BFL fleece / Squash / Grey away - The Accidental Smallholder

Posted: Monday 2 October, 2023

by Rosemary at 8:52am in Smallholding Comments closed

Monday 25^th September

Sunny and breezy. MP, who is buying Grey, called to ask in the haulier had been in touch. He hasn’t.

And that’s kind of it until Friday 29^th September, because it’s been all desk and meetings.

Friday teatime, I get a call from the haulier. He’ll be staying in Perth overnight, can we get Grey to him  by 8.30am tomorrow. It’s about an hour from here to Perth. Yes, says I. Well, he has to go sometime.

Saturday 29^th September

Up at 6am, starts the car. It starts. This, I take as a good omen. Round to the barn, hoping that the cattle will be in – they were yesterday morning, albeit a bit later – but no. Get the buckets ready and give them a shout. Rora shouts back so I go for my breakfast.

Out again at 7.10am, cattle are in. Tie them up and Dan reverses the trailer up to where Grey is tied up and we set a very small pen of cattle gates around him. Really, he has nowhere to go but nevertheless, he walks calmly up the ramp, Dan takes his rope off and there we are, all good to go with an ETA of 8.21am. Result.

Finally find the haulier, after a wee tour of Broxden services. Dan reverses our trailer up to the lorry, Grey wanders off, up the ramp, gates shut, paperwork handed over. Job done.

Back home, the trailer gets pressure washed. I think the pressure washer is the tool I’d miss most – don’t use it a lot, but it’s invaluable when you need it.

Post-Grey trailer.

Grey arrived safely  about 2pm – bit agitated, MP said, but it’s been a hell of a day for him. Hopefully, he’ll soon be settled.

Took myself into the veg garden to do some weeding. Lasted quarter of an hour – the midges were absolutely awful.

It’s not awfully cold, but we lit the fire and watched Scotland play Romania. Well, Dan did. I had a long blink from about thirty minutes in until about ten minutes from the end.

Sunday 1^st October

What a glorious day! There was rain overnight and early this morning, then the sun came out big style. Brisk wind, but mild – so no midges.

Cleaned up the cow shed – the girls are in the huff and took an age to come in for their breakfast. This is the smallest our herd has been since 2012. Still, it will go up by one when we bring Thorfinn home later in the year.

Cleaned out the hens. I’m really enjoying having this wee flock of four. Cleaning out takes about 10 minutes every week, when I also top up the pellet feeder.

Our wee flock.

Four eggs a day; wee bit of mixed grain in the afternoon when I collect the eggs. Magic.

The daily eggs.

it was fair braw to be sitting outside with a cup of tea this morning. I asked Dan if I could put the Cadac away. But no, it needed cleaned. It’s been unwashed since we used it mid-August. Honestly. Done now – an it wasn’t as bad as I feared. It’s a great design.

Dan cleaned up the rest of the bee stuff, ready for selling. There’s three hives and some other bits. Just need to decide where we’re selling it and for how much.

Dan took the netting off the brassicas yesterday, so we folded and rolled it up carefully. It’s the one for the pea bed. Gwenna helped. Bryn used to LOVE playing in the netting.

Gwenna, helping roll up the netting.

In the absence of midges, I weeded a second bed; it’s ready now for Remin, manure and a plastic cover. One more to weed – that’ll be fun. It’s chock full of chickweed. And the sweet corn and the squashes will have to come out.

Weeding.

I’m going to offer the corn to the cows.

I can see three squash. This is the biggest. They aren’t quite ripe yet so I’ll need to read up on ripening them. All told, we've had 50kg of squash this year.

Squash.

Last year, I attended a yarn event at Bannockburn House. I took along three black Bluefaced Leicester fleeces. One was bought by a lady called Susan Nelson. Over the last year, she has processed that fleece into this stunning cardigan. I am indebted to her for sending me the photos. TBH, I teared up a bit - it's just so very, very lovely.

Black Bluefaced Leicester fleece.