Pregnant cows

Buttercup has a nasty cut on one of her teats. Not sure how she got it, the most likely theory is that she managed to stand on it as she stood up. It happens apparently.

But more excitingly we think she is pregnant! This is exciting and a surprise because she was AIed on the 10th of Sept (Doug's birthday - we were taking the highland to the bull and Janet waited in for the AI man), but we saw her in heat a couple of times after she had been AIed - we thought..
This photo shows, not very clearly, what is called the milk vein, which is a big vein across each side of the belly which is feeding the udder as it fills out and then makes milk. The vein is across the white bit and has various crusty bits of dirt on it.

This is the vein on Bluebell who was inseminated twice and looks to have taken the 2nd time. This is a clearer picture, but in real life both cows veins look similar.

This is Bif (Rostbif is his full name), he is Buttercups 2015 calf. We hope to slaughter him soon

Bluebell close up

This is Bluebell from behind. Her udder is starting to fill in and the low bump on the right is a baby bump. On the left it is the rumen.

 Here you can see Buttercups udder looking big

 This is Buttercup with big udder and HUGE bump out the right (less huge than with Bif at this stage though!)

This is Islay who we hope is also pregnant. Highlands have smaller calves. It is probably 6 weeks till she is due so hopefully she is pregnant, but hard to say. We think maybe her teats look slightly bigger but hard to see with all the hair

Hainoa is the same. We hope she is pregnant, but hard to say we can see signs

We are so excited about Buttercup! Really really hoping the highlands are in the club too.

Holiday

I had a week off work at the end of May. Amongst other things we did a LOT of eating

Lasagne

Burgers

Mini pizza

Very delicious spicy bean and pork stew

We also went camping for a night. Rode the horses. Put together new cages for the rabbits. Had friends to dinner. Went out in town for dinner. And generally had a very nice relaxing time in the sun eating and drinking too much - but also doing some useful things like shearing the sheep, planting some things in the veg garden and strimming various things.

Rabbits - hurrah!

As mentioned previously, we treated the three most recent litters with Metoxyl. Thankfully this seems to have finally done the trick and they have all survived. We are so relieved as it is not only very sad to see them suffer and die, but it meant we were not getting many rabbits to eat. Well, technically a few have died, but that was because they escaped and the dog caught them.
They were small (one was 3 months which was a decent size and the other 2 only 4 weeks) but all were tasty and very tender bbqed on the pig.

This is probably one of the ones we ate, but it was a few weeks older than this when we ate it.

We now have 20 growing kits and the mums are pregnant again (or hopefully anyway as the mating looked successful). Soon we will have so many we don't know what to do with them!

We have bought new lawn cages now that the operation seems to be on track. They are gabions which are actually for filling with stones and building walls with.

They arrived flat packed

They came with all the pieces joined, we just needed to join all the upright edges and put in a slanting piece that you can kind of see here to hold grass/hay. I have also ordered little tarpolines to cover the top and one side. We hope that they can stay in them over the winter too. It is much easier to clean them out when they live on the ground like this as they just have to be moved to a new spot. They will still need to go in to the cages to give birth and raise the kits to weaning age (about 6 weeks)

We found that these will fit out through the holes. Which is quite surprising and how we came to have several to bbq as in the pictures above. We need to think again where they will live between weaning and about 2-3 months when their skulls get too big to fit through the squares.

Perfect weather, perfect ride

Lovely ride, perfect weather. Perfect horses.

The view

Doug and Daisy leading the way. 

We have tried thermal photos of Owen's feet as slight worry he has an abscess forming.

Bit inconclusive as the right one does seem to be slightly hotter but not much when we looked from lots of different angles.

Camping with the pig

We like going camping various places in the mountains. We go just for a night, partially because we cannot leave the animals longer than that and partially because it is quite tiring. We don't always go to bed as early as we should and yet wake up with the sunrise.

We need a lot of creature comforts with us

The tent is a pop up one. We have tried various sleeping bags. We have settled on a double one each! In the summer they are good to sleep on and in spring and autumn they are plenty cosy.

View from just above the campsite

This is our groovy new bbq called an ozpig. It is a mini portable wood burning stove that you can cook on. It is only slightly portable at around 20kg!

View in the morning on our way back down

Casserole dish, bread recipe

500g strong white flour
370ml cold water
1 tsp bread yeast
2 tsp salt

Casserole dish to bake the bread in. This needs to have a lid and be big enough for the risen loaf. I use a flattish Le Creuset one which is I think 4l (but has a domed lid). The dish can be pottery or glass or metal, whatever you prefer. The purpose of it is to keep the steam generated in a small space with the bread as the bread starts to heat up and cook. A flatter dish is easier to get the bread in to - you are doing this when the dish is hot, so can be tricky.

Mix together the ingredients, no need to knead. The mixture should be quite wet for bread dough.
Leave overnight in a large bowl (it will rise to 3 or 4 times the initial volume) with clingfilm over the top. It should rise right up the bowl and have big bubbles in it, it won't maintain a round shape, but rather just fill the whole bowl as the mixture is quite soft, not exactly runny as it is far more gluteny than that.
In the morning put a few handfuls of flour on to the fixture and squish it down. You need the flour so it doesn't stick all over you hands, but also to thicken the mixture up a bit.
Shape the dough in to a ball and put on a piece of baking paper to rise. I do this in a bowl first then transfer it to a flat plate for a final rise - you are going to need to transfer it in to a super hot casserole dish and that is easier off a plate, but the bowl helps the quite runny bread dough not all flow out in to a too flat shape.
15 mins or so before you think the bread is ready to bake, put the casserole dish  in to the oven at 220C

After rising over night

Shaped and risen again

First part cooked before going back in the oven to brown

Beautiful finished loaf.

More chicks

We had a disaster with our first batch of eggs this year and just one hatched (out of 24). We put on a second batch who have now hatched. We got 10 this time which also isn't a great success rate - though clearly better. I decreased the humidity from 50% to 40% for this second batch as I cracked open a few of the eggs that failed in the first batch and the chicks had grown but died, probably at hatching because the egg hadn't dried out enough and they can't then get air as they hatch.

They look really cute sunning themselves.

It is possible that this second batch was a bit too dry so the third batch I have set the humidity to 45% and am weighing the eggs as we go along. You hope to get a 10-13% drop in weight over the 3 weeks.