dead which made me feel awful, if I had been quicker with the children maybe I could have saved it, I feel very responsible in a way that I dont when Richard is there and the same thing happens.
I took the lamb away as I cant bear it when the night creatures come and nibble on them and marked the ewe with a red spot so we can identify her tomorrow, she does not seem bothered and after lying there for a few minutes got up and wandered over to some other sheep and started grazing.
I have scrubbed my hands and arms, my coat will need another wash and I will forever associate the smell of anti bac hand soap with lambing.

I have a small feeling of achievment that I coped, but not very well, I will try to do better next time.

I think I will have a cup of tea.

Heatwave

2010-05-23T13:25:00.000-07:00

OMG I cant believe how long it has been since I last posted, we have been swept away in a tide of lambs both live and dead, we have lost 2 ewes, one whoes lamb had died inside her and the other had a serious rectal and uterine prolapse, we had the vet back twice to repair her but in the end we had to admit defeat in the face of her continued suffering and have her put down.
We had a tiny lamb that we had bottle fed for a week and called Judy, we had to admit defeat with her also as she couldnt stand or see, all she could do was suck, it was very sad for me as well as the children who had taken turns feeding her before school.
Today is the first day for weeks that we have had no lambs born, we still have about 15-20 sheep to lamb but today, the hottest of the year so far has been very quiet. Hopefully normal service will be resumed tomorrow.
It has been 26 c here today and I cant remember the last time it rained, certainly we have had nothing for the last few weeks, some of the fields are looking a little parched and certainly Richard would be happy with some rain.
There is an old saying that goes,
Ash before Oak you'll get a soak, Oak before Ash you'll get a splash.
This refers to which of the two trees are in leaf first and how wet the summer will be, out oak trees are in full leaf whilst the ash is mostly still in bud, it would be nice to think we will get a better summer than last year.

My brother and his family have been visiting from Australia, which has been fantastic. They have been over here for 3 weeks and have spent a few days in Venice and Paris between visiting with us lot, they came up to the farm for a few days and we shoehorned an extra 5 people into our 4 bedroom house, its like boarding school in the bedrooms, dormitories and queues for the bathroom and the army catering corps in the kitchen, but we all enjoyed ourselves.
My bro is a civil engineer so farm life is a huge novelty to his children, they all had a go on the quad bike and sadly saw a poorly lamb die in front of the Rayburn, if willpower could have saved it "Bob" would have lived for ever.

I promise to download the camera tomorrow and put up some pics, not the ones I found today of my kids mooning !!!!!!!! Those I will save for their 18th birthdays.

Election Day

2010-05-06T08:31:00.000-07:00

Well I have voted but I wont be staying up tonight to see if we have a new government, tomorrow morning will be soon enough for me.

I delivered my first lamb last night, we thought it was dead as it was another one stuck at the neck, but it had to come out anyway. My hands are much smaller than Richards so I got the job, one of the lambs front legs was folded up stopping it from being pushed out but after we got that leg straightened out I was able to gently pull the lamb out. When it fell out it coughed and spluttered and we hung it upside down to make sure its airways were clear then gave it to a very anxious mum who took over. An hour later it was up and nursing.

Anyone who has been through labour will remember that feeling of your body trying to turn itself inside out, I had huge sympathy for the ewe and her struggles and its only the knowledge that she would have died if we did nothing that made me do it. I'm so glad she got a live baby at the end.

No pics as I was too busy....... not to mention not very clean!

Its Amazing

2010-05-04T09:21:00.000-07:00

Sad little lamb in the kitchen slept most of the afternoon, she had a couple of feeds, the second from a bottle, then woke up at about 6pm, she leapt to her feet, jumped out of the box and went looking for a mummy.

It was hard to believe that this was the sad critter that lay in the box, frankly she was a nuisance while I was making supper. We decided that we would try putting her back with her mum and brother in the field and as you can see all is well, in fact its hard to tell which is which, she is the darker of the two and nearer the ewe.

