May musings

Life is busy on our little farm at the moment!

I am on a few weeks leave from work and it has been great to catch up with the house, the animals and of course the children.

The weather has been very poor for the month of May. It has been cold and wet with poor grass growth. I hope to get a good honey harvest this year so a few weeks of hot temperatures will be necessary.

My attempted queen rearing using grafted larvae was a failure. The bees rejected the grafts by removing the larvae. I have three hives now with hopefully young queens. I will check them today to see if they have started to lay.

Our elderly wolfhound had a surprise pup two months ago. He is a Irish wolfhound x German shepherd named Fionn. We were quite shocked to discover the pup one morning, as the mum is ten years old and never had a litter previous.

We have our herd test this evening for the cow and calf. The calf is sold and will leave the farm in the next few weeks. 

The magpies are stealing the hen eggs from the coop. It infuriates me as all that is let is a mess of broken eggs in the nest box each evening.

I'm keeping them locked in until noon at the moment but when I return to work they will be let out early and I expect we will have no eggs again.

The pigs are doing well. We need to fatten up the two younger pigs and send them to the freezer. When the calf is gone, there will be plenty of milk for the pigs.

October

Winter is drawing in and I feel it!
The evening are getting dark earlier and nights much colder. I have ordered the round bales of haylage for the winter and the animals will be moving in from the fields soon.

We have sold six of the seven piglets over the last few days. The remaining one will stay with the sow for company. They were very easy to sell which surprised me. I had imagined the market at this time of year would be poor compared to spring. Who wants additional livestock going into winter?

The cow will move into the cow yard in the next two weeks. She wouldn't see a field again until  May next year. The milking machine had broke down about two weeks ago and instead of forking out a few hundred to fix it , we have decided to buy a new portable machine in the spring when she freshens. At the moment I am hand-milking her every evening. She is giving about 5 litres on once a day milking. Once she moves indoor, we will dry her off. She is due her angus calf in early March.

The hens are doing well. We are getting about seven eggs a day from ten hens ( one pullet, two ducks and two roosters ). We expect to get (less) eggs right through winter as many of the hens are this years.

The bees are still foraging in the middle of the day. A great deal of pollen is brought back into the hives each day. I expect that the queens will slow down now and then cease laying sometime next month. The full hives should have plenty of stores as I took so little from them but I will continue to feed the two nuc's.

We have three horses. A pony for the children and two youngsters for me. The youngsters stayed at my sisters farm all summer, but the older of the two, a two yr old Mermus R gelding will move back here for the winter. I will collect him at the end of this month. I will be training him over the winter to lunge, long rein and then ride. I prefer to start them young and slow. I worked with him for a few weeks during the summer and he can already be tacked up in cross-ties and take my weight lying over his back. The children continue their riding lessons and will be riding their pony max over the winter. I plan to bring them to lead-rein show jumping leagues in Feb with him.

The range in the kitchen and open fire in the sitting-room is lit every day. The cottage is very cosy and snug! Thank God for turf :-)

July Update

We have one broody hen sitting on eggs for the last week. I have marked them but I am finding it difficult to remove the additional eggs that the other hens are laying in her box. 

She doesn't appreciate my interference!

Last week we forgot to close the door on the hen house. A fox came and climbed the stairs and pulled four hens from their perch. Hubby was so annoyed in the morning! We have decided to change the design of the stairs to make it fox proof. It is inevitable that we will forget to close the hen door once in a while. 

The mart is held on Wednesdays in our local town, I will go there tomorrow and buy more pullets to replace these. Our egg supply is getting worryingly low!

We started to harvest the new potatoes in the veg garden as we need them. I made a lovely seafood chowder yesterday using our veg and herbs from the garden, fish that we caught last month and our new potatoes . It tasted so good and didn't last long.

I have started to harvest the soft fruits before the birds get every last one. They are busy pecking the young apples and pears from the trees and doing all sorts of damage. 

I checked the mating nuc on Friday. The queen cells where due to hatch on Thursday. Every cell was hatched in the four chambers and I could hear but not find the virgin queens. They make a strange high pitched sound that has a pattern similar to hens clocking. I even found that the workers behaved very different. They all were wiggle dancing on the frames and making a strong hiss sound while being very calm and gentle.

I will leave them alone for the next two weeks as they seem to be doing well. At that stage I will be looking out for eggs and a chance to mark the queens. The weather is promising for successful mating flights.

The cow was ai'ed about five weeks ago. I had marked in my diary when she was due to come into heat again. I was pleased when this date had passed with no signs of heat. A few days later I noticed that for a few hours, the bullocks showed interest in her and a couple tried to mount her although she wouldn't stand. This passed as quickly as it came.

