Dove Farm Diaries
Rain stops play (again)
combining at dove farm
It’s not been the easiest of harvests this year – patchy I think, is a fair way to describe things.
We’ve done the barley, which is sitting in a shed, happily – and the oats – but not making much headway on the wheat, thanks to damp and showery weather.
25 acres out of 120 acres still to do at one site – then there’s one more move to do with the combine, to bring it back to Dove farm. The remaining 15 acres of spring wheat here, is waving defiantly at me.
When people think about getting the harvest in – they tend to think about the grain, pouring from the combine, and into the waiting trailer – but they conveniently forget about the straw that’s created behind the combine, as it goes along. Well, it’s all part of harvest too – in fact there’s been some years, when the straw has been worth more than the grain.
There’s as much stress getting the straw baled up, dry; as there is getting the grain in.
It’s not so bad, if a standing crop gets rained on – as long as some dry breezy weather follows – but once the corn is cut, and the straw gets wet – that’s just depressing.
Its always a race against time, and a gamble on what to do for the best. If you are combining in daggly, damp conditions, then its preferable to leave the straw for a couple of days, after combining, to allow it to dry out. But with an uncertain forecast, it’s sometimes better, to bale it up as new straw, to get the job finished, and hope that it will be sold and used before it gets chance to go mouldy. So hard to make the right decision, although sometimes you are governed by who is available to put in the labour when you want it doing.
What often happens is – you decide to leave the straw, it gets rained on, and then you have to wait for sunny weather to return, and dry it all out again.
Then people wonder why farmers are grumpy…
Posted in Farm Days, Life on the Farm | combine harvester, combining, Derbyshire, Dove Farm, farming, farmlife, harvest | 
Leave a comment
Leave a commentit’s hard being a Super-hero
The end of July is significant for all sorts of reasons – end of term for kids, hay-making, getting ready for harvest, agricultural show season ……and my birthday. I have many memories of ‘celebrating’ many birthdays, sat in a tractor cab late at night – cos when the weather’s here, mowers, trailers and balers wait for no man.
So what I’m saying is, that I never have the luxury of reflecting back on the year past, and planning ahead. It’s all one blur of actvity at birthday time. This year is even worse, cos we’ve been building a new grain shed in our spare time, ready for storing this year’s crop, and I am supposed to be online, giving a snapshot of progress and activity each week on the farm.
I dont know which is harder to do – being a ‘Super hero Dad’, or ‘Super hero Farmer’. Most of the time, I fall wide of the mark on both – but this week, the new version of www.dovefarm.co.uk has gone live, and I’ve had a good week of machinery sales. The grain store is nearly done, by the skin of its teeth – and I have promised to keep a good supply of blog updates coming through. So that’s super hero farming taken care of, and all is well on the dove farm homestead..(for one day, at least)
Now who’s got some advice on how to be a ‘Super hero Dad’?
Posted in family, Farm Days, Life, Life on the Farm, Uncategorized | Blogging, Derbyshire, Dove Farm, farmlife, Staffordshire | Leave a comment
Leave a commentconstructing February
with a little help from my friends
I have been (not so) gently reminded by darling other half (aka @dovefarm) that the whole purpose of a journal, or blog, is to write regular posts; and the purpose of dove farm diaries, is exactly that –
to be a diary – a kind of captain’s log of what is going on and happening at the farm.
I have been remiss in my duties on that score.
There’s no getting away from it.
So, I will just say that February ‘ happened’ – and here we are, into March.
With a bit of help, I have half put up another shed; always difficult these kind of jobs, because we rely on a fair bit of goodwill and spare time energies of colleagues and friends to help – so progress is as economical as it can be, but often slow, confined to fair weather weekends and so on. The purpose of this new shed, which is joined on to an existing one, will be to house livestock, as and when required.
We have taken the opportunity to get some maintenance tasks done; in the cottages, in our house, and on the vehicles.
We have thinned out the poultry (too many cockerels) – too skinny to put in a pie, so the foxes and badgers had a treat that day.
Had the vet out to Danny Boy donkey, to do a castration. After a winter of ‘nothing showing ‘ – Danny decided spring had sprung, and we realised that everything had ‘dropped into place’. As they get older, stallion horses or donkeys, do not generally make good pets, so it was time to call in the vet….funny thing is, our vet is also called Dan. Darling other half, called it sweet irony. Yeah.
Have done a fair bit of horse-trading in Feb meself - machinery wise that is.
Our new website for used farm machinery, ,www.stretton-agri.co.uk is performing nicely, and serving as a showcase for the agri-machinery we no longer need, as well as items we have bought in or traded against.
Posted in Farm Days, Life on the Farm, Uncategorized | Derbyshire, Dove Farm, farmlife, Staffordshire | Leave a comment
Leave a commentRSPB Big Garden Birdwatch 2011
what d'you reckon, George?
How did everybody get on with the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch 2011 then?
