Clearing some fence lines

We have some help clearing the fence lines which is much needed and appreciated.

This is a photo of the cows helping them out - I’m not sure their help was appreciated as it involved eating branches before they had finished being cut and tossing around the ones neatly piled for burning!

It looks green in the photo after a little rain, but the grass is really in a bad way after the drought. We will be getting hay for the cows very soon I think. A month or more earlier than usual.

View of the land

 

You can see some land is not fenced in. We hope to get them fenced one day!

Numbers 1-6 are fields, we call them

1.) The hay field (or the sheep field)

2.) The bottom field

3.) The corner field

4.) Daisy’s field

5.) Owen’s field

6.) The top field

7 is the area of the woods where we sometimes keep pigs

8 is land around the house and barns including the orchard.

Fencing the top field

We have only had sheep in the top field all the time we have been here. We have wanted to fence it for the cows and horses but never found time. 

It is better for the land (in terms of keeping it as grass rather than weed and scrub) to have a variety of animals over it as they eat different things.

We moved the sheep out while Aidan was here and with both of us around, now seemed like the perfect time to do it. Also pushing us to get it done was the cows not really having quite enough grassland as the herd has grown rather. Lismore is going to the abattoir soon and we will sell Bluebell, but even so more grass will be useful.

The area in green shows the area we just fenced. The red is the total land. There is a tiny other patch somewhere off the picture at the middle of the top. We have never actually identified it.

Was lovely weather

Across the top of our land there is a green strip, this is because EDF come through every other year and cut under the electricity wires. This pylon is on our land.
This bit pictured is in the new fenced area

There is some of the strip EDF clear outside the fenced area because an acacia grove grows there and we need to wait until next summer when they have been through again before we can get through it. The acacias have EVIL thorns.

At some point EDF better fix up their concrete as it is crumbling away. It would be bad if the pylon fell over!

 We took out the sheep fencing that was up there. I have mentioned before that this fencing is both genius and EVIL. It likes to get all tangled up - but does keep the sheep in whereas many other fences do not.

It was quite grown in in places, though it has been much worse as Doug had been round it all in the spring.

The dog was VERY helpful

The new area is about half grass and half in the chestnut forest. We hope the cows will do a good job clearing the bramble and saplings that have been growing up in there for years (the previous owner used to pass cows through the woods every year and keep all the undergrowth down)

Various bits of fallen tree had to be chopped up to clear the way. All good wood for the fire.

 Stopped again to admire the view

Much strimming went on. Doug did it with his uber strimmer that I can hardly lift. I have a lighter one for work in the garden etc. Doug has a metal blade on here which goes through reasonably big saplings, the smaller strimmer doesn't take one of these so struggles on stuff like this.

Driving the 2 wheel tractor and trailer along with equipment.

Dog resting after running around after wild boar

 We had to have a bit of a chat with the pump to get water up to the new field. It was doing a max of about 2.7 bar and the water couldn't get up high enough.

We finally worked out we need to twiddle these springs to adjust.

Venus didn't want to move fields but we eventually persuaded her.

Yay everyone is happy with lots of grass and some chestnuts too.

Moving cows and horses

Four of the cows are in a field at the bottom of the property where a farmer can easily deliver them hay. The other two couldn't be with them because Bluebell won't stop feeding from Buttercup if Buttercup has milk and we wanted to wean Bif so he was in with Bluebell. Now Buttercup is dried off they can all go in together. We also finally put Bif's ear tags in.

This freed up the field that Bluebell and Bif were in for the horses. It is good because it is high enough up the land not to have springs in it which means the ground is dry and hopefully better for their feet in the winter months. The downside is that this means there is no water for them to drink unless we fill a drinker every day for them - not such a problem in winter when they don't need to drink so much. Eventually we plan on creating a drinker that is filled from the water butt that is filled with water off the stable roof. It is one of two fields with access to the run in shelter that is part of the stables. So ideal for them in the winter. They have not been in this field before so exciting change for them!
You can see it is quite steep in this photo.

This shows the cows in the field before they were removed, you can see the run in shelter the horses can access (which is part of the stable block) and the water butt just peeking round the edge of the shelter.

Hay and preparing for winter

It is always a bit of a stress getting enough hay stored away for the winter and the horses and cows will STARVE if we don't. It is difficult for people to get to the house to deliver, and it is much easier to get huge bales, but they are hard to move around and to get in to the hay store.

