Where are the Swallows

It's been quite a while since i last did updated but i've been working all daylight hours and some more with lambing, but today i left Simon to it after lunch as we are down to the last 50 or so sheep the pressure is of and with it being warm and sunny all should be fine. The weather has been cool and showery for the most part but things have gone quite well, maybe a slightly lighter lamb crop than we usual get but that's probably because i brought in a lot of younger sheep last September, the older sheep are the ones that have the most lambs but with foot and mouth last backend depressing prices i made a decision to reduce the age of the flock when young replacements were available at bargain prices.


The sheep in the picture is one that lambed this morning it is a Swaledale ewe with a greyfaced mule lamb which was sired by a Bluefaced Leicester ram. We don't keep a lot of Swaledales just enough to breed our own flock replacements for the main flock which is all Greyfaced mules that are run with Texel rams to produce lambs of supermarket quality.



I've been keeping an eye out for swallows this last week they are a bit later than usual we normally get them arriving in Cumbria the first week of April but their has been no sign yet if any one has spotted any swallows drop me a line. I hope that isn't a sign we are in for a late spring as the cows a fairly munching through the silage and we have just enough to last till the 6/7 May. We will be taking our first batch of store cattle (last springs calves ) to market on the 17th and as that's all so my birthday let's hope it is a good omen regarding prices. The cattle in the picture are the batch that we will select a trailer load from. The food in front of them is a mix of silage and brewers grains that are left over from making beer.



Anyway that's enough farming for one blog as i said i had this afternoon of and took the chance to get some work done in the veg plot mainly spent the time setting up some buckets with the base's removed and set in to the ground to grow potatoes (Kestrel variety) i put in six litre's of compost mix in to each bucket and come next weekend will plant one in each and just keep earthing them up with the same mix until it's full, normally i use large barrels and plant at least 4 per barrel but just thought I'd try it this way this year so we will see how it goes. I did manage to get the long carrot stations planted up on about the 4th April but as yet nothing has shown perhaps it's been a bit to cool for germination we will see. The greenhouse is bursting at the seams with bedding plants that Judy has been bringing on and i just found enough room to get some runner beans and Dahlias that i split and planted in pots in, neither will probably be planted out till end of may when we hopeful seen the last of the frost i had taken some cuttings of the Dahlias but they failed miserably probably because i didnt give them enough attention just to busy i guess.