Smallholding

Diary

Bertie's stump / Gwenna / Rosie's neck / Wood store

Monday 11 September, 2017

by Rosemary at 11:04am in Smallholding Comments closed

Monday 28^th August

Dry, overcast and windy – but warm. Feels a bit stormy.

If you read last week’s diary post, you’ll know that Bertie Cat had part of his tail amputated this morning.

Bertie's stump Bertie and his stump, confined to barracks.

He’s home and seems fine but is confined to barracks at least until Thursday – and he doesn’t like it.

Meet Gwenna / Wood store / Apiary / Bertie's tail

Wednesday 30 August, 2017

by Rosemary at 9:49am in Smallholding 6 comments Comments closed

Monday 21^st August

Dry today. Paul collected the timber for the wood store and is cracking on with that.

Wood store site ready for construction.

Limpy Pig is less limpy but not yet sound.

Popped to Forfar to pick up some feed – I’m having a few days “off” after we pick up the puppy on Friday, so need to be sure that there are sufficient stores in.

Limpy pig / Carnoustie Show / P&K / A2 results

Thursday 24 August, 2017

by Rosemary at 11:12am in Smallholding Comments closed

Monday 14^th August

More heavy rain showers but thankfully, they aren’t prolonged enough to cause any standing water in the fields. In fact the fields are pretty good.

The contractor arrived today to spread P&K on five of the six paddocks. He had a wee problem with low branches at one of the access gates – his GPS was on the tractor roof.

Spreading P&K Spreading P & K.

Plums / Grazing / Milking cracked / Wood store started

Tuesday 22 August, 2017

by Rosemary at 9:50am in Smallholding 1 comment Comments closed

Monday 7^th August

Dry, sunny and windy today. Got news that we won’t have the grazing at Ravensby any more. That’s a real blow, especially with losing the grazing at Astwood as well. To be honest, my head has been right up my bum today. Didn’t even milk the cows.

We don’t have enough grass at home for the small herd of cattle and small flock of sheep in the numbers we have at the moment so I need to think hard about what we keep and what we sell. It was tears and snotters at the prospect of selling Rosie and Winnie.

Lammas / Apiary Renovation / Bees to Heather / Pickles

Wednesday 16 August, 2017

by Rosemary at 4:43pm in Smallholding Comments closed

Monday 31^stJuly

Nice day here. Gemma’s been strimming in the orchard, preparing the next paddocks for the poultry.

Poor milking but milked Rosie with the calf suckling – cows are holding up milk, as we were told by Tim Tyne so I have a cunning plan.

Dan took Bryn for a walk to the golf course and got some lovely photos.

Bryn Cardigan Welsh Corgi Bryn x

Flies / Kitchen purge / Ace home / Barn planning

Monday 14 August, 2017

by Rosemary at 3:48pm in Smallholding 1 comment Comments closed

Monday 24^th July

Full sun today – feels like summer.

Annie has a couple of really sore teats and the flies are horrendous. That led to contaminated milk today, so the pigs will have a good tea tonight. Really annoying though.

Vaccinated the three calves with Bravoxin 10 and put Spot-On on the three cows, Winnie and the three calves.

Need to find a way of eliminating the fly problem at milking.

Tuesday 25th July

Indulged in some retail therapy and bought an Eazyzap fly killer.

A wedding / Record-keeping / Cattle / Bread and cheese

Thursday 27 July, 2017

by Rosemary at 2:20pm in Smallholding Comments closed

Monday 17^th July

While doing the routine weekly paperwork, I’ve been pulling out the costs for this year’s pigs and meat birds. Because they are short-term discrete enterprises, it’s pretty simple.

Today we cleaned the eight birds we killed yesterday – they weighed 2.3kg to 3.4kg, totaled 22.3kg, average 2.79kg. I’ll do the same when we do the nine hens next week and see how much they cost us to produce.

As things stand with the pigs, if they have an average deadweight of 60kg, they’ll have cost us £3.73/kg to get them to the butcher.

Milking / Harvest / Bread / Short course / Birthday

Monday 24 July, 2017

by Rosemary at 5:31pm in Smallholding Comments closed

Monday 10^th July

Overcast but dry. The cows were exceedingly unco-operative today – Blizz just refused to come in – and I ran out of time and patience, so no milk today.

Bug had his feet trimmed – they grow at a huge rate.

Sent off the registrations to the Shetland Cattle Herd Book Society – Annie’s calf, Panda is registered as Rosedean Xena and Rosie’s as Rosedean Xanthe (she doesn’t have a pet name yet). Blizzard’s steer calf isn’t registered, of course.

Rosie's calf / Crovect / Great Tapestry / 1st spuds / Pie

Friday 14 July, 2017

by Rosemary at 3:22pm in Smallholding Comments closed

Monday 3rd July

Beautiful morning. Up at 4am, wondering if Rosie was calving. She wasn’t. Consequently felt a bit zombie-like.

Lots of strawberries – best crop ever. And a good crop of gooseberries too. Raspberries are poorer – but they were supposed to be replanted this year and that didn’t quite happen.

The freezer is getting full, even though we’re eating lightly cooked strawberries with yogurt every day for breakfast. Delicious.