A Blaze of a Week

A blaze in many ways!
So much to do. We are renovating house for which we have a tenant, the work is coming along brilliantly, however the tenant is due to move in next Saturday!, the house was never going to be ready. So influx of family (what would we do without them) to paint clear up etc, yesterdays glorious day was given over to painting the upstairs bedrooms.
Today as it is James' birthday (9) I have a reprieve, Philip however has a life sentence, so he's off there again until party time ( I think he'd rather paint!)
The other type of Blaze is such as when you set the muck heap on fire!!!!!!!!!
Yes I did. I went to burn some of my rubbish last Saturday, about half an hour later I looked out of the window and as i saw smoke still blowing down the filed I thought 'oh that fire is still burning well', after further investigation I discovered that a spark had gone onto the very very dry straw in the muck heap and was merrily burning away!
The children and I evacuated the tiddlings from the shed, not quite ready to be grilled yet! and then I phoned Philip up at Aberwystwyth Farmers market to see what I should do? (at this stage I was cringing thinking I may well have to phone the fire brigade and tell them I had set a muck heap on fire!) Philip told me to take a shovel and go and beat it out. So after telling the children to keep an eye on me, and if anything should happen to phone 999 straight away I went to beat out the fire, which of course wouldn't be beaten! Every breath of wind flamed a new flame, and still it smouldered. Luckily at lunch time Colin arrived (always trust a farmer to arrive when there should be food!) and after his experienced inspection and shovelling several fork loads of dry straw and muck away from the fence around the fold to the shed, he declared it would smoulder itself out, if not dial 999........ thanks Colin!

Rules, Rules, and Regulations!

Last Thursday, off Philip went to see if he could get some grass keep at an auction in Llangunlau. He succeeded. We intend to take our hogs to summer there, which gives us more ground to graze, and also hopefully more grass therefore for the Hoggs to grow before they go to the Tup in the autumn, ready to lamb for their first time next spring. Good job Philip thought to phone the ministry to check on movement rules, it appears we have to have a different licence to an ordinary movement licence, as the farmer has let several different Fields to different farmers technically they can't all move their stock onto the fields together as there should be movement restrictions within a certain period, but this can be got around, we also needed to update our movement licence as we sold some ground last year where we used to transport stock there by trailer, which we don't need any more, so what we thought was a good move means filling in more paperwork, you really wouldn't credit it.
So Colin & Wyn have been busy tailing the Hoggs today ready for their move. They have to be tailed because we know there is a lot of grass on the new grazing ground, and as with anything good, if you have too much of it it is likely to go straight through you!! and if you have a long woolly tail there it gets all over it and then the flys will lay maggots on it in the hot weather, attracted by your eau de muck, next you have a Hogg with a maggot infestation which is really nasty, so this should hold them at bay until we dip them.

Change to Tax Relief Rules

News from the Farmers Weekly tells us that Gordan Brown is planning to implement Tax relief changes which will effect the current Agricultural buildings Allowance and will come into effect in 2011.
How does ABA work?
On a £1m investment, relief on 4% of the cost means that £40,000 can be set against income for tax purposes in the first year, and in the 24 subsequent years, thereby reducing the amount chargeable to income or corporation tax. The Budget proposals are to phase this out over the next four years so that ABA's will operate at 4% this coming tax year, 3% in 2008/9, 2% in 2009/10 and 1% in 2010/11 After April 2011 it will end. (Source Farmers Weekly 13th April 2007)
I will be contacting my MP, as we all should within the industry, stand up for yourselves and don't let them get a way with it. This is our livelihood and our futures. Many of us have invested in new buildings over the past years, mindful of our budgets and that the tax relief will be taken into account?, how many of us will sink even deeper if this is allowed to go ahead?

Help in the Butchers shop

Thursday saw a busy day when all the ewes decided to get their lambing over and done with due to the hot weather! So I ended up in the the butchers shop helping Philip to pack and weigh up our produce for Friday in Llandrindod and Saturday in Knighton. it made a change to see so much of Philip, what with lambing etc I feel like a single mum and I'm sure a lot of other farmers wives will agree with me! Still it's nice to see our product all ready to go to market and I know you all enjoy it.........

Vogan Has A Fractured Leg

A visit to the vets today to check Vogan's leg. Along came everyone, (except Hannah who was at the stables of course!) James, Jessie and I got ready to leave- and then Jess remembered that Cocoa, the guinea pig, needed her claws trimming , so she went into a shoe box, Saffy - not one to miss an outing, jumped in the back seat, and Vogan travelled in an old wine box in the back seat.
What a motley crew we were when we arrived. the vet Mr Mitchel was very accommodating and he said Vogan's leg was quite swollen with a lot of fluid on the 'knee' joint. he thought it had probably fractured. As he had been like it for a week, and had in fact improved was eating, playing with the others etc he said we could either just leave it or we could bandage it.
So we have decided to leave it loose and as it heals he should start to put some weight on to it.
It's been a glorious day, Hannah is just going down to give a lambs a last feed - yes she does come home occasionally!

