Been watching " This Farming Life " ont telly quite nice to see how they go about it in Scotland and the Isles, one fella there has 5000 head of sheep and watched his hired Australian lambing help doing a bit of assistance work last night. Also interesting was the chap with the pedigree Lims with the old shuttlecock text warning system, like he said if it works you can get on with other essential jobs and when they are about to calve you get a text alert, pretty nifty.
Out with the horses today and I think some have started Easter holidays already, lots of motors about and quite a few tin tents on behind some, they should have to take a test to pull one.
Hope your lambing is indoors Wrighty as the weather old Baldrick is sending you from Eire don’t look too promising, ur gunna need a hat and coat by the looks and if it gets really bad get your good lady to do a shift, cheers Buzzer.
Evening Buzzer
Could maybe do with a D I T hat to keep mi head dry to go with the waterproofs, sounds like we might need them over the Easter weekend. Lambing is gathering speed now and tomorrow we are bringing in the next batch to lamb, Alice was out of the house at 6.30 this morning and got back in tonight at 7pm. She is the main lambing supervisor keeping the rest of us in line…,I’m on holiday now for ten days so it’s all hands on deck will post a few photo’s when time allows.
Cheers Wrighty.
Cant believe I used to drive this wish I had her now, cheers Buzzer.
PS. Hori in the picture is nearly 40 now.
My early morning visitors on the lawn not quite agricultural but definitely country, very timid but gave them some bread which they ate but you cant get too close or there off, this is the third year they have come about this time think its the same ones and may nest nearby, Buzzer.
So Buzzer: When you have an open barn, illumination, flashing coloured lights, a ghetto blaster, some cheap Spanish plonk and a few straw bales (for the goat), all you need then is people to invite round for a shindig in the evening warmth.
Well I am well knackered tonight, had the veg patch cultivated by my 80 plus year old neighbour with his massey 135 which he bought new in 1969 and his Howard 60 inch rotorvator and it came up a lovely tilth in the hot sunshine. Next step get the spuds in, 3 rows of my favourite
Annabelles followed by another 3 rows of a new variety for me Charlotts, and to finish of I put up one row of bean fence for my French climbers. Had the help of my good lady dibbing in the spuds and making a few cups of tea and although tired now feeling very pleased to get all that done before the rain comes tomorrow .
Hey Buzzer your bean fence looks like crowd control barriers, are you secretly planning an open day? 
Buzzer:
Well I am well knackered tonight, had the veg patch cultivated by my 80 plus year old neighbour with his massey 135 which he bought new in 1969 and his Howard 60 inch rotorvator and it came up a lovely tilth in the hot sunshine. Next step get the spuds in, 3 rows of my favourite
Annabelles followed by another 3 rows of a new variety for me Charlotts, and to finish of I put up one row of bean fence for my French climbers. Had the help of my good lady dibbing in the spuds and making a few cups of tea and although tired now feeling very pleased to get all that done before the rain comes tomorrow .
Hi John,
Well done today,I see from the photo’s that your young niece was helping you, was the Boss making a cuppa ? 
Sounds like you’ll sleep well tonight.
Regards
Richard
Evening Buzzer
Well it’s been a great day up ere pity it’s going to change tomorrow, about seventy lambed so far only another three hundred to go. The boss looks to have made a good job of planting the tatties, ideal conditions by the looks of it.
Cheers Wrighty.
A couple of photo’s first one taken in 2004 as a calf second one taken last week with her ninth calf, good old girl nice and quiet just the way we like em.
Hi BUZZER ,Very wise to let the boss to do the dibbing in i used to use a old t fork handle cut down,now i go to Tesco. washed and bagged.
What a good idea for the bean fence save all that string,and bamboo canes, however now Tesco for all veg .The old fixed seat syndrome playing the backup,then the knees, now i have to have both my feet looked at by ultra sound .X-rays inconclusive…
The Doctor at Hospital asked me what i did before, i said i tried to push a flat piece of metal through the floor for at lest 10 hours a day,and it never worked that was the right foot ,and the left foot was like a demented man pushing up and down non stop,i demonstrated it to him and he looked at me as if i was daft. i said “you never drove a old lorry then”…
Was a grand day I must say but getting ready for depression tomorrow. Wrighty do you lamb inside then put em out, seems a better way and you can keep an eye on whats hapnin specially if the weather is a bit hard. Must say them calves of yours do look the bizzness have the shape right from the off, you better have a word in Baldricks ear as far as the weather you are about to receive its him what sends to you. If you PM me your Address I will see if I can purloin another couple of hats for you and Alice.
