SNOW and more snow and sunshine.

Its been a lovely two week period up here at Sandal Farm. The sheep are enjoying extra sweets and silage, the cow has her very own silage bale that she is disappearing into and the chickens spend most days in their house. The dogs are clean and loving the long walks through snow drifts and iced puddles. Now the cry is "Skating" not "swimming".
Happy New Year.

Suspension of Blog

Sad news for the one follower and 5 other readers, I am suspending the blog until I have a working camera. There is little enough to keep you riveted here but without a photo...there is nothing.

This photo is a dramatic portrayal of 2007 winds that destroyed our new greenhouse. It WAS standing when a windy night left it looking as if a herd of elephants had made their way over it.

I hope you all have a good winter, but it will be better than this one up here - whatever the weather!

RE; Last Posts

I realise that you may bethinking that I now have 8 children living next door but no...not yet.
The photos all messed up when O loaded the East Yorkshire post so are not in order of my description. The animal vegetable is a potato but can you seem the resemblance to a sleeping sheep?

East Yorkshire

Here are some photos from the day.

Clockwise from the left, view from the top of the wood. If it was clearer you would see the Humber Estuary.

Moss and Pip walking next to the sunflower crop, yes, east Yorkshire not Provence!

The ploughed fields, chalk! The wood next to ours is Chalk Pit. but all the land is like this around here!

Red berries, seen further along the Wolds Way. This a hover fly with a light aircraft in the background...good photography eh?

I didn't do any work on the wood, just explored the area, looked at goldfinch eating thistledown and buzzards swooping over game bird hatcheries then sat and ate my lunch with the paper. Bliss!

The wall is DONE!!

So this is the piece of work that has occupied my summer. The little dog with a frisbee in her mouth is PIP who keeps herself out of mischief by running after the frisbee when I throw it, bringing it back and waiting patiently for the next throw. Moss lies in wait, like the herding dog that she is and when Pip runs, so does Moss. They race for the frisbee then if Moss gets it, she runs away with it and lies down, waiting for Pip to come and pick it up. Then she grabs it and turns her head away.

Collies have endless capacity for this type of occupation as every collie owner will know. And it does keep them well exercised.

The new neighbours apparently are moving in on Friday, possibly with 8 children? Is this the end of our life at sandalfarm as we know it?

New arrival at sandalfarm.

But what is it?

Oh! Whats this?

This is autumn.

It is definitely AUTUMN!

Oh well, it is dry and I have nearly completed 60' of wall in under 4 weeks, a saving of £400 doing it myself.

O my aching back and legs...but I'm so pleased to be working all day in dry weather. Stone walling is even more satisfying than growing your own veg. Not only is it creative but it sabes me money while growing your own veg doesn't really make economic sense unless you buy organic from Waitrose. (whoops, product placement creeping in, I never buy from Waitrose as the nearest store is in Otley which is full of traffic and a long way from here).

The tractor flail mower broke a belt today so no mowing today but we have on order a STARTER MOTOR so no longer will I have to stand and listen to the agonising groans of the engine as it is turned over again and again and again...until the flat battery demands a jump start.

OH and I both back at work tomorrow. And dark ay 7.30pm.

LOOK, DRY FIELDS!

So the tractor is put to work yet again! This picture was taken in the sheep paddock (formerly the Pony Paddock). It is a much drier field than the Reedy Field where Cloud lives but it has more than its fair share of reeds.

What a transformation to have them down and shredded (the yellow device on the back of the tractor does both, it is flail mower).

Sadly for the first time we have evidence of worms in the sheep so the next job is to construct some sort of pen again to get them seen to. I hasten to add that it isn't MY sheep that have brought them in but an interloper from a neighbouring farm.

They need to have their toe nails cut anyway and Molly has lost her tag and the lambs from last year are now due tagging.

Shetland sheep are incredibly low maintenance and I am glad we got this little flock.

It is pitch black at 8.30pm.

So lets look at the evidence that we had a summer...

Our neighbour (not immediate neighbour but round the corner) has made a beauitful vegetable garden, spending so much time and money on a fence, trees and shrubs and drainage in an attempt to create a "good growing area", and it looked to have worked. Their vegetables were tall and green looking in the view I have from my bedroom window. He built raised beds with real soil brought on the back of a wagon, put in drainage, lovely chipped paths and a seating area with stone walls and pavements. There are beautiful flowers and lights that twinkle in the dark having stored power from the daylight. Their umbrella shades the view of their table and chairs from my prying eyes but I know how much I have used my own this summer...

Then over one day the beautiful vegetables disappeared from view. I thought, he obviously didn't use successional planting...but it wasn't that! His brassicas had been decimated by caterpillers. Oh, it is a sad truth known to those who indulge in the passion of growing their own vegetables (sorry, I've been reading the biography of Jane Austen) that vegetables need daily attention if you want to grow organically. Nothing can replace the daily toil of picking off the leaf needy insects and SQUASHING them. If you are vegetarian, there in lies your dilemma...kill a creature and lose your veg or leave the creature...etc.

