Meet Tom / Meet Whyte & Mackay / Boot room
Posted: Monday 18 December, 2017
Monday 11th December
Not much diary this week unless Dan writes it as I’m off to for a wee break with our daughter.
While I'm away Dan's redecorating our 'boot room' - the unheated room at our back door where dirty boots, wet clothes etc have always been taken off and stored.
Boot room before.
The terracotta floor was never properly sealed and it's filthy!
Friday 15th December
Home again! All well while I was away.
Boot room redecorating is completed, floor is transformed!
Floor almost dry - like new!
We're going to try to keep the room clean in future, with a properly sealed floor that should be easier.
Very icy here though and all the water frozen in the fields. Hate this.
Saturday 16th December
Still freezing. Off to Inverurie today to pick up our two Shetland steers.
All well until we attempted the snowy, icy slope up to the farm and slid down again, until a telegraph pole stopped us. Thankfully, neither trailer nor pole were injured.
Dan and Ally managed to get the trailer and our car back down the hill, then Ally set off in his Fordson tractor with his trailer to load up the two calves.
The cattle were very cooperative and we soon had them loaded and were back on the road only a bit later than planned. We decided to board them overnight here then take them on to East Pitkerro in the morning so built a pen round the trailer and left them with hay and water. They seemed quite content.
Sunday 17th December
Picked up our new cat, Tom, from the local Cat Protection shelter today. He’s really bonny – unusually for us, he’s not black but black and white.
He’s now settled in the guest room for a few days until he gets to know Dan and I then we’ll start to introduce him to the rest of the family.
One-eyed Tom, our new arrival.
His eye has healed well but he’s a bit awkward if you go to that side of him but I’m sure he’ll get used to it.
Picked up four bales of hay – two for here and two for East Pitkerro. We put a bale in for Paulo and Pedro and gave them a good bed with the remains of the bale of straw in their feeder. They were very happy to have hay instead of straw.
Moved the two new steers - we’ve called them Whyte and Mackay and they are now in with Paulo and Pedro – who seem completely underwhelmed by the new arrivals and far more interested in the hay bale.
Whyte & Mackay settled in with Paulo & Pedro.
Started to muck out some areas of the barn – especially the ¼ that I’m planning to use for lambing this year.
What I’m taking out I’m using to mulch apple trees – at three barrowloads a day, it’ll only take me a month or so to do all the trees.
