Some pictures of work

I've been suffering from bloggers block these last few days so i thought I'd just put up some pictures of my farm and and surrounding area, i didn't take any of the photos myself just nicked them of the Internet but as they are all of my farm i think i can get away with it. I don't actualy live on the farm anymore as my daughter and son in law live their now, but it's not a bad place to spend your working day allthough it was a bit testing today with the storms and driving rain.

After all the wet weather

After all the wet weather we have had for the last couple of months we finally made a start on our second crop of silage today Sunday, normally we would have finished this by the end of the second week of August but it has been absolutely impossible to get on this year, finally we get a dry spell and just as we are ready to collect it up, the Baler suffers a major breakdown . We have finally got rolling now 8.30 pm so it going to be a long night let's just hope now't else happens or i will have pulled the rest of my hair out with frustration. Sorry for the rant lets just call it therapy. Oh well Back to work now .

Little weeds

Hi, what is it with weeds i just turned my back for a few days and they have just about taken over the garden and so i have spent most of the weekend catching up with them, the damp growey weather has put them into overdrive.
In the veg plot i have being retying the broad beans to the canes as they must have grown about 18" since i last did them a fortnight ago, they are well in flower and have set some pods low down on the stalks it was a little later than usual when i got them planted out but they should still crop OK, the beetroot has really enjoyed the regular downpours we been having and look really lush and healthy and its a similar story with the parsnips top growth is rapid. Even though it has been raining a lot and strange as it might sound i have been watering the potatoes that are growing in pots they have a lot of top growth and seem to deflect most of the rain so i need to get in under the leaves and give them a good soaking fairly often.
The season must be passing as United played their first friendly match away against Kendal Town its hard to make any judgement as to how the new season will go but the 4-0 win will help to boost confidence.
On the farm we have sold our first batch of lambs and the last of the store cattle that we held back from the Spring sales the cattle were a better trade than i had expected but i was a little disappointed with the lamb prices a case of sum you win and some you lose i suppose.

Silage Time

To day we have grabbed our chance to get our first crop of silage. After all the dry weather we had May and early June when it was perfect silaging weather but we had no grass, then when we have a bit of grass the weather is catchy, anyway we mowed on Monday and got it picked it up today Tuesday and i have just finished sheeting (covering) it up about an hour ago and now it's raining again lucky-eh. I took a couple of pictures of the team in action quite a sight when it's in full swing mind they used diesel at the rate of 175 liters an hour so it doesn't come cheap.

Please let it rain

I hardly dare i say it but we are in need of a few wet days, it's been very dry with just one wet day since the beginning of May and with temperatures in early may reaching 80 degrees plus things have dried out fast and i have had to do quite a bit of watering to keep things moving on. The short Carrots have come through nicely in the past week though the wild neighborhood Rabbit has eaten one or two, plus it takes a short cut through the Onions flattening some as it goes to and fro, still I'll leave it be as it's a bit of a favourite with my next door neighbour who feeds it porridge oats every morning, the Beetroot is also starting to show but as yet not a sign of the Parsnips which were planted at the same time. Last weekend I was even tempted to plant out some Dahlias and Runner Beans and surprise surprise tonight's weather forecast is predicting an overnight frost so its been a case of rushing round covering what might be at risk with a bucket, luckily i have an endless supply of old buckets that come with high energy feed for my farm stock during the winter months. The Broad Beans and Peas are coming along nicely in their pots and will soon be planted out I used to sow them direct but mice seem to bother them and i always had a lot of gaps so now i just start them in pots they were sown the same time as the Runner Beans which have just romped away and needed moving on so as not to give them a check. I decided to try growing some Brussel Sprouts this year and have got them well started and last weekend potted then on , it's been a bit since i had any Brassicas as i had some club root in the past but i have found some hopefully clean ground and splashed a bit of lime around to help so fingers crossed things should be OK.

Today Monday on the farm we have been dehorning and tagging the new born calves it's quite a fight with them as they don't like been handled and even though the are still young they can kick hard and fast and some of their mothers can be quite aggressive and protective of them so you have to have your witt's about you, thankfully it all went well and we should get the rest of them done tomorrow.

On the football front United lost out to Leeds in the promotion play offs which is a pity but it's still been a good season, hopefully they can kick on next year and get automatic promotion.

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.

A bit of all sorts

Have had a slow weekend, been down with a sod of a cold, by the time i'd done my work on the farm that was enough for me. I have watched a bit of sport on television ie Wales v France there will be no peace from the Welsh now, mind they did look a good side. It could have been a diffrent story if in their match against England, England had not fallen asleep in the second half. On the football side United had a decent draw at Swindon and when you consider both Doncaster and Swansea lost it looks an even better point.

