March 2018 - The Accidental Smallholder

Beast from the east

Monday 5 March, 2018

by Rosemary at 3:32pm in Smallholding Comments closed

Monday 26^th February

Wee bit of snow on the roofs this morning but none on the ground. Not looking forward to “the Beast from the East”. We’re usually at the tail end of any weather fronts but looks like we’ll be in the frontline of this one.

Linda tidied up where the wood’s been cut – all looking very neat!

Tagged Missy this morning; she was tagged as a calf of course,  but managed to lose both tags, which is quite an achievement.

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Thaw / Steers out / Hogget / Orchard

Monday 12 March, 2018

by Rosemary at 4:07pm in Smallholding Comments closed

Monday 5^th March

Most of the snow has now gone; it’s been grey and rainy and miserable but at least the taps have unfrozen. After the thaw, the flooding.

Culvert our fields eventually drain into.

Feeling a bit sorry for the sheep; the four single bearing ewes, the tup and the wether are in the pig pen. It’s pretty wet and there’s no grass – but they have the hay rack and a licky bucket.

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Heifers away / EYF! / Tom / Ponies

Monday 19 March, 2018

by Rosemary at 2:52pm in Smallholding Comments closed

Monday 12^th March

Grey and overcast, but at least it’s dry. Did paperwork and caught up with emails.

Arranged a visit from our local EHO to discuss selling home baking – we’re due an inspection anyway.

Delighted to see Whyte, the limpy calf, now bouncing about!

Had a bit of a run-in with Urquhart, our tup. Now, he’s usually pretty amenable and he needs to be, because he weighs about 110kg. Today, he butted me when I went to put hay in. Then he did it again. And that was plain daft.

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Lambing prep / Fruit & veg gardens / Spring cleaning

Monday 26 March, 2018

by Rosemary at 9:34am in Smallholding Comments closed

Monday 19^th March

Spring’s back – although nor sure for how long, but we’ll enjoy it while it lasts.

Bug has been breaching the electric fence, so that was a top job today. I think I’ve beaten him.

Turned out the two young steers at EP; they were very excited. I’ll feed them some sugar beet for a week or so, to get them used to coming to the call and car horn.

Our next door neighbours were in their veg garden today and kindly donated some blown Brussel sprouts to the sheep – they were gratefully received.

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