More rain / Pontoons / Leaves - The Accidental Smallholder

Posted: Monday 11 November, 2019

by Rosemary at 9:40am in Smallholding Comments closed

Monday 4^th November

Wet and windy. Brought the steers in at East Pitkerro – they were happy to follow a bucket in, good boys that they are. The shed is very open and I’m wondering if we should put some windbreak across the gates.

No14 has a yellow bum – five down, eight to go.

Now that the cattle are in, they get fed twice a day, so are tied up, to let me muck out and top up hay. Today I put wee buckets out for the three calves – Archie and Zeph not interested, but Zen was straight in there. She has her mother’s food genes.

Tuesday 5^th November

Nice morning – still, clear and cold. The fields are very wet so Dan put “pontoons” out for the hens in the brown house. Then he picked apples – Winston, Adam’s Pearmain, Dr Harvey, Bramley and Seaton House (which doesn’t look anything like the photos of it, so we guess it’s a mislabel).

Poultry pontoons.

Wednesday 6^th November

Heavy showers – really heavy – but a bit of blue showing this afternoon. Started well in the office but ground to a halt about lunchtime.

The ponies seem to like their natural water source.

Natural water source.

Off to see Richard Maxwell at Balcormo Stud tonight. First horse event for an age.

Thursday 7^th November

More heavy rain overnight but brightening up in the afternoon. So wet – feel sorry for the sheep. I’ve put hay out for the ewes now too.

Home paddock.

Got through a pile of paperwork and almost finished the VAT return.

Took Smokey for a half hour walk with the dogs and Dan.

Friday 8^th November

Frosty – skim of ice on the flood waters. Turned sunny though, which was nice. Flood waters are definitely receding a wee bit.

No5 has a yellow bum. To celebrate, I bought a bottle of Advocaat. Just joking. I did buy a bottle of Advocaat but it had nothing to do with yellow bums. Just love it – a wee sna’ba’ of an evening – with cherries, of course. Simple pleasures.

 

Saturday 9^th November

Lovely morning – clear and sunny; clouded up a bit later but the water levels are dropping! No6 has a yellow bum – we’re up to seven now. All Ryelands – one Ryeland to go, two Shetlands and the three BFL.

Finally, dosed the wethers – Tim and Ted – and the three remaining tup lambs for worms (not Ted)  and fluke and put on a spot-on for ticks and lice. The three tups are shabby wee things; all three have had squitty bums, although one has dried up now – so were horribly dirty, so we did a major trim up. They look much, much better and must feel better.

With the wild weather, lots of leaves are down, so Dan and his mum have been raking them up to go in the leaf mould cages.

Raking leaves.

Dan and Andy chainsawed pallets and logs for firewood. Boys and toys. I baked biscuits –  gingernuts (my favourite) and coconutties - fed up with the tins being empty.

Sunday 10^th November

Dry and cloudy at dawn but sunshine through the clouds by 10am. Ponies came in themselves this morning – and ate all the ewes’ hay. Rebecca, Tara and I took out the three of them today for an hour or so – Tara rode Euro, Rebecca walked out Ave and I walked Smokey. Very nice.

Dan was chainsawing again and splitting kindling – should do for a wee while. We rarely light the stove in the house – to be honest, it hasn’t been cold yet – but we do light the stove in the office most days. And Dan’s folks have a wood burner as their main heat source, so we get through it.

Kindling.

Nick and Lucy from The Langston Farm borrowed our trailer fro the weekend and brought it back this afternoon. We really admire them – they work really hard to build a farming business from scratch. No acres from Daddy to help. All power to their elbow – Scottish farming needs more of them.

 

I’m enjoying the routine with the cattle –always do. It’s the same morning and evening. Tie up, wee scoop of sugar beet, muck out, fresh water and hay. Then untie, wee scratch and relax. It’s nice to see the shed nice and clean with a full hay feeder, and contented cattle. I guess I need to think about getting Zephyr and Archie weaned. But not yet.

 

Spent an hour or so in the veg garden – weeding mainly, but we took down the brassica cage, before it fell down.

Shoogly brassica cage.

It’s not a bad forecast for the week, so I’m hoping to focus on getting it tidied down. The fruit garden is hideous. I love nasturtiums when they’re in flower but dead, they’re horrible. Thinking I might put raspberries back in there.

Weeding.