Hay, Hay And Thrice Hay!

The old currant bun (sun) is paying Ireland a visit this weekend.  Three of our fields were mowed last night and today we are using the hay bob and tractor to turn the grass into hay.  Hopefully ("please, please!") we will be making small square bales of hay before the weekend.  

The Corn field (all our fields have names) is a really heavy cut.   The Wester field isn't bad either.  The quarry field (used to have a little quarry in it) was mown for the first time in my living memory last night.  The gate entrance had to be made bigger to let the contractors mower and tractor in.  So I will be busy this week putting up a newer and bigger field gate.  Great stuff.  Not!

Yesterday aftenoon was spent by yours truly strimming edges of the field, ditches and strams to show the mower man where not to cut.  I spent about twenty minutes pulling a water pipe up and placing it in the hedge.  Grass is such a nuisance for wrapping itself and it's roots round things.  I also found the tractor grass roller covered in brambles.  Don't start me on them.  

Are you making hay this year?  Must find somebody to bale the hay for us.  I think the going rate is about fifty cents a bale.  Or Ten bob if you still talk in old money like I do.   

Pictures to follow.

"Testing Testing One Two TB!"

I often think that the perfect fam would be laid out  in one farm parcel.  But of course ours isn't.  We have a few acres around the farm dwellings and another ten acres across the main road next to the bay.  It's often too busy and dangerous to move cattle along the road.  We take them to their summer grazing in the cattle box trailer.

Every twelve months the cattle have to have their annual test for TB.  If they are over 2 years, they get blood tested for Brucellosis.  You also need to blood them if you want to sell them.  I don't think sheep or pigs get tested for TB.  Except when they go the slaughter house and vets take samples.  We have to pay the vet to test the cattle every year.

One of the credentials (requirements) of getting an herd number is that you have a cattle crush for testing for TB.  We have two cattle crushes.  A bought one up at the farm and a home made one down in the fields.  It's great for putting the cattle in for dosing for stomach worms, replacing lost ear tags or treating a sick animal.  You can also test the cattle in it for TB.  We made the field crush out of old scaffolding tubes and corrugated iron sheets and concreted them in.  A welder we know made up the two gates and used his mobile welder to fit them.  The crush cost next to nothing and made life so much easier for us.

 Pictures of a field cattle crush.  The rust is beginning to paint a lovely patina on the steel.  I love corrugated iron.

"Well I'll Go To The Foot Of Our (Tractor) Stairs!"

I love idioms especially English and Irish one's.   Any road.  That's another one.  I found out on Friday there is a fungus like bacteria that lives in diesel engines.  It's called Diesel Bug.  It's great at disguising itself and clogging up diesel engines, especially tractors and boats.  It's said to live in water and does a great job at ceasing engines and making them difficult to start.  

A diesel injector fixer informed us that there is a product on the market that kills the diesel bug.  You empty your diesel tank and fill it with clean diesel then add a bottle of the magic stuff and it sets to work killing the diesel bug.

 I have been growing vegetables over twenty years and every year there is some crop that fails or gets attacked by something, be it slugs, aphids or blight.  I read somewhere recently that the rust that attacks leeks is the same rust that attacks metal.

When we went to the Algarve in April. We noticed how so many of the older cars still looked like new with no rust.  They still get covered by the Atlantic salt rain.  But they don't rust like cars do in the British Isles.  Perhaps it's the heat that keeps the rust away?

It's a typical mixed bank holiday weekend here in Ireland.  My potatoes are flowering so I might get my shovel and have a look for some hidden buried treasure today.

                                                       

Topping Time On The Smallholding.

We have been topping the fields with 'Maggie' the Ford 4000 and the Perfect topper.  She does a good job and  cuts the thistles at the same time.  I usually walk around the fields cutting the thistles with hedge shears or my jungle slasher.  The mixed weather makes the grass grow like mad and get in front of the cattle.

I bought the topper a couple of years a go and it's probably the best 650 Euros I have ever spent.  I still cut some of the thistles in awkward places that the tractor can't get.  Especially on high lockers only suited to four wheel drive tractors.  We are saving some of the fields for hay, haylage or silage if it becomes too wet for small square bales of hay.

I remember when we use to come here on holidays and we would help my granddad and uncle and neighbour farmer make the hay with pikes and horse and cart.  My mum and grandmother would walk down to the fields with small bottles of bass bitter or Guinness, currant cakes and a bottle of cold tea in a old sock.  There's nothing more refreshing on an hot summers day.  Those were the days, sadly gone for ever!

Anybody else doing any topping with their tractor?  Have you got a vintage tractor?  What's it called?

Making Pubs For The Locals (Slugs!).

Blimey the slugs and snails have been acting like locusts in the poly-tunnel and veg plot lately.  I blame it on the showery weather.  I have been going out at night hand picking the slugs and snails.  But they seem to be winning the battle at the moment.  Oh my poor brassica's and beans!

Yesterday I decided to make some 'slug pubs'.  We filled trays and dishes with some cheap beer 'el crappo' from one of the cheap German supermarkets.  I have an habit of picking up a can of some unknown beer and saying:

"I will just get one to see if it's any good."  

Of course it very rarely is.  That's probably why it's so cheap.  Any way here's a couple of photographs of the slug 'pubs'.   The slugs have a last drink and drown.  Poor slugs what?

At least they have a local pub.  I am not bothered really.  I find it's far cheaper to sit at home in your scruffs and have a few cans of Newcastle Brown or other English bitter.  Only thing is you don't have a social life or ever meet people to talk with.

How do you fight slugs and snails?  We bought some organic slug pellets last year and our own slug pubs.  You don't even need to use beer. Pop or cordial will entice them - anything sweet!

The Girls On Their Grazing Holiday Next To The Sea.

I haven't  shown you any pictures of the girls for a while.  They are just over 12 months and they should be fit for bulling when they are sixteen month old.  I will probably sell them soon and replace them with some dropped calves.  Our work rearing them is done and it's nearly time for them to become milking cows.  The ever turning circle of life on the smallholding.

 Queuing up for a cow brew.  You can see Bantry bay in the background.

 The grass is getting well in front of the cattle.  We have topped one of the fields this week.  Then the water pump died on the tractor.  Luckily we have an apprentice plant mechanic to fix it for us for a few cans of cider.  We are hoping for a big crop of hay and hopefully sell some.  Anybody else planning on making small square bales of hay?

 'Wellies' the heifer posing for a photograph.  She's called 'Wellies' because she's got four white legs that resemble wellington boots.

I made this Heath Robinson adaption with a bath and a pipe from an underground stream.  We also have piped water in the other fields.  This comes from the well on the farm about quarter of a mile away.  It's amazing what gravity can do.  

Smallholders Pork Pie.

One thing I really miss from England is a pork pie.  You can get them if we travel the 60 miles to Cork or Kilarney (45 miles in a straight line).

So I got the wife to make us a loaf tin sized pork pie.   Here are the pictures.

The pastry is shortcrust and the filling is pork mince.  We ate it with spuds and vegetables.  The mince was our own though.  People often call British food bland.  I think if it's cooked right with good ingredients, it's right up there with the best.  You can't beat home made food can you?

I washed it down with a few cans of Newcastle Brown Ale.  That's another thing I miss Britain for.  A good pint of bitter with an head on it. 

There is a beer festival in Killarney next month. I am tempted to go.  Do you live near a real ale (CAMRA) pub?  Tell me about it and make me Jealous and drool.  Wetherspoons are opening a pub in Cork soon.  Things are looking up.  Guinness and Murphy's stout are good.  But you can't beat some real ales can you?