First frost
Saturday 5 November, 2011
We've had our first frost this morning. It's a beautiful day - clear blue sky and bright sunshine, but cold, so I had to root out the wooly hats and gloves.
I've given the ewe lambs some hay this morning. The paddock they are on resembles a bowling green, since the ponies have been on it all summer. The hay rack has a lid so the hay won't spoil and they can pick away at it if they want to. They also have a molassed lick and they're getting a handful of sheep nuts late afternoon. The feed is really to get them used to coming to a bucket.
All done
Saturday 12 November, 2011
It's been an unseasonably warm week - but I'm not complaining. The grass is still growing and it hasn't been too wet, and that suits me just fine.
Leo has now served his nine ewes. We changed the raddle from yellow to green today and we'll be looking for green bums for the next couple of weeks - hopefully, there won't be any and he can go back into the orchard with Dickie at the end of the month. Leo's such a docile big boy - I just slapped the raddle on in the field, while Dan held his head (I'm not sure that was really needed though).
Lambs away
Monday 14 November, 2011
Well, that's Dan off to the abattoir with the five tup lambs. Will I ever stop getting a twinge the morning they go? I've been awake since 5am.
This was the best loading we've done - because they loaded themselves. Yesterday at 4pm, Dan reversed the trailer close to the field gate; after dropping the ramp and opening the trailer gates, we built a little pen from the back of the trailer to the field gate itself and called the lambs in. When we cosed the field gate behind them, they were enclosed in a small pen comprising the open trailer and maybe a couple of square metres of grass. The trailer was straw bedded and they had a bucket of water. We left them there overnight.
November bird ringing
Monday 14 November, 2011
Peter, from the British Trust for Ornithology (and Barry Mill), was here yesterday doing the last bird ringing of the year. Our sparrow breeding programme has obviously been successful as he had to release some birds without recording, because he ran out of bags.
Yesterday's tally was 59 new birds and 7 retrapped ones. Of the 59 new birds, 40 were house sparrows, 7 Great Tits, 3 Blackbirds, 3 Blue Tits, 3 Coal Tits, 1 Wren, 1 Dunnock and, the highlight, a juvenile male Great Spotted Woodpecker. What a handsome chap he was.
Cattle drive
Sunday 20 November, 2011
We moved Breeze, Blizzard and Henry into a fresh field on Friday. This was the first time we'd moved Henry anywhere.
What a laugh - the girls went on their halters and Henry followed - at a gallop. There was straw lying in the gateway of the field he was leaving and he "couldn't" get over it - except with a huge jump. That made him tear excitedly round the next paddock. Then he lost sight of Breeze and Blizzard, which set him off bawling, so Bliz and I had to go back and pick him up.
Green bums
Sunday 20 November, 2011
Nellie and Jura have green bums. We changed Leo's raddle last weekend to green, hoping we wouldn't see it used. TBH, there was a question mark against Nellie - although she was very faintly yellow, I wasn't sure she'd been tupped. She's now very, very green, so I've no doubt he's well and truly caught her this time.
Jura is always last; she did have a yellow bum, but in the three years she's lambed previously, she's always been last, sometimes by 10 days or so.
Apple trees
Tuesday 22 November, 2011
Dan's finally ordered the first batch of apple trees for the orchard - 69 of them. They are a mixture of dessert and cookers, about 12 varieties, I think. They are all early fruiters, since they will be at the far end of the orchard. The next block will be mid season and the third block, late fruiters.
Rabbit guards and tree ties also ordered - stakes will come from Coventry Fencing, since they are the best price we've found.
All we need to know now is when they are coming so that we can set aside time to plant them.
Storing carrots
Monday 28 November, 2011
It's been a lovely day here today - I even managed to get two loads of washing dried outside - so I spent some time in the vegetable garden. My job for today was to lift the remaining carrots.
Even though we hadn't thinned them much, we still had a really good crop. Dan has stored them in sand in trugs, in the workshop where it's cool, dry and dark.
Lamb carcases
Monday 28 November, 2011
I drove down to St Andrew's last week to have a look at our lamb carcases before they were butchered. I thought they looked pretty good compared to the others in the chill.
There was the most enormous cattle beast - it looked like a whale. A half weighed 208kg, so the live animal was probably in the region of 700kg. There were some huge turkeys too - 17 and 19kg. I don't think they would fit in our oven
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