She could be pregnant and that was a false heat! We will have her scanned in the next few weeks to confirm, but the vet tells me that it is typical for a cow to have a 'break through heat' in early pregnancy. 

A typical heat for her lasts about three days. A day coming into heat, a half day at standing heat and a day coming out. Fingers crossed she took to the Angus straw.

We are going to England at the end of the month to holiday and visit friends for four days. I can really see the disadvantage of having so many animals as it can be difficult to get someone reliable to look after them. Especially if you have a cow in milk!

In the future it will suit us better to holiday during the winter when the cow is dry and the farm is sleeping!

June Update

A few updates!

My exams are finished for now, thankfully!

One of the pigs was sent to the freezer last week. He killed out at a good weight and not too fatty. We just have the gilt left. She was very lonely at first but has become more friendly and enjoys all the attention she gets now.

There was a hatched queen cell in one of the hives a few days ago. I had put in a frame of young brood a week before and these were not raised into queen cells. My take on this is that the hive has a virgin queen and I will check in another week for eggs. The weather has been good for mating flights. 

The other hives are very strong and may consider swarming. I need to open the brood area in these by putting a foundation less frame in the centre of the brood. It should occupy them enough to not produce queen cells, hopefully! 

I will spilt one of these hives to make increases but the other, I want it as a production hive. We really want honey this year!

I picked up two broody hens today at the mart. I put them into the orchard with the other hens and when I checked on them later, I could only find one! Hubby will be disappointed when he gets home. We checked the roads and fields but no sign of her. She may or may not turn up.

I am busy at home toilet training our youngest. It is a messy and challenging experience for us both. 

One of our dogs is in heat which has caught the attention of all the neighbouring dogs. One even came inside the cottage today to mark his territory .Grrrrrr!

The veg garden is finally getting attention since the hens have been secured in the orchard. I rejoice in no longer having to hop over the hen poo on the doorstep each morning or crying when the kids carry it in on their shoes. They are no longer able to scratch out flower boxes and veg beds. 

Amber the cow or moo moo as the kids call her, was ai'ed last week to an angus  bull. She was also TB tested a few days ago. 

She is a sweet cow but I think I am the only one that can milk her now. She hates hubby since he had difficulty to bring her in and used a stick. She hates all men in case they are of the vet/ai type.

But she loves me and the kids, and is so easy but if she sees hubby she will turn around and refuse to come in till he goes.

So much for hubby being the relief milker!

Comings and goings...

I have two new young horses arriving this weekend. They are very well bred warm-bloods full brothers, a yearling and a two year old.

I sold my aged competition horse and I am working on the children's 128cm jumping pony. I am schooling him myself and will be bringing him to shows shortly to put SJI points on him. He will be ridden by a child at the shows.

The plan is to bring him on for our children to compete him at newcomers next year.

The gardens are awash with beautiful colours. The fruit trees are swelling with fruit and young potato plants push through the soil. The rhubarb needs harvesting and the chickens are still free to scratch out the vegetable beds unfortunately. They just keep escaping!!

The pigs are massive and enjoying the extra space of the cow yard. They have redecorated using the hose pipe and pallets ;-)

They are due to go to the freezer in ten days.

The bees are flying well every day and are bringing back plenty of pollen. I should have a virgin queen around now, from the hive that I removed the queen from. It is great mating flight weather and the other hives had plenty of capped drone cells last week.

Fingers crossed that she mates well and avoids the recently arrived swallows!

A little of everything...

Amber the cow has developed mastitis in one quarter. Surely it is from something I did or didn't do!
Anyway, I give her a tube into the teat canal and I also sent in a milk samples for analysis. The results were due back today but were delayed. I should have them tomorrow and the vet will give me antibiotics specific to her infection.
I recognised that we had a problem when the milk started to filter slower and then later started to produce clots, similar to cottage cheese. She was very tender on the quarter and started to kick out when I would clean and attach the teat cup. The infection has already subsided by using the tube and she isn't in pain any more but her milk is still producing clots from that quarter. She should be fine in another few days and we will be back to drinking her milk in a week, allowing for the withdrawal period.

In the meantime, the pigs are enjoying 14 litres a day of yummy milk and are putting on great weight. Ms.Piggy, the sow, showed signs of heat a few days ago and I was disappointed as I had assumed that she was pregnant, maybe she is! This is all new to me! I cleaned out their sty this evening, always a quick and easy job, using just the yard brush.