We have had another 3 lambs today, all well and this one looks like he was born last week, instead of only a couple of hours ago.

Life and Death

2010-05-03T06:47:00.000-07:00

My mother in law says "where you've livestock you've deadstock" and it is certainly true. We had a lamb born yesterday that was very small and despite our best efforts to warm it up it died in the kitchen in front of the rayburn, tears were shed over it.

Today we have another casualty, a twin who got stuck at the neck, her little head is all swollen and she is not managing to nurse, her mum is much more interested in the other twin who is doing fine, so we have brought the poorly one in, tubed it with some lamb milk and it's in a cardboard box beside the rayburn.

We have done all we can for now, its wait and see time, but I do feel that I should do more and I will be very sad if this one dies as well.

Little Lambs

2010-05-01T10:02:00.000-07:00

Yay we have lambs, the first was born about 9pm last night, and two more today.

So far mums and babes seem to be doing fine. We have made notices for the kissing gates warning users of the public footpath that these are lambing sheep and asking that they keep dogs on leads. So far so good.

Its not all good though as we had dead twins yesterday, not a good start but out of our control.

The children have been out to touch the lambs, and were surprised to find they are not as soft as they look, maybe their wool needs to grow a bit.

We did get a disturbed night as the flock woke us at 2am with lots of baa-ing, we couldnt see anything and it might have been a fox or badger, hopefully they wont do it every night. Richard thinks it may have something to do with the fact that there are no mature/experienced sheep in our flock, they are all just over a year old, we are all learning together!

Silence of the Jams

2010-04-28T10:11:00.000-07:00

We get through quite a lot of jam and marmalade here in the trenches and when I have the fruit available I like to make my own. I'm not sure that it works out cheaper than shop bought but I do know what has gone into it.

We had a marmalade crisis at the weekend, as in we ran out, and R has had to have honey on his toast instead, so that was top of the list. I buy the seville oranges in january, the only time they are available, and pop them in the freezer. My recipe works from frozen fruit which saves me from spending a whole week making marmalade in one go. The only bit I dont like is chopping the peel, I have tried doing it in the food processor but its just not right so I'll stick with the big knife.

Since I had to dig in the freezer I also got out some Damsons to make jam. These came from our own tree and we had a really good crop last autumn. Again I freeze them raw in bags then use as I need for crumbles jam or simply stewed. Damsons are easy to make jam with as they have loads of pectin and reach setting point quickly. The only fiddly bit is getting the stones out, the recipes usually tell you that the stones float to the surface and you can skim them off........ not mine they dont, I usually cook the fruit till they are all fallen to pieces then cool it and using a fork and my fingers fish out most of the stones. There are always a few remaining but that just proves its made from real fruit.

End result 11lbs of Seville Orange Marmalade and 14 lbs of Damson Jam. the store cupboard is looking full again.

Beautiful Feet

2010-04-22T08:49:00.000-07:00

Our cows are hard working ladies and given that they are not exactly size zero, their feet suffer, they get overgrown and the hooves curl up at the front like arabian slippers.

Cows have cloven hooves like sheep and goats, and sometimes they get infections between the two digits.

Both these things cause pain and a sore cow is not a happy cow, she just wants to sit down and not visit the manger and eat, no eating and drinking means no milk then we also become sad.

Richard sorts out foot problems as we go, but once a year we get the Foot trimmer to come and go through all those in the herd that need a bit of tidying up. Its very impressive, he has a specialised trimming crush which is the size of a cattle trailer, it holds the cow securely so she cant damage herself or the operator. It has motorised winches to lift each of the cows feet in turn and hold them while he trims the hoof with a knife then finishes with an angle grinder, think emery board for cows. They don't get nail varnish but if they have an interdigital infection they get purple foot spray!

