His and hers grass tackling machines

Keeping the grass around the house and down the drive to a reasonable length seems like a never ending mission. Doug has been strimming the drive and I have been mowing the lawn. Both tiring in the hot weather.

Tackling grass in a manly way

Girly grass tackling device

We are currently trying to get the Brill lawnmower replaced as it arrived with a screw missing. It makes lighter work of the lawn mowing. This one (Bosche) is ok when the lawn is short but doesn't handle the edges or longer bits well. Another idea for my 'Farm Fit' courses/holidays.

Finishing the hay

After a couple of days in the sun the hay seemed to be dry, it still had a greenish colour to it but we believe this is as it is meant to be. It is a bit worrying because if you put hay away too damp alledgedly it can burst spontaniously combust. But if it is too dry there is little or no nutritional value left in it.
It looked like a lot when we raked it in to piles. There were actually 5 although only 3 show in the photo. The field is steeper than it looks here.

We think if it was baled this would pack down in to one small rectangular bale (not one of the big round ones you most often see in fields)

We couldn't quite manage to pick up each pile in one go to load on to the wheel barrow.

Poppy helped unload (in the wrong place)

This is the barn where we put the hay. There was some in there from previous years. Not sure about the quality, we were going to try to clear it out but it is a monster job so we put it off for now and just put the new stuff on top (slightly darker colour in the photo, looks greener in real life)

We enjoyed beer when we were finished!!

Video of Poppy running

Make hay while the sun shines

It is a bit late to make hay, most people round here did it in June and some in July. However we needed to shorten the grass in the sheeps field before they move in, so we decided that as it has finally stopped raining, we could make hay as we did it. We will use it for chicken bedding mostly so the quality does not matter too much.

It is hard work scything

Poppy eating the grass

Spreading the grass after cutting

Taking away the bracken we separated from the cut grass

Drying in the sun

Hurrah! The sheep field is finished!!

FINALLY we have managed to finish repairing the fence round the sheep field. It is not exactly the fence we would like but should hold them for a year or two until we have time to put in a new fence.
The last bit we did was the gate. As mentioned in a previous post the existing gate works by part of the fence folding back. It was quite a long section so not possible to sufficiently tension it to stop sheep being able to get under the wire at that point, plus there was some wire dangerously trailing on the ground where the fence needs to take a step up at the ramp in to the field.
We replaced this gate with one equally dodgy but smaller so it is possible to tension it to stop sheep getting under it. We made it wide enough to get the wheel barrow in but no wider.

The new gate

As with other bits of the fence there was not quite enough mesh fencing to do what was required so we had to fashion something from garden wire. Not pretty but hopefully functional.

Our thinking at the moment is that the sheep will be in this field (Orchard) then next year we will fence another field (bit of the Orchard) next to it and then move them there and come back to sort out this field. However there is plenty of other fencing (eg around the Potager - veg garden) to be done so not sure when it will reach top of the priority list. Hopefully before many more of the fence posts rot through.

Now we just need to arrange delivery of the sheep.

Nice Plums

There are various fruit trees around the place, we need to assess what we have and what is worth keeping. There are a few cherries, none of which seem to have convincingly set fruit, not sure yet if this is the trees or just a bad year.
There are a lot of apple trees, some have set fruit better than others. We are keen to find out how they all taste but it will be another couple of months yet I guess.
There is a pear tree too which currently has a good number of fruit, but again a while until they will be ripe.

There are a few plum trees as well. One has nice tasting yellow plumbs but unfortunately we have only had a couple as the birds seem very keen on them. Fortunately they seem less keen on the other two plum trees we have found. The plums one one of the trees are ripe, the other not quite yet
There weren't that many plum on the ripe one as it is small, but we made some plum rum, plum crumble and a very small amount (half a jar) of plum jam.

Plum Crumble Recipe

 Filling
200g Plums
150g Sugar (or a bit less if very sweet plums)
Juice of half a lemon

Crumble (sorry I always work in oz for crumble and various other things I learnt from my dad)
4 oz (110g) Flour
2 oz (55g) Butter (cold from fridge)
2 oz (55g) Sugar

To Prepare fruit
Remove stones from the plums (if you make plum rum at the same time you can put them in the jar too) and put in a pan. Add the lemon and sugar and heat while stirring until the sugar melts. Continue to boil for about 15 mins.
Put the mixture to cool in the dish you will cook it in

To make crumble
Crumb together the flour and butter.
Mix in the sugar


Finish off
When the fruit mix is cool add the crumble on top (you can add it before but it will tend to mix in a bit more).
Cook for about 30 mins at 180 C or until the plum mixture has just started to boil and the crumble is brown on top.

Amounts can be adjusted according to dish size. This is for 2 people.