Winnie; Royal Highland Show; Cheese cave - The Accidental Smallholder

Posted: Sunday 26 June, 2016

by Rosemary at 9:52am in Smallholding 2 comments Comments closed

Monday

Been another glorious day here but windy – a good drying day! We’ve been working on the “cheese cave” – the old fridge out of the caravan. I’ve given it a good clean and Dan’s been setting up the temperature gauge. It looks good – hope it works.

My pony, Smokey, has a cough, so the vet’s coming out tomorrow. Other than that, it’s been paperwork day, as Monday always is.

The trailer is booked in to the dealer’s for repair a week tomorrow. Hope they can fix it in time to take cow and calf to the Game Fair.

Tuesday

Sunny again and breezy. The cheese cave is working. Yay!

Cheese cave up and running with STC-1000 controller.

Smokey’s cough seems to come and go and there are no other symptoms – I noticed him coughing after grooming Lucy. Could it be a mouthful of hair that’s causing it? Vet cancelled meantime.

Heptavac’d the lambs with their second dose and applied Crovect to the nineteen lambs and ten ewes at Barry Mill. They were good as gold. Put in Wallace and Winter’s tags – that didn’t make us very popular but they’d forgiven me by the 2pm feed.

Six litres of milk today – so the pigs got some to help clear the backlog. We may need to get another fridge. Noticed Blizz had milk tonight; checked her at 10pm when I was feeding the lambs and she was clearly calving.

Heifer calf born just after 11pm – black and white; both mum and calf fine.

Rosedean Windward (Winnie).

Wednesday

Hmm, the new calf has contracted tendons in her front fetlock joints. Consequently, she’s walking on her “wrists”. However, she’s feeding fine, although it’s obviously hard work for her. She’s walking around and starting to walk on tippy toes, which is progress.

Spoke to the vet and he has advised waiting until Saturday to see if it sorts itself out; otherwise, she’ll have casts or splints applied for a couple of weeks. Still thinking about a W name.

Dan’s been helping to set up the Rare Breed Survival Trust stand at the Royal Highland Show today – he’s asleep standing up, because I got him up at 3am because I was worried about the calf, poor soul.

GOS Weaners on the RBST stand at the RHS.

And I’ve got a whopper of a black eye – I was moving the calf last night and Blizz looked round, catching me in the face with her horn. It’s not painful unless I poke it – worse are the nettle stings on my arm.

Thursday

The good weather continues – showers with warm sunny spells – you can see the grass growing. I moved the steers and bull into a new paddock today and they’ve put some weight on in the last week – they’re all sleek and shiny now.

The new heifer calf has been named Rosedean Windward (Winnie). Thankfully her legs are getting better and I’ve stopped worrying about it now. We brought Blizz and Winnie into the parlour today but didn’t milk her – it was just a practice run.

Rosedean Shetlands cows and calves - the whole gang coming in for milking.

Friday

Mix of sun and showers today. I was at the Highland Show on the RBST stand. Much discussion about the results and possible consequences of the EU referendum vote. I was spot on in my prediction of how the vote would go – wish I’d had a flutter on the result.

No milking today since I was away but Dan started making feta cheese.

Saturday

Sun and showers today. Milked early as we were going out to friends. Eight litres from the two cows; will start milking Blizzard tomorrow. Winnie’s legs continue to improve.

Wallace and Winter are now on two feeds a day – 7am and 7pm. If they start to lose condition, I’ll reinstate the third feed. They don’t seem very interested in cake. Wallace is lame but I can’t identify a problem. If it’s no better by Monday, I’ll call the vet.

The veg garden is burgeoning in this weather and so are the weeds in the fruit garden. Cleaned out the three hen houses – not my favourite job but always satisfying when it’s done.

Sunday

Dan’s at the Highland again today. He’ll be late home as he’s bringing back all the “stuff” – although not the pens. It always takes an age to get the car into the showground after the event.  

Tara and I milked tonight. Went OK for a first time together. Blizzard was fine with the machine as long as Winnie was at her head – but Winnie had other ideas and wanted to explore. We ‘re going to have to modify the system soon – Paulo and Pedro are getting quite big and boisterous – a combination of three lively calves and a milking machine isn’t a good one.

Got ten litres tonight. I think we need to get a milk fridge that we can run at a lower temperature, for chilling down the milk.

Wee Wallace is limping but he does know what cake is now – Winter isn’t interested yet. If he’s still limping tomorrow, I’ll get the vet out.

Our next door neighbours have given us a peach tree, which we’re going to put in the polytunnel. They have the parent tree in their tunnel and it does very well.