After a few cows it looks like it has snowed with all the trimmings scattered around. Afterwards the cows mince about as if wearing the wrong size shoes, but by the next day they are walking much better.

Spring has been very late here, and even now we don't have much grass as the soil is still too cold. However the cows are out, and very happy to have grass to eat and sun on their backs.

The hedges are just coming into leaf and the Damson trees have blossom, the apples and plums have swelling buds but no more and since we are still getting night frosts I hope they hold off a bit longer.

The daffs were all very late but they we had a fantastic display as they all seemed to come at once, I have been driving past these on the village green while doing the school run for a couple of weeks and only yesterday stopped to take a picture, they are past their best but still lovely.

We are working up to bringing the sheep home to lamb next week, the field is now sheep proof, I have to make some notices warning dog walkers to be extra careful as there is a public footpath across the field.

The children are filled with excitement and if they don't get an orphan or rejected lamb to look after I think they plan to kidnap one.

Richard and I are worried as it's all new to us. ETA is the 8th may but probably from the 1st onwards........

We are Expecting!

2010-03-24T10:20:00.000-07:00

Of our 153 ewe lambs we have 23 not pregnant, 117 expecting one lamb and 13 expecting twins. I was initially a bit disappointed by this but as the whole flock are first time mothers and we are first time shepherds it is no bad thing for all of us to have a slow start.

We had a man called Gus to scan the sheep, he brought a little trailer with all his gear in it, which fitted onto the end of our handling system and unfolded into a small cabin with space for him, a chair and the scanning machine. The sheep ran alonside in a race and he held the scanning head underneath them one at a time. He had a small screen in the cabin to see what was going on inside each animal. I had the job of spray painting the sheep to reflect their status, a blue spot for twins, a green spot for singles and a red spot for any we were worried about, the empty ones were left spotless!

I think I will have to get more practice in before next year as they are more Focus DIY than Pantone coloured sheep.

We took advantage of putting them all through the handling system to vaccinate them, its a basic all in one vaccine for sheep that will protect the lambs as well. Needless to say they are not cooperative and its a matter of grab them and jab them.

We use a gun to do this as it's much quicker and safer for the user, the Heptavac bottle comes with a loop in the base to clip to a lanyard so you can wear it round your neck. The system really comes into its own when you have huge flocks to vaccinate but even for us it saved loads of time and R only stuck it in himself once!

It automatically refils itself when you release the grip and we change the needle when it gets blunt or bent! As you see the whole kit fits nicely in an old icecream tub which stops it from sliding around in the back of the landrover.

We have to give them all a second dose in a few weeks time. Meanwhile the 4 tups are back here looking bored as they are on holiday till this november.

Play dates for the livestock

2010-03-21T05:25:00.000-07:00

We dont have a sheepdog of our own, 160 sheep would not really be enough work for one and I hate the idea of keeping the dog on a chain in the yard for large parts of the day.

So when we need to move the sheep we get our friendly local slaughterman to come with his dog Moll. She is beautifully trained and lives to work sheep, John only has 20 sheep but helps out for several farms with only small flocks and it fits in well with his dayjob.

On friday John rang to ask if we wanted the sheep moved as he had a buyer for one of his puppies and he wanted to demonstrate Moll's (the puppies mother) working skills. We didnt need the sheep moving but said he was welcome to take Moll over for a quick "play" with them. John, Moll and the buyer all had a lovely time, I'm not sure whether the sheep enjoyed it as much but frankly they need the practice.

This week we are ultrasounding the sheep to see how many lambs we are expecting!!!!!

More catching up!

2010-03-15T10:22:00.000-07:00

I was laid low with a cold last week, I thought I had got away with no colds this winter but the fates were listening and the children must have found a new set of bugs to bring home from school.