As you all know, I am no longer vegetarian having reverted to canivorous life on buying the farm and having access to kindly reared and happy animals (at least until they are slaughtered), but can a human live by a holey cabbage alone.

The sunflower seeds will help.

Tractor tribulations.

This is what he did...got the tractor stuck...well and truely stuck...but all was not lost because I drove the truck, hooked up the tractor and he drove the tractor and lo...all was well again. It wasn't bogged down in the rain sodden field but on a piece of metal...

Who knows what the metal was, but it just got longer and longer and disappeared into the next door's land. Shame there is no scrap value in metal anymore, with the amount we have dug out of sandalfarm we could have retired.

I am back...

This is the River Spey, a wondrous river for fishing and canoeing and dog swimming.
There is such a sense of aloneness when walking through the woods in this unpopulated part of GB. Fishing, farming and shooting sre still the main industries, alongside whisky and shortbread.
Still, it's nice to back at sandalfarm and getting going on the neglected jobs.
I dug up my potato crop yesterday. It was no where near as good as last year but some good sized tatties there and should keep us going for a few months.
The runner beans are the best I have ever grown up here and the onions are "variable" - some are huge and some are miniscule.
Sadly, my first day back was spent in work, my second day it rained for half of the day and the third is today...I am breaking for oat cakes (yes, brought home from Bonnie Scotland) and Wensleydale Cheese before returning to the great wall of Cloud's field.
The house next door looks to have been sold but I don't know how big the family is yet and I am certain that they are not interested in keeping stock. Shame. I have 6 weeks to get the wall finished so I can trespass on their land to get it done.
Better get back there...
Tomorrow I will show you what OH was up to while I was away.

Too busy to take photos.

This is what is keeping me busy...the wall is a new one so the foundations have to be solid, the stone imported from another part of the farm and it is work in progress.

I spent from 11.30am until 7.00pm with half hour lunch and half hour for patching up the silage bales as the plastic had torn leaving the silage exposed...a certain way of acheiving a nice mouldy for Cloud in the middle of winter.

Speaking of Cloud, that white lump is her. She tends to hang around while I am working, whether eating, chewing the cud or sleeping. The latter applies in this photo.

Wonderful day, warm and not too hot. BUT more rain tomorrow.

This will be the last blog for a week as I am off on my travels again. I usually leave the farm for a total of 14 days a year at most in short breaks but family commitments in Scotland and more than doubled that total already this year. I am resorting to weed killer and neglect to get through.

ps my runner beans, spinach and potatoes are all cropping well. I don't let the beans get too long as they are unpleasant in my opinion for what it's worth.

Repairing the hen house.

One very rotten floor.

Evidence of a rat's nest or maybe just a big mouse...certainly moles throwing their soil up and making piles and a hole where humans can fall through to the waiting rat. Work in progress, pictured above.

To the left of the pop-hole, a creature was making a new one. It isn't visible on this picture but it was further evidence of a rat (says OH).

It is now finished but pouring with rain again so you will have to wait for tomorrow for the last photo. Bet you can't wait.

Busy busy...

So after neglecting to do much work over the summer due to frequent trips to various locations (and another coming up) I am now getting stuck in. Rain has just stopped play so an ideal time to catch up.

On the farm; cropping potatoes and other veg (not so many, it is not a great place for vegetables as I have previously remarked).

Continuous strimming particularly around the trees.
Weeding and spraying so it looks a little less neglected than of late.

Ragwort spotting...as it still pops up.

Worming for them that need it.

Cutting rushes, moving rocks, repairing the chicken house. (OH)

Finding eggs as they started laying outside again while friends were farm sitting last week.

AND...best job of all, building a new wall!!!

In the wood; clearing the front edge in preparation for the hedge which will eventually be layered.

Bramble bashing.

Building a log cabin...well it is a log shelter for me to wee behind ready for when the leaves fall off the trees.

Ordering natural/native daffodils and bluebells and preparing for planting next month.

What a wonderful life it is...never bored except when it rains of course.

The photo is of Little Eagle when she was a chick. Nothing to do with the content but cute.

Erecting an electric fence.

After the hay fields have been harvested, I asked for 3 bales to be left behind this gate (the bales are not in the picture), which they duely were. Now in the field behind the gate is Cloud. She is a wise old cow of 17 years and knows what lies beneath the black plastic on the round things that have appeared in her field. She needs to be kept off them.

Until OH is around to help erect a wire fence, I decided to employ my brand new (well it is 5 years old but not yet used) electric fence to do the job.