Hubby has completed the new hen house. It is my job to paint it when I get a chance over the next few weeks. He will mesh the fencing in the orchard this weekend before moving the hens permanently, fingers crossed. I guess we will have to lock them into the house for a few days until they beside it is their new home. I am collecting 8-9 eggs a day at the moment but I am unsure of how many they are laying as the dogs are professional egg thieves.
Planting of the veg garden is on hold until the hens are contained. They have already scratched out the bed I planted.

The bees are flying everyday and can be seen bringing back plenty of pollen. Each day the hives gets stronger as new brood emerges. I need to open up one hive to mark the queen. This is a difficult job, as finding one bee amongst thousands is a challenge. I haven't had a chance to do it yet, either due to the weather or children. But I know that the challenge grows with each passing day. I need her marked as I want to make splits later this month.

There is talk here of me getting another horse. Exciting! A young horse to work on over the winter and replace my current horse for next season.

April's Fool News

 

Winter is well behind us now. The bees are very busy foraging these days. I have seen them out flying as early as 9am these past few days, which is usual for this time of year. Their new site is more sheltered and faces east into the morning sun, it is warming up the hive earlier than the previous site and therefore they can fly earlier in the day.

I need to do my first open hive inspection of the year this week. I might do it tomorrow if the weather stays good. I have one queen to mark and I need to add on another brood box to the other hive. I will also add some frames with no foundation so as to allow the bees to draw their own comb. I have a bee meeting to attend tonight, the meeting will focus on making splits and establishing nucs.

I am eager for Hubby to start on a perone inspired hive design. I would like to experiment that different hive types and get more into natural beekeeping. 

 

 

Most of the over wintered veg is starting to bolt to seed. That includes turnips, winter salads, kale, cabbages, leeks, beetroot, carrots etc. I need to start using them up now before they get too tough and stringy. Although the pigs would only be too happy to help!

 

Our pigs are doing great. They have put on a lot of weight since the arrival of amber, the cow. The milk is doing them well and they are thriving. The male unnamed pig will go to the freezer this month. His female friend is pregnant, hopefully, and so we will expect a litter of piglets during the summer. Hubby is very fond of her and wishes to keep her as his breeding sow.

 

Hubby started work on the new hen 'apartment' last weekend. He hopes to finish it by this weekend. We are both sick of hen poo on the doorstep each and every morning!

The plan is to move them from the stable and free ranging, to the  new hen house in the orchard. Hubby will mesh the fencing and clip their feathers to hopefully keep them restricted to the quarter acre that is the orchard. They will still have plenty of space but wont be able to get into the yard to poop on everything and lay eggs in random places that only the dogs seem to know about.

On the downside, they make a good living by cleaning up after the pigs, pony and cow. They also spend a lot of their time scratching out worms in the dung heap. They barely cost us anything to feed at the moment, so we will have to feed them more!

The design of the hen house is as follows. There are four nesting boxes on the side that can be accessed from the fence. This should make collecting eggs a very easy job, sorry dogs! The main body has various branches for perching and the floor is slatted, there are 1-2 inch spacing between the floor boards to allow for easy cleaning. Most of the poo should fall through, but I imagine I will need to sweep it out once or twice a month. Either way it should be easy to manage.

They will have a ladder up to access the door. I hope that this will make it fox/dog proof. We don't intend to lock them in at night. We will just do as we are currently doing, allowing them to fly over the stable door when it gets dark, knowing that the stable is fox proof. 

We will use the rain water from the roof to fill a shallow paddle pond that Hubby has yet to install, that will be the water sorted. I hope that I or the children will only need to collect eggs and feed the hens, from the fence once a day. Although I am sure that there will be regular escapes.

Woodpiles & Ponies

We have been busy sorting out wood piles. Some fresh cut timber needs stacking to season and some seasoned timber needs to be brought into the wood/turf shed to dry out and be split.

We have about twenty trees that will be cut back or felled in the coming weeks if the weather improves. 

We have planted 270 willow cuttings recently and these will replace any trees that are felled. Trees are like crops, they should be harvested when they mature. Our trees are very mature at about forty feet tall and we worry about the next storm knocking them and all the damage that might bring.

It was a nice sunny spring day today. The dogs enjoyed sunbathing and our new pony 'max' has settled in. We brought him home on Saturday and our little Shetland went to a new home on Sunday. He was not quiet enough for the children or for my nerves. 

This pony is much gentler and quieter. I expect he should stay with us about eight years, by then the children will have outgrown him. 

He is eligible to compete at 128cm showjumping with our eldest boy next year. 

Our lovely neighbours dropped over at lunchtime today, a gift of five red pullets. I was delighted as we needed to replace the lost hens. Soon we won't need to buy anymore eggs!

We are cow shopping at the moment. So hopefully we will have news on that front soon.

