Diary

April 2020RSS feed

Trifle / Topping / Turnout

Monday 6 April, 2020

by Rosemary at 2:12pm in Smallholding Comments closed

Monday 30th March

Lovely spring day – mostly sunny and genuinely warm, with little wind. Turned out the steers at East PItkerro; one of the red steers made a huge leap out of the shed and spread-eagled on the concrete. He seems fine and has probably run off any problem but he’ll be sore when the adrenalin drops. The other red steer and Archie picked their way down on the grassy side and Charlie didn’t want to go out at all – but eventually he did and the four of them took off round the 16 acre field that will be their home for the summer. They did chase the tups but I think that’ll pass. Fingers crossed. They’ve got a bale of hay and a licky bucket to see them OK.

Niamh / Rushes / Pigs

Monday 13 April, 2020

by Rosemary at 6:29pm in Smallholding Comments closed

Monday 6th April

Sunny but so windy again. Dan had office work this morning then got the chainsaw out to prep timber for splitting and cut kindling; then he was off harrowing Laing’s Field.

No7 had twin ewes about lunchtime. Only Niamh (12th) and Kit (28th) to go, so a few unbroken night’s sleep in prospect. Picked up hay and took two bales to East Pitkerro but the steers had plenty left, so left two bales in the shed; then picked up two bales for here.

Cake / Cash / Lambs

Monday 20 April, 2020

by Rosemary at 3:41pm in Smallholding Comments closed

Monday 13th April

Fox took all the meat chicks overnight. Dan and I feel utterly awful – him because he should have repaired the run properly and me because I should have kept them in the box until the repair was done. So cross with ourselves. Don’t know if we’re going to get more this year – but if we don’t we’ll not be eating chicken.

Cooler and overcast, so we did the housework – well, vacuuming and washing the kitchen floor.  Dan did some knitting – my waistcoat is fairly coming on – then he went up to the orchard for an hour.

Grass / Potatoes / Rolling

Monday 27 April, 2020

by Rosemary at 5:28pm in Smallholding 1 comment Comments closed

Monday 20th April

More sunshine. Smokey’s sound, so as a treat, he got 10 minutes grazing in the vegetable garden. I paid bills and Dan dealt with his comfrey orders

DanMr Comfrey.

Tuesday 21st April

Grass seed man is  coming tomorrow, mid morning so the gate needs to be opened and the grass seed left out. Dan and I spent a couple of hours clearing up rushes that were topped harrowed and dumped over the fence onto the railway siding – they’re now in corner of field. Nothing worthwhile grew there anyway and the fences both on to the railway siding and to the corner house were pretty poor, so we’ll put a new line of fence across the corner before the cattle go out.

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