Diary

Catching up and stumbling onRSS feed

Posted: Monday 29 February, 2016

by Rosemary Champion at 10:23am in Smallholding Comments closed

It’s been a short week for me – because it included two days travelling to and from the nano-dairying course and two days at the course itself. And since I came back on Saturday evening, I’ve been catching up with a few chores that didn’t get done while I was away.

The bags have arrived for the fleeces, so I’m off to pack them up just as soon as I’ve finished this. I’m quite excited and a bit apprehensive as it’s a big financial investment. I just hope we’ll be able to recoup it.

I spent yesterday starting to clear out the workshop. It’s become a dumping ground and we’re thinking about having it insulated and lined to make it a bit more useable. So we’d better clear it up enough to let the joiner see the walls – and that involves a car boot sale. Linda’s in charge of that task.

I also need to muck out the byre as I think I’ll use it for milking this year. It needs a few adaptations but it should be sound.

I changed the licks for the pregnant ewes from a standard “forage booster” to a prelambing formula – my goodness, they’ve been going hard at them. I’ll need to go for more later on today. While I’m at the agri store, I’ll get the bits and pieces I need for the lambing box. Not too bad this year, since I still have stuff left from last year that’s in date or “perpetual”.

The steers and bull needed a fresh bale of straw at the weekend; this is their third one this winter and there’s another three at Astwood, which should see them through to the grass. I haven’t bought any straw this year, but I’ll get two from our hay man to see the cows through until turnout then to bed the shed for lambing.

I won’t write here about the course. I have promised to write a report for our breeders’ association and for “The Ark” so I will kill three birds with one stone and publish it here as well.

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