We have a farmer who has been delivering a bale of fortnight in to the bottom field for the last two winters and he is doing it again this winter. However we need more for the horses and sheep and the cows even need a bit more than that when it is cold and wet.

Last year we got some bales of the neighbour which fitted in to the hay store and he delivered with his tractor. This year he only has HUGE ones left. He came round to look at the stables and they will fit through the door of the stable there so he is going to put four of them in there for us in a couple of weeks - they are busy while the weather is sunny. We won't be able to move them once they are in there, so we will have to peel bits off and feed to the horses when they need it. In some ways this is good anyway as it means less waste than when they just get given a whole bale, but it is more effort.

We have now also bought 80 small bales

This is 60 of them

and twenty more

This is Doug getting out the mini digger to do some work outside the stables

This bit of land is outside the run in shelter and the horses spend a lot of time here in winter waiting for hay and food to magically arrive. It turns in to a stinky mud mess which they sink ankle deep in making it really gross doing their feet over the winter.
So Doug is scooping off some of the top soil and trying to give it a slight slope to the downhill and away from the stables.
For people who haven't visited this picture gives some impression of how steep all our land is. Photos always manage to make it look flat

Lots of work

Doug spent much of the week getting one of the bottom fields sorted out so that the cows could move from the field they have been in for a few months in to this field which will be their winter quarters as it is where the farmer can delivery hay to. This is Lismore before the move. Still wearing the groovy nose ring.

He has also done a lot of other mowing that I don't have photos of. The grass is still growing a bit but will stop soon and the animals will be on to hay.

The plastering has progressed to more chicken pox spots but is not finished yet

One man went to mow

I suspect I have used that title before. How unoriginal! But the mowing does need doing again and again... and again, so perhaps it is appropriate.

We, by which I mean almost entirely Doug, are working on getting a new field fenced for the horses and cows. Sheep have been in there with the movable fencing, but as it is by the stables it would be good if particularly the horses can use it too.

Doug strimmed this maybe 6 weeks ago and since then hasn't had a chance to fence and now it needs doing again before fencing will be possible.

The red bit here shows our land (view from hill opposite). The green bit is the bit being fenced.

Nice orange t-shirt! I bought it on the internet and a little brighter than I thought it would be.

The 'tractor' is brilliant, this is the flail mower attachment which has revolutionised mowing like this.

Tree cutting

This is a better picture of the wood that Doug and Don cut in the couple of weeks before our holiday. It doesn't look as much in the photo as it does in real life. We think it is enough for a winter of heating (but hard to say at the moment as the insulation is not done nor the central heating)

This is where it came from. The Marie (like the council) sent us a letter saying we needed to clear our trees from the road - and when Doug went in to ask which trees they said the telephone line too. There is no before photo unfortunately, but that whole area in the foreground had trees before all hanging right over the road and the telephone wire. We thought it was the councils responsibility to cut them!

Doug is going to reroute the fence so that this new cut area is in the field so it will be kept grazed and clear.

Making hay - when the sun doesn't shine

The forecast was for sun, so Doug started making hay (along with many of our farmer neighbours, some of them started earlier - listening to a different, and better, forecast perhaps) on Thursday last week.

Before

During

After

Tedded for the 1st time on Friday

Then the forecast changed and decided it was going to rain - annoyingly it was right. Not much each day, but forecast for rain on and off for days (weeks?!). Yesterday we were a bit depressed about it, but today we went out and tedded it (turned it over) and it has dried a lot despite damp conditions. So we are now hoping that even most of a day without rain will be enough to get it dry if we keep turning it periodically so it doesn't get all squashed in to clumps which hold the damp.

Tedding for the 2nd time on Sunday - I helped by doing the edges and steeper bits by hand - with a rake. You can sort of see the bit that is not done yet just to Doug's left (below him is done). It was quite flattened by the rain before we did it, but seems mostly dry except some deep buried bits.

I would guess the area he has done is about 3 times what we did by hand last year. The gathering in is likely to be a mighty effort although the tractor can help with that too as the trailer should hold quite a lot packed in tightly.

One man went to mow

There is a lot of mowing to do in spring. Doug has been hard at it with both the tractor flail mower and the mini digger one. Some of the drive looks really neat now.

The rest will soon.

We are hoping for a few dry days soon so that we (ie probably Doug unless it is a weekend) can try the hay cutting and turning implements we have for the tractor.