I think I have already mentioned that all this computer technology is a bit of a struggle, likewise I only gave up my trusty film camera for digital a few years ago. When we got this computer it came with Adobe Photoshop album starter 3 on it, and since we just empty the camera when it gets full and leave the pictures there, we have hardly used it and we hadnt bothered to register on it, just kept pressing the "register later" button. Last week it warned me that I only had a couple more uses unless I registered, so finally I did........ to be sent a message saying that Photoshop album starter was discontinued!!!!!! and I basically would have to buy another photo management system. As you can imagine I was ticked off and decided to consult the local computer shop about what they recommended, in the meantime I googled it and after wandering through some advice forums found someone who had the same problem and had found a solution.

This gave a false email address to register with and when you sent it there was also a log in code, obviously I couldnt get the right one as 1) its discontinued and 2) it wasnt my email address. Anyway I considered what could go wrong!!!!! and used the code and HEY PRESTO it all works, I can access the photos already on there and continue to use the programme. Result.

The farmer behind us has a shoot accross his farm and raises pheasants for it , he also shoots over us, we are not into guns and our landlords rent the shooting rights to him, in return for the battle of the Somme being re-enacted a couple of weekends each winter he brings us a bag of game. I was a bit wary till I found that they are already plucked and drawn, I do know how to do it but its right there with gutting fish in my least favourite activities.

He usually brings a mix of pheasant and mallard ducks, I love pheasant casserole so we use them up but the ducks just get chucked in the freezer. Last week I got some of the ducks out in the interest of using them up and made a casserole with bacon onion garlic and redwine, people it was awful, truly awful and went to the cats. I have no idea how long they had been in the freezer but it was too long, and the next day I chipped my way through the last iceage and any remaining ducks have gone to the bin. Just in time as the game keeper came over the next day with some more, needless to say I have put the date on these and we will use them up quickly. Once I can persuade the children that they will be edible this time.

The three small ones at the top are ducks the rest are yummy pheasants.

Catching up

2010-03-07T06:55:00.000-08:00

Oops a few days seem to have sped by, in my defence friday was a bit of a blur after the late night before.

Mumford and Sons were fantastic, the best gig I've been to in a while, they were very enthusiastic and rather sweet about how many people were there, before this tour they were playing pubs so the Manchester Academy 1 must have seemed huge.

As expected there were lots of students there, I got my hand kissed for helping one young man find his very drunk girlfriend in the crowd....... it must be the parent in me as I find it hard to pass by on the other side.

We had to move our small flock of sheep before the weekend as the parkland they are on is needed for a Farmers Market the first sat of the month, we got our friend Murphy (the local slaughterman) and his dog Moll to come and help us and she did the job in a few minutes, she loves to work that dog and would rather have spent the rest of the day sorting them into different groups, height order, colour, length of ears, anything rather than get back in the truck and go home! Still I'm sure we will need her help again soon.

We have just bought a mobile sheep handling system, which is a load of hurdles, gates, handles and the like that sit on a trailer or can be set out as pens and races to group sheep so you can sort them and do any jobs like foot trimming.

R set the whole thing out on the yard yesterday, well not all the hurdles, and the children played at being sheep, they particularly liked the guillotine gate, but managed not to trap any heads in it. We have about 20 sheep back here in a small paddock for remedial foot care and they are getting a bit less jumpy around us, helped by extra feed! but strangely none volunteered to try out their new play equipment.

We have also got some of the ploughing done that didnt make it last autumn, most of it is being sown with Triticale, which is similar to a cross between rye and barley and does well on an organic system. It seems very spring like to have the plough going under a lovely blue sky till you look and the hedges which have no signs of growth and the grass which is dry and shrivelled, even the cows are not interested yet.

Great News

2010-03-04T06:25:00.000-08:00

Today is the second part of our TB Test, on monday the vet came to inject each bovine animal on the farm with 2 samples of TB.
They are injected in the side of the neck with small gun like devices, this means getting each group of animals out of the buildings and putting them in the crush one at a time, then injecting them and putting them back in the buildings.
For our 60 cow herd plus young stock it takes about 2 hours, they dont like it and we worry that they will show signs of TB when the vet comes back to check.
Today was come back and check day and HOORAY no TB, so now we have 12 months till the next test.