Badger Gets a Lamb

Sad news.
Colin phoned last night to tell Philip that a Badger had killed a lamb on our little steep fields. You can tell it's a badger because the tail had been bitten off, the stomache ripped open and the liver taken out, the the carcass of the lamb had been left. If it had been a fox the whole carcass would have been taken probably to feed young at this time of year. We have several sets of Badgers on the farm.
Touch wood we have never tested positive for TB and we think it is because our sets of badgers don't carry the virus, and badgers being territorial keep incoming badgers away. So we tend to leave them alone as much as possible. this is awful though, and so much more because only recently we have been seeing badgers shuffling along at night and we think oh look at them aren't they lovely and now this!
Well this is farming and the country like!

Easter Weekend is Over

Well it's Tuesday morning, and a little colder than it has been. the children have all gone off their seperate ways and I can have a day in the office catching up.
We had a brilliant weekend with my Dad & Serena thanks to them both. I managed to catch up with my brother James and his wife Tina and my nephews Simon & Luke who I think I would have walked past in the street, it's been that long since I saw them both.
Back home one of my tiddlings had died, which is really sad, but the good news is that the other three are doing really well, taking a whole bottle now every time they are fed. Goran is still limping around with his left back left held up and if it hasn't done any better by Wednesday I think we'll have to take him to the vet as I think it could be a dislocation possibly not just an ache or joint ill.
Heather from Wiggly Wigglers e-mailed me to tell our customers that we are mentioned on her podcast No 78 so if you want to listen just click the link on this bog. I can really recommend the pod cats they are very informative and fun. People from all over the world listen to them. It is Heather who inspired me to add a blog to the website, and soon we have videos for you too and at some stage in the future I would like to do a podcast also.

Glorious Easter Weather

What a fantastic day it is. The sun is shinning, I have just been down the filed to take off Maggie's stable rug, she is really losing a lot of hair now the weather is warmer, I have loosed my tiddling lambs into the fold so that they can lie in the sun a little like their peers out on the fields, luckily with their own mums. I have put the guinnea pigs cage out on the lawn so they can get used to the sounds of the outside in anticipation that during summer they will eat so much grass I won't have to mow the lawn. I'm sitting here in the office looking at the fantastic view and thinking oh how I wish it wasn't year end. Never mind after Myrthry Tydfil market tomorrow I'm off up to Derbyshire with James & Jess to stay with my dad and Serena for the weekend. Hannah has pony club and nothing, no nothing comes between her and her horses!

Open Farm Sunday

Philip & I went to Blakemere Farm, in Hereford yesterday to meet with LEAF and other farmers who are going to open up their farms to the general public on Sunday June 10th. It was a really cold day, and we can usually guarantee it's will be a lot warmer in Hereford than with us as it is up and over the forestry onto the warmer side of the mountains, never mind, it was a lovely afternoon in the company of like minded farmers, and it was lovely to see my friend Heather Gorringe again from Wiggly Wrigglers. and to meet two other Nuffield Scholars over here resourcing their topics.

The Tiddling Lambs have Arrived!

Yes it's happened, they have arrived. As usual this time of year there are by now several lambs who have no mums, are a little slow, and need a little more TLC so they are installed behind several large straw bales in the shed opposite Maggie's stable. The idea is that as the children are home they can look after them and feed them, and to be honest they do very well. But Hannah is up at Underhill Stables everyday for 9 hours!, James is Footballing this week with Cardiff City, and Jess can't quite control them all together. So this morning i was up in my dressing gown at 6.30 giving them their first feed. Now at 9.00am I'm going down to do a small intermediate feed fro the two who have a little congestion on their lungs. their names by the way are.... Vogan, Feather, Twinkle Toes and Bunny not named by me !!!!!!!!

Open Farm Sunday

1st of April, and I got away with no practical jokes being played upon me. Lambing is well under way, Wyn has just started to lamb 250 at Caergynant, and at Nantleach we are about 1/3 of the way through our 500, Colin is already starting to miss breakfast and having lunch as his first meal of the day!
The children have all just broken up for the Easter holidays, and have shown their real first interest in attending the lambing sheds. (Yes child labour is still allowed in the farming industry), so their little legs can cover some of the many miles it takes up and down the sheds in one day to keep checking that everything is OK with all the ewes.