This photo shows the result of what happens when you have a heat wave and no rain of any consequence for over two months. Unlike farmers in the eastern counties whose fields seem to have turned to a golden /grey coloured dried dust bowl, our fields have fared a lot better. The price was still paid and we basically had little or no grass growth over the drought period. This is what our second…
We have Swallows
I was wondering why our car was getting covered in bird poop and here is the reason. They must have started building the nest late in June and this is where they got to when this piccy was take on 7th of July. We checked it from time to time, but there didn’t seem to be any activity up until now in mid August. If you creep in quietly you can see a beak…
First Silage Cut of the Year
It’s that time of year when in the late evenings all is quiet in the countryside except for the chirping of Crickets and the melodic drone of the cutter as farmers do their first silage cut of the year….
Spring Silage Cut 2019
Bails from our late Spring first silage cut Top field3Pipe field4First field5Ivytree field4Total Yield16
Big Mushrooms
Big mushrooms in the Paddock. While not able to identify these at the time, the subsequent acquisition of ‘The Collins Complete Guide to British Garden Wildlife’ indicates these are likely to be ‘Brown Rollrim’, which are hight poisonous.
Dairy Doors
Today is dairy door day, but first we had to make the door frames. These were made from 50x 100mm tanalised timber which were bolted into the granite blocks behind with expanding bolts. These were a pain and I now regret not using ‘Thunderbolts’ as these just thread their way into the block just like a woodscrew. To prevent water getting into the dairy, I used a row of brick blocks to form a…
The Beast from the East
The Beast from the East was forecast to hit by lunchtime on Wednesday and on cue, it did. Here it comes….. The forecast was for temperatures to fall to -1C, but we had -5.5C by late evening and the lowest recorded was -10C….Brrrrr. I did venture out and have never experienced high winds coupled with such low temperatures at the same time.
The MkII Bird Feeder.
Mk1 Bird Feeder With the Deluxe MKI bird feeder destroyed during a storm, we decided on one last attempt and resurrecting the ultimate and bomb proof bird feeder, using as many of the original components as possible. First we had to dismantle the MkI. That wasn’t too difficult as it fell apart as the slightest knock. With everything broken down we could then decided how large the new structure could be once we had…
The Dairy Workshop.
We were supposed to have started work on the workshop over the Christmas break, but never seemed to get round to starting. However, with New Year well out of the way and a little bit of settled weather, we got going. First in were the uprights. They are bolted to the roof beams at the top and the wall at the bottom. With not a single flat or straight surface, all we had to…
Stonewall Rebuild
This has been one of those jobs that was at the top of the list when we got the tractor. Finally got round to start rebuilding the fallen walls around the policies. The first one completed was in the Ivytree Field. First you have to dig out all the fallen rock and most of the soil back down to either ground level, or at least something that is stable. The other side was looking…