Ho hum...searching for all the bits took half an hour. I had to dismantle the agility course because it is fashioned from the plastic fence poles. The battery was already on charge so that was no problem. And yes, it was charged, I know that because I electricuted myself 5 times in the process of learning how to erect an electric fence. (how do you spell electrecuted??)

Still, all in a days work on sandalfarm...

So the fields are bare and the winter feed is in place and the nights are drawing in. OH and I are off to Wales to look for a pedigree White Park heifer (maybe).

Catch you next week.

First potato harvest 2009

After some wet days in Somerset (yes, on holiday) I have returned to glorious sunshine! What a state my vegetable gardens are in! So many weeds.

Anyway, this is the first of the potatoes, so not bad. I roasted them with home grown coriander and bacon and a bit of chilli as my chillis are only just in flower.

Also, the farm shop farm manager has cut our hay. We only need 3 bales, having only one little lonely cow to feed, so he has left us 3 bales in the field and taken the rest. Hopefully this will mean that we don't have to pay for the cut like we have in past years.

I read a leaflet and after a few shocks, managed to erect an electric fence around the bales to keep Cloud off them. There is a lot of grass now she is on her own and she probably won't look at them for a while. She is staying down the end of the field near to the field with the closest cows are but she doesn't spend hours mooing at them, in fact she hasn't mooed at all, but she certainly is keeping closer to them than she used to. She still waits for me in her usual place in the morning though. Sweetened calf feed is the best food of all!

Soggy land.

It is too depressing to post a picture of the last 2 days so I have posted one of a drier summer 3 years ago. This show the extent of the reeds in "Rushy Field"and one of Cloud's calves. Then we didn't have the equipment to manage the field. Now it is because

the rain has been extremely heavy and the result is the land has become saturated once again.

I have strimmed around the essential bits, pulled ragwort and picked crops but even though the sun is now shining, I am not walking on the ground any more, trying to keep the damage minimal.

The sun is shining now and the forecast is good for tomorrow. Luckily for us, the butcher hasn't started on his job with our beef so we are free tomorrow and are heading off to the wood. Saturday looks grim and that is when it will be ready for collection.

Although we don't butcher ourselves, the meat comes in plastic sacks and has to be sorted out for freezing and distribution. Last time it took 5 hours to divide into two and bag up our half. This time we are dividing into 3 and bagging our third. It is also a smaller bullock, so I'm hoping it won't take quite so long.

A gruesome job.

Cloud meantime is munching on grass and seemingly content enough. There are 2 Highland cows in the field at the end of hers so she has made that end of her field her desired resting place. She isn't moo-ing at them and is still meandering around the field to graze, and actually helping us by keeping the top half of the field to grow new grass.

I wish we could get this field sorted...

Neighbours.

I have described about how our farm is attached to two other houses, occupied by families. I am not sure I said that one is for sale, the one attached to us and therefore the one with whom we have most contact.

Worrying times...

But last night while OH was digging drainage holes at the end of the cow field, the neighbours from across the road invited us round for a G&T in the warm evening sunshine.

They are an agreeable couple that we see only occasionally and they are a very agreeable couple. So what started as a drink in the garden became a full-blown evening in with wine and pizzas.

In fact the midges drove us in before we took a first sip.
I wonder how to dispense with midges when it is such a lovely evening. Usually there is too much wind for them to bother. Wind - difficult to grow things, gets on your nerves, cold versa wind - dries the soil, keeps the midges away, cools it down on a hot day.

So there you have your plus points and minus points;

neighbours - share tasks, have a drink together, look after the chickens in an emergency (maybe) versa -neighbours, resent sharing their space with you, getting bothered by their requests for help, having to entertain their children. (picture - which I have made small to protect identies)

I am rambling. Time to go and pick the rest of the gooseberries.

I'm back.

This picture was taken last August. This time the dogs stayed at home with OH who was on holiday. I have just returned to an ecstatic welcome (from the dogs not OH who has disappeared to dig a trench somewhere) and I am off to survey a week's worth of weeds, say hello to Cloud and the sheep andrecover from the 7 hour journey home.

PS, the picture is of Moss in the woods at Grantown on Spey.

What a day!

Can you see the rain on my window? This is the view from the office and the computer sits under the window. Usually at this time of the day, the sun streams in, making it the best part of the house to sit in. Not today, it is relentless.

Can you see my model sheep, I bet my little flock wish they could be as dry. They have a shelter and rarely use it, prefering to huddle by a stone wall or in the long reeds. Silly sheep.

It is 10.9c and the wind blowing at 15mph with gusts up to 22 mph. Yuk. I have had a day at work anyway and the dogs weren't that bothered about a walk, they told me. We have played "Find the Ball" and "Fight Each Other Because we're Bored" and eventually they'll give up and sulk quietly.

I won't be posting for over a week now, so don't forget to catch up on sandal farm news for the rest of the July and hear the thrilling news about Arthington Show and OH's week solo at sandalfarm.