Our bird feeders are in and around a tatty old lilac tree, outside the kitchen window. It’s a favourite spot with all our animals, including the chickens, ducks, dogs and cats – they all love pinching food off the bird table, and anything that drops to the ground.
In fact, it costs a small fortune at dove farm, to keep our garden birds in peanuts and what not. They are total guzzlers, but it is nice to watch them through the window, while you’re waiting for the kettle to boil.
Here’s Kipper the dog, asking George the Buff Orpington cockerel, what he reckons to it all.
We topped up the bird feeders on Friday – so our little feathered critters wouldn’t think there was any funny stuff going on over the weekend.
Saturday morning, nobody had time to stop and do birdwatching – but things were looking good – several visits from the woodpecker, practically a flock of long-tailed tits, a collared dove, nuthatch and a couple of tree-creepers.
All the above, in amongst the usual robins, blackbirds and sparrows.
Come Sunday morning – kids and notebook at the ready – not a sausage.
Well, ok – the usual robins, blackbirds and sparrows, but where are the woodpeckers when you need one?
I would say - “…and where are all the tits, when you need a pair of Great ones to appear in your garden?” - but I better not, cos I’ll get in trouble.
Posted in family, Farm Days, Life on the Farm | Derbyshire, Dove Farm, family, farm blog, farmlife, Staffordshire | Leave a comment
Leave a commentFarmhouse Breakfast week 2011
cows having breakfast
Thought you might like to see what the cows have for breakfast in their winter accommodation?
It is Farmhouse Breakfast week 2011 after all!
We feed the cows on silage, which is basically pickled grass.
In the summer, we make big round bales out of wilted grass (dry -ish but not too dry) and then wrap them in black plastic. This seals in the remaining moisture, and the grass is preserved until we open up the bales in winter. If the seal is broken, and air gets in – then the silage can go mouldy. If the grass is too wet, when it is baled, then it ferments too much and is not very palatable by winter….and it stinks.
Fortunately – we’ve got some good silage this year, and the cows certainly tuck into it.
The gaps in the feed barrier are just about big enough for the bull to get his head through, if he does half a turn of his head, before sticking his head through. It’s a technique he perfected last winter, and I was glad to see that his head hadn’t got any bigger over the summer!
Just in case you were imagining that all farmers have full English breakfast every day – they don’t. Maybe it depends if they have a farmer’s wife to cook for them each morning. There’s definitely a farmer’s wife at Dove Farm, but she doesn’t cook breakfast – well, maybe on a Sunday.
So – it’s toast again then.
Posted in cattle, farm animals, Life on the Farm | cattle, Derbyshire, Dove Farm, farm blog, farmhouse breakfast week, farmlife, Staffordshire | Leave a comment
Leave a commentTill the cows come home
mending fences
The cows had a final fling, before they came in (very late) for the winter. They went running up the riverbank at dove farm, and broke through the fence at the end.
Not such a problem if there was nothing in the neighbouring field – Unfortunately, the neighbour’s cows, looking almost exactly the same as ours – were stamping about, waiting to have a party.
Result: one double-size herd of cows.
When a farmer gets one of ‘those’ phonecalls – it makes your heart sink:
“your cows have got through the fence. They’re all mixed up with my cattle.”
You know there is a logistical and bureaucratic nightmare ahead, as you dig out all the cattle passports, to verify which animals belong where, and find there’s at least one animal that’s lost its ear tags…
Anyway, by nightfall, our lot had had enough, and came back through the gap in the fence, back down the riverbank, and home to their own fields at dove farm.
“Bless” said Jane, “Bloody animals” I said. Today I was hammering that fence within an inch of its life – so they don’t try that stunt again in the Spring.
Posted in cattle, farm animals, fencing, Life on the Farm | Derbyshire, Dove Farm, farmlife, river Dove, Staffordshire | Leave a comment
Leave a commentWelcoming the New Year
Wishing all of you a healthy and prosperous New Year, and happy to introduce our new blog:
Here we are at the top of the Weaver Hills on New Year’s Day. Jane is taking the photo, that’s why she’s not in it. (There aren’t many passers-by on the 1st Jan, on a bleak and windy hilltop in Staffordshire.)
At the top of the Weaver Hills
It’s become a family tradition, to brave the elements, and walk up to the top of these hills on New Year’s Day, to make our wishes, and dream our dreams for a brief moment, until we can’t bear the cold any longer, and rush down to the car, to thaw out. Oh, didn’t I say that bit? – we drive most of the way there first!
I mean, when you are inventing a new family tradition, you can make it how you want it to be, can’t you?
Wish we could do the same with the farming year – make it how we want it to be…
No matter how carefully you plan or do things a certain way, nature and bureaucracy have a nasty habit of doing what the hell they like, and suddenly, everything’s up in the air.
Nothing new there then.
Posted in family, Farm Days, Life, Life on the Farm | Blogging, Derbyshire, Dove Farm, family, Staffordshire, Weaver Hills | Leave a comment
Leave a comment
Recent Comments