We never used to worry about TB here as in the 13 yrs we have been here we have always passed the test. We dont buy any cows in and though we have an active badger sett on the farm we assumed they must be TB free.
But last spring we FAILED the TB test or at least 2 cows did, as per ministry rules they were taken away, slaughtered, autopsied and samples taken for culture. We could not sell any animals so the bull calves had to stay. We were paid the standard compensation for the lost cows which didnt take any notice of our organic status and we were retested 60 days later.
We had another reactor then who was also taken and again we were retested in 60 days, fortunately that time we were clear and the neither the autopsy or tissue culture confirmed TB.

This week was our next 12 monthly test and we are so relieved to be officially TB free.

We dont know what caused last years problems, possibly the badgers who travel far and wide, but since they are protected we can do nothing about them, we dont buy cows at all so it remains a mystery.

We are off out tonight to see Mumford and Sons play in Manchester, I have heard them described as indie folk or folk rock, I never really understand some music classification.
I bought the tickets months ago after hearing an ad for their CD and buying a download of it.

I have solved the logistical nightmare of three children,brownies, guides and a babysitter with very helpful friends, all we need now is no agricultural disasters and we are set.

Feels like Spring

2010-03-02T05:59:00.000-08:00

Its gorgeous weather here today, blue sky, a few clouds, still. The birdies are giving it whatfor while the cats slink about looking hopeful.

However the illusion of perfect spring day fades when you go outside as R is mucking out the cow shed. We keep our herd of 60 milkers on deep straw, no cubicles, which means that we add a covering of new straw every day, the bedding needs completely removing every 4 to 5 weeks. R uses a Manitou digger thing to do this and the muck is pilled in a field to compost till it can be spread as fertiliser and soil conditioner.
The cows love the large quantity of new straw they get to start again and run around like preschoolers, this does a good job of spreading it evenly.
The only downside is the smell that hangs around while its going on, specially annoying when its a good drying day.

Still the sun is shining .

2010-02-28T16:10:00.000-08:00

This is what I have waiting for me this week, its not as bad as it looks as we have borrowed a hydraulic splitter and I dont have to stack the wood, just chuck it in the old potato boxes, then they are stacked in the shed to finish drying.
Most of the wood came from the local National Trust House who were trimming the trees round their carpark.
My older children had a go with the machine and assured me I would be OK.

The Age Gap

2010-02-26T06:08:00.000-08:00

My oldest daughter is 11 and in her first year at high school, she came home earlier this week with a request for some raw vegetables as they were doing "knife skills" in Design and Technology today.
The first thing that sprang to mind was those knife throwing performances you used to see on variety shows when I was young!!!!!
Fortunately for all concerned it merely refers to lessons in the best way to cut up peppers, cucumber and celery.
R and I shake with suppressed laughter every time we think about it, the children in pairs, taking turns with the knife, and the teacher with a supply of plasters. It seems to be an age thing as most of the other grown ups I have mentioned it to have the same mental image.

Today has been wet here, very wet. The fields have small pools in them and the sheep are a bit bedraggled looking. I am glad it is really wet and not merely damp as there are several tonnes of wood waiting next to the splitter for someone to process. But it would be mad to do it when everything is so wet so I get to mess around in the house instead. Maybe tomorrow will be drier.

2010-02-25T10:49:00.000-08:00

I cant help feeling that this is an exercise in self indulgence, but nevermind I'll have a go anyway.

It is just somewhere for me to talk about things that happen, have a moan or a laugh and see where it goes. I have been thinking about it for months and I can spend/waste hours reading other peoples blogs, if I hate it I can stop and if no-one reads it thats OK too.

I aim to learn how to post pictures and other useful stuff, I'm working from a fairly low level of computer literacy here so it might take a while.