Officially Spring
Posted: Monday 21 March, 2016
So, weather-wise, it’s been a pretty good week. Yesterday (Sunday) was officially the first day of Spring or the Festival of Ostara or the vernal equinox – and that means the days are now longer than the nights.
I vaccinated the four cows with Bravoxin 10 last week and the two big cows, Blizz and Annie, went up to our rented grazing on Saturday, to run with the bull and steers until mid May, when we bring them home to calve in early June. Two of the steers are Blizzard’s sons – Hamish and Robbie. Robbie thought he might try a wee feed but Blizz wasn’t impressed. We moved them all to three fresh paddocks. There’s not much grass so they also have a bale of straw and their licky bucket.
Dan and I tried to move the bull and steers during the week, but we're so wimpy and they were so terrified of stepping off the grass verge on to the tarmac drive, that we put them back in their old field. On Saturday, the farmer we buy our hay off, and his Dad, gave us a hand and the four beasts behaved beautifully. Lindsay never even took his hands out of his pockets - the cattle obvioulsy knew that they were facing a professional and capitulated :-)
Rosie and Vicki went out today, here at Dalmore. They had a real rodeo before settling down to graze what little grass there is. They’ll still get some sugar beet in the afternoon, mainly to keep them tame, and a bit of hay.
We had John and his mini digger here today mucking out the barn; all the muck went to the local community garden. Bumper crops next year, courtesy of Blizz and her girls! I’ll finish off the barn this week and get it pressure washed, ready for the ewes to come in next weekend.
Our tup, High Edge Taylor, is going off next Saturday to a new home in Wales. He’s been a grand boy and I’ll be sorry to see him go, but we have some of his daughters and for our small numbers, keeping more than one tup is a hassle I can do without.
One of the ewe hoggs at one of our rented grazings has a right dirty bum, I noticed today, so we’ll need to get up this week and get her cleaned up. I’ll give her a dose of wormer as well. I couldn’t see if any of the rest is the same, but we’ll certainly check them all. We need to get that done a.s.a.p. as the warmer weather might bring out the flies.
Although our fields look quite green, it’s actually moss so, if it stays dry, we’ll be out with the harrow at the weekend. I’ll need to get some grass seed too. I wonder if we can get a grass box for the top of the harrow. Mental note to add to list,
The piglets we are buying as weaners were born yesterday – twelve of them (although we’re only getting three). All things being equal, they’ll be here mid-May.
My chum Janet and I attended the Edinburgh Yarn Festival on Friday. Janet has volunteered to teach me to crochet so that I can make a blanket with our wool, when it comes back from the mill. Enjoyed the day in the big city but couldn’t live there J
And we’ve had some very good news on the Scottish Smallholder Festival front but I can’t say anything just yet.
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