The end of the hens

Sadly the neighbours dog visited us today! And killed the two roosters and eight hens. 

All I found was mouthfuls of feather around the yard and one little hen dead in the garden. 

I had let them out to enjoy the January sunny day.... :-(

The freezer

I go out to the freezer everyday to take out meat or maybe veg to defrost for the dinner the next day.

Yesterday evening while doing this task, I was met with three large (well fed) rats rushing out of the shed. 

And when I opened the freezer, I discovered that the food at the top was starting to defrost. Arghh! The freezer wasn't working!

After some detective work, I discovered that the sockets didn't work rather than the freezer itself. The electric fence used for our neighbours cattle had tripped the fuse, which I plugged out. I went to the outdoor fuse board, located high up in the chickens shed and flicked down the switches and the freezer fired up again. I pushed the turbo switch on the freezer to quickly freeze the contents.

I sighed with relief as the freezer contains a great deal of food but thankfully we didn't loose any.

Once I got the freezer sorted, I lay rat poison safely in the shed. They are inevitable when you have poultry but I want to keep their population as low as possible. I reckon they have been stealing plenty of eggs from the hen house.

Our two kittens are growing well and have unfortunately started to catch small sparrows. But hopefully they will be good rat catchers in time.

 

The hens have moved indoors

The weather has been very unpleasant recently with high rainfall and strong winds.

We decided to move the hens into the stable for the winter from their moveable coop in the paddock. It is warm, dry and well lit. We may choose to use the lights to extend daylight hours and simulate egg production. 

We brought in some strong branches and a pallet for them to roost on at night and left a double laying box in the corner to lay in, but of course they have chosen another corner :-)

I don't mind as long as the eggs are clean and not at risk from breakage or savaging crows or magpies.

Hubby sealed the top of the half door with mesh to stop them escaping yet allowing in plenty of light and air.

So far it is working great! They are very warm and the stress/pecking order fights have settled down due to the extra space. 

We are getting 5-6 eggs a day at the moment although I discovered yesterday that what I had assumed to be a chicken is in fact a rooster. So another one to join the bachelor group that are free ranging out of doors.

We eat a large amount of eggs here every day. Mainly due to the fact that I don't like the children to eat breakfast cereals. I cook porridge, oat pancakes or eggs with smoked salmon every morning for our breakfast.

We are buying in eggs once or twice a week at the moment and are therefore considering buying in another six young pullets to booster production.

The range is lit in the morning now and I haven't had to use our electric oven in two weeks now. The kettle is always on the boil and a heavy casserole pot is always gently slow cooking something for later.

Life is slowing down now for winter and my favourite time is spent sitting next to the range reading a book with a hot cup of tea. 

Obviously for me to do this, I need to ignore the chaos, the mess and the frantic children who won't stop fighting that surround me. 

Headphones are a blessing ;-) and a good hubby!

What's good in the veg garden?

I took a walk in the veg garden today to stock up the larder for dinner.

The veg garden is currently neglected and the polytunnel is still badly torn since the storm. As ugly as it currently is to my eye, it is still very productive. Hence why there are no photos of it ;-)

You can't beat good soil!

I made a root vegetable roast using artichokes, young beetroot, parsnips and carrots served along side slowed cooked veal. A hundred percent home produced meal. 

I will use the radishes, peas and beet tops for salad later. 

I am very pleased with the artichokes. This is the first time we have grown them. They are heavy yielding and so easy to grow.

The chickens have slowed down their egg production from six to three eggs roughly a day. I have two roosters that are running around free that I need to catch and despatch (put in the pot) one of these days. 

The new pigs have settled in and are becoming more friendly now. We still can not rub them but they now come out from hiding at feeding time. 

The bees are flying most days and the queens has started to slow down/stop laying in preparation for winter. 

The fire is lit everyday in the range now. The warmth is very comforting in the kitchen and I love having a kettle always on the boil available for brews and a hot plate available for cooking.

The bees are busy in the orchard

All four hives are very busy foraging today. The hot weather has filled the orchard with a great buzz of bees. 

We planted an extra few fruit trees in the orchard over the weekend. We have a dozen planted there now. We cleaned out around the base of all the trees and spread manure to suppress the weeds and grass.

The birds have done a great deal of damage on the few remaining apples that survived the storm.

We moved the hen coop into the orchard  yesterday evening. I will move them a few feet every day, moving up and down on fresh grass. The young trees will benefit from the fertiliser and pest control. We would love to have them free range but Mr.Fox is always happy for an easy meal. They also do a lot of damage when free like scratching up flower/veg beds and pooping on our doorstep.