First fields in!

We managed to get our first lot of silage made last weekend. The grass was cut on Monday and Tuesday evenings last week, and the baler came on Friday night. There were 75 big bales of really good dry silage which will be a good half of what we need for our cows this winter. We still have 40-plus acres to gather, some of which we will make into horse haylage, both for our own and to sell. This needs to be really dry, about one day off being hay and so needs three or four really good days in a row - we're not getting that at the moment so we'll just have to be patient.
the new bales were stacked and then we put a fine mesh netting over them to stop birds pecking at them and making holes in the plastic, which causes bales to spoil.

Anah has a boy

The last of the cows calved early this morning in the (fairly) torrential rain. We went down the field in the truck at about 10.30am to see if they were ok - all the other cows and calves were sheltering under some overhanging trees near the gate, but Anah and her calf were lying in the middle of the field in all the rain. They were cuddled up together, and as we approached she got up - she looked like she had had a bit of a rough time, but the calf seemed fine. He was shivering a bit, but that's nature's way to warm up, and when he got up he went straight to Anah to try all four teats for a suckle, then they trotted off together into the rough marshy bit to escape from us!

Who could be the naughtiest horse?

On Sunday, we went to our Riding Club's show jumping day. My back has been a bit sore and Rachel had been riding Sonny through the week to give it a chance to get better, and so I suggested she maybe could work him for 15 minutes to settle him down a bit without pulling on my back. She tried her best but he had other ideas and just proceeded to go at the speed he felt appropriate, so he was brought back to the horse wagon in disgrace and a stronger bit put in and I got on. After a serious battle of wills, he decided to give in, not grunt on the way in to a jump and actually go at the speed I wanted to. He had a clear round and a knockdown in the jump off of the 85cm class. Meanwhile, Fizz was trolling round with Rachel, looking very angelic. Sonny and I jumped clear in the first round of the 95cm and then it was Fizz's turn. Well, I nearly fell off with shock - he cantered steadily round to fence one and then the touch paper was lit! He jumped it really big and babyish and nearly got rid of Rach, then did the rest of the round like a quad bike cornering on 2 wheels before hurtling out of the ring and dropping in to stand beside Sonny looking totally innocent again. We all burst out laughing, including Rachel, but I do think Fizz won the prize for being naughtiest! He did redeem himself by steadying up and jumping a couple more classes in a more refined style, and Sonny was very proud to win the style jumping (but the judge did say he had a soft spot for greys).

Today we have been to Hexham, cross country schooling. The weather was lovely and the ground conditions excellent and they both jumped everything we wanted them to so a good day was had by all.

Its a heifer!!

Oaklands Valerie, one of our newly purchased pedigree Salers cows, gave birth on Saturday evening. If you had seen our attempts to find out what she had had, you would have been in stitches. As it was, we had to wait until Sunday morning to discover that the new arrival was a heifer, and so another addition to the breeding stock at Dancing Gate.

Valerie (left) and Anah (right) are pictured before they were turned out.

Percy, Polly and Pandora 2

The pet lambs have now been weaned - a rather noisy process so they went off to the big field with the other sheep for a couple of weeks until they accepted the idea. Pandora especially did not take kindly to the idea of no more milk and you had to wonder sometimes how something so delicate and pretty could make such an awful racket! They have come home now to live with the tups again and so they can have cake every day. They have two friends as one of the ewes had been poorly and on antibiotics so she is in the back field too with her lambs. Polly is becoming very pretty and poor Percy has sunburnt ears as they are quite bare due to the Charollais in him so he has moisturising cream rubbed on at night.

Dancing Gate Holiday House

The house is all finished and the first guests have been and gone and loved it - it does look fantastic, so clean and new! The pictures are now up on the website for anyone interested in booking or just looking!
This week we have put the shed in for cycle storage and added a garden bench for sitting and admiring the wonderful views. The window cleaner came and tidied up the mess that a rather persistent pied wagtail keeps making around and on the bedroom windows - he sees his reflection in the glass and attempts to woo himself. Its quite funny but I wish he would give up and go away.

Summer calves

Our four original cows have all calved now, two have had bull calves and two have had heifers. The calves get tagged with individual i.d. nos and are disbudded in the first couple of days so that they do not grow horns. The two new cows, Oaklands Valerie and Anah arrived on whit monday and have settled in really well. They spent a few days in the shed to get to know us but went out on Sunday afternoon and are loving it. They are getting to know the others over the fence and hopefully they will calve soon and they can all go together.