This week work wise we are trying to cram in quite a bit of work so as to be able to have some spare time over the Easter weekend, today Tuesday we marketed our final 40 2007 born lambs and the trade was 144 pence a kilo and i was pleased with that when you consider that when we were under gov controls during foot and mouth we had to take 76 pence a kilo it frightens me to think how much DEFRA incompetence cost us in the August to December period when the vast majority of our lambs (about 600) are marketed and even though the inquiry into it blamed management incompetence and complacency at Pirbright no one seems to being held to account never mind sacked from their cushy well paid jobs personaly i'd jail the useless gits for pollution.

Hopefully by tomorrow night we will have given all the breeding ewes their pre lambing vaccination and multivitamin dose plus a parasitic Fluke and Worm treatment as they should start lambing in ernest from the 2nd April. If all goes well and we catch up with work and the weather is fair i might be able to get some jobs done in the veg plot during the Easter break i do need to get some final digging done and my carrot soil mixed and put in the barrels plus get a couple of mole traps set, what i can't fit in before we start lambing will just have to wait till late April as it just gets to hectic in lambing time .

Bird Nestboxes and all the rest

Just like most of the country we have had some fairly severe winds to contend with, luckily we have avoided too much damage just the odd tree blown over and a couple of wall gaps blown down where they are next to trees that have been rocking in the wind.

Last night (Tuesday) managed to get to see United play Luton we won 2/1 but saying that Luton put up a good show especially in the second half when the wind seemed to play havoc with Uniteds play, as they say decent teams grind out a result and that's what they did. Following on from wins away at Crewe and Nottingham Forest it keeping promotion hopes well on track.

Tonight i planted my first lot of potatoes in a barrel in the greenhouse just to have a few just that bit earlier than the main batch, very seldom do i grow potatoes in open ground i prefer to grow them in barrels as they seem to have a lot cleaner skins and i don't have to bother lifting them in the autumn i just cut the tops of end of August time and lift them as i need them when the weather gets a bit colder and we might get a frost i just pop the barrels in the greenhouse and put some old sacking over them it's a bit like having new potatoes from June to the end of February the main thing to do if growing them this way is make sure you water them a lot and i mean a lot.

The council have started resurfacing the main road this week near to my home and never wanting to miss a bargain i have managed to get about 20 Tonnes of the plannings that were being removed prior to resurfacing to provide some hard standing base it is really good stuff if you can get hold of it because it packs down like the original road surface in about a month but as it is planed and relaid also free draining.

I have spent most of this afternoon putting up some bird nest boxes on the farm we have a couple of small wooded areas and as part of our effort to help the local environment this years plan has been to try and help and encourage more of the local wild bird population. We tend not to use any or very little sprays or fertilizers in habitat rich areas and so are hopeful that they will soon move in, the species that are most likely to take advantage are Chaffinch/Flycatchers/ Robins/Blue Tits etc plus one box for the local Tawny Owls. (see pics)

New steps in the spring

Spent some of the weekend getting a few Dahlias set up so as to be able to get some cuttings taken latter on in the spring they aren't any special variety just a few i grew from seed last year and i liked the look of, I wanted to get them done as we are going off on a winter break for 10 days to i hope warm sunny weather and while i was on with the dahlias i chitted up 4 Maris Bard potatoes that i will plant in a barrel in the greenhouse when i get back so as to get an earlier crop.


Kevin has been here most of the week putting in some new steps up the garden, it was one of them jobs that i seemed to never have the time to get round to so i bit the bullet and called in our local handyman/ landscaper, OH! wouldn't it be nice to have a level site, i think he was a bit suprised at how much rock and stone he had to dig out just for a few steps. ( i wasn't when i set up my veg patch which is now at the top of the steps i had to remove 5 skip loads of stone then i had to cart in even more soil and compost to fill and improve the plot ) A couple of hydrangea cuttings which had started coming in to leaf i have brought inside so as to not let them get checked if we get another cold snap.

On the Farm our first sheep lambed triplets then one had a single they are some pure bred Texels that we keep so as to breed our own Rams to use on our commercial breeding ewes they are inside at the moment but should be fit to go outside in a couple of days if the weather is OK. Our stock bulls started fighting quite a bit this week so we had to separate them i guess they were just trying to decide who is number one and as they have not had much work to do they are improving in condition and can fell spring in the air.

On the football front well what happens when the best home record meets the best away record in the league?
United beat Doncaster 1/0 of course. Our promotion push continues.