First drop of rain this morning for quite a few days. More birdsong in the morning which helps to reinforce that spring is just around the corner. No yellow daffodils quite yet - still just the leaves poking up out of the ground.

Fencing went quite well yesterday despite the Land Rover deciding that it had had enough at the end of the day and refused to start. I am hoping that this is because I did not use the tedious 'warming up' of the plugs for long enough AND I have started and stopped it about 8 times during the day and it never really had a good chance to charge. Apart from this I think the Land Rover is going to be quite a success as it enables me to get to the more remote parts of the farm to do jobs.
Today I am loading up the van and heading off up to Telford for this evening. Stopping the night and cracking on with the farmers market at Telford for the weekend. Looking forward to a couple of nights out in Newport but not so much the early mornings....

Had an intense late afternoon the other day when the foal was dealt with. Tamed is too strong a word but a head collar was applied after much wailing and gnashing of teeth. What a feisty animal - jumped a gate from standstill and it was hard work to say the least. Didn't hear much horse whispering at all more horse swearing! I even heard the word slaughter house being shouted but I am assuming that was just in the heat of the moment. We were all quite chuffed the job has been done until I went to feed the horses this morning and lo and behold the head collar has fallen off..... a very, very disappointing sight to greet me.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
 Mid summer - early winter 2020  Determined to make the most of this most unusual year the overall theme has been trying to catch up on numerous jobs on the farm. With having no shows or parties at the farm for once I had extra time on my hands to do many small jobs that needed to be done. As with the last post the order of activities are in reverse order.  November   Lockdown 2 - We decided to close the farm when the second lockdown was announced. Initially the new laws prohibited us from opening and then at the last minute 'breweries' were allowed with a click and collect service. The shop usually gets quieter anyway and coupled with the 'essential' travel only' element we have decided to shut. Following on from the above we have decided now to shut the shop at the farm until spring 2021.  We have plans to improve the buildings and shop and this will enable us to carry out the work and reopen again when the work is complete ready for spring next year. All quite ex
Read more
Image
February 2020 Rain, rain, more rain and gales... The weather continues to be even more challenging with gales and relentless rain. When it rains the results are that it is more difficult to get onto the fields with machinery without doing damage or more to the point getting stuck! One project I have managed to at least start, is to replace an important fence that borders the farm drive. The advantage is that I can do most of the work using the hard surface of the drive so no mess in the fields. It has to be done before spring as the fence line was very weak. Old fenceline with undergrowth. There was also the situation that undergrowth has started to grow up in the fenceline which makes it impossible to tighten the wire so the only option is to start again. Old fenceline removed. With all of the torrential rain we have experienced the streams on the farm become torrents but on the whole we are lucky as we are on the side of a hill that we are relatively unaffected by
Read more

Spring 2014

Image
The first part of the year was wet to say the least...rain, rain and more rain and then it stopped. From one extreme to another! The farm was very wet however no flooding. But it has however been very mild indeed with only a couple of small frosts.  A fairly gentle start to the year regarding work on the farm as well as cider. Managed to get on with a few jobs that have been on the list 'to be done sometime'. It is also an opportunity to get a bit of rest too before the year kicks off with everything. That said having a little boy at home does not always help with the resting part of the plan... Once the sun came out and the ground dried up slightly then that was the green light for action! One of the first big projects for 2014 was to lay a significant stretch of hedge as well as plant up an old field boundary. This is all part of the Higher Level Stewardship Scheme which enables us to do certain environmental projects on the farm. We wisely asked a contractor to do
Read more