PDB sorry to hear of your troubles and as you say I reckon I will be feeling the after effects of todays efforts in the morning, matter of fact I feel it already so may take a couple co-hydromol tablets to ward the stiffness off. The thing I was thinking while planting them spuds was when you can nip out and dig a root at four oclock and be sitting down eating them an hour later, same with the beans you just cant beat getting it that fresh, it will probably turn cold now and not to late for a frost so will have to watch out for that, cheers Buzzer.
Yes we lamb all the sheep inside as it makes it easier to keep an eye on them, when they are turned out all the ewe’s get a shot of multi vit and their feet pared so they don’t need to be handled again until we turn them out of the fields.
This next week we should have about 140 to lamb, so it’s going to be all hands on deck to get them sorted, just hope Baldrick sends us some reasonable weather, only joking about the hats Buzzer but thanks for the kind offer. PDB hope the old “plates o meat” get better soon, we are running therapy sessions at the moment, lambing for feet you’re more than welcome to come and try it… 
Cheers wrighty.
Morning all,
Buzzer, that really is a great tilth on your ground. Just a couple of thoughts on spuds…Edzel Blue are a great eater and boiler, as are Camelot, but if you think that its going to be dry down with you, then try a few Habibi, they love the dry, and have a great flavour. For a nice easy growing variety, that is a nice fryer, or baker, then Nitza is great, and back to boiler Nicola is your girl!..
Spuds are the most wonderful vegetable, and so satisfying to grow…and to eat! Have you tried “Hedgehogs”…cut the uncooked spud part way through about four parallel strips, then bake with a smidgin of virgin olive oil, and copious Rosemary…Fantastic flavour, ideal with a baked white fish, and lots of baked tomato with black pepper…
My Managing Director pricked out some tomatos yesterday, whilst I endeavoured to reclaim part of an ancient Orchard that we have let go for far too long…today there is more to do, but the old Sciatica has well set in! (pdb, my simphanyies with your feet, when we were 16 we never imagined how the mechanical bits would wear , had we).
Buzzer, one way I got the Egg yield up was bake used egg shells in the bottom oven of the Aga for 24 hours, then crunch them up and feed them as grit. The bantams loved them, and the production yield did increase.
Wrighty , hope you get a good few twins and triples, good luck!
Ah well I`ll hobble off the the fray again…why do brambles have the strength of razor wire?
Cheerio for now.
Well am I glad we did the spud planting yesterday as its a different world down here tonight, hat and coat to shut the chicken. Thanks to Saviem for the advice on spuds and cooking of them, if I were to try all your suggested varieties I would need a much bigger plot and I give loads of my stuff away as it is, My mother used to buy in day old chicks and often when the phone call came from the station master that they had arrived on the 4 oclock train from the west country I was dispatched to collect, she used to rear and sell at POL but we also had 1500 birds in battery cages and when the chicks first arrived she used to hard boil cracked eggs and chop them up and mix with chick crumb and they loved it.
Wrighty suspect tizz belting it down where you are, down here the wind is very strong and just started raining heavy but we knew it was coming, well it’s bank holiday so that says it all. Personally I don’t like going out on such weekends as the traffic is always bad and it takes for ever to get anywhere. Bet it’s nice to see all them lambs take breath it makes the job worth wile. On the subject of lamb I sent the Boss up to Tesco today as they had New Zealand legs for £10 a go and she got six, I know its not very patriotic but we prefer N/Z lamb as its not quite so fatty and at half price to normal its a no brainer.
These are my chicken today practising a lineout for rugby, not really a give them a line of wheat every day so I can do a head count but the new one’s aint caught on yet, cheers Buzzer.
Buzzer,what a picture ,forget carriage racing , line “dancing chickens” the next mrs Flattery could be amongst that line of young ladies.
s crating a living.
As for the New Zealand lamb, yummy, i have always had a fondness for the kiwi lambs especially the 2 legged ones IN THE EARLY 1960S, they were about 6 years behind trend wise,but boy did they have legs,and could not keep -em closed.
Old spice after- shave,was then the perfume for the said lambs ,and you would get the full three courses…any seaman that was there will verify it.Whole family’s would be having their Sunday, walking down the quays ship looking,and all us young Tups drooling over the rails.
a lot of beatle hair styles would be worn…and all the Scousers new one of Beatles or went to school with brothers etc
Funny i never took any notice of lorrys back then i wonder why.
Here we are JD , as promised , the hat modelling pics.
A lovely sunny day here in Knocknagoshel and we took a welcome break from renovations and decorating and went for a walk.
The lovely Sue keeps me on the straight and narrow… As you well know, you need a good’'n alongside yer.
She’s very possessive about that hat. Has put her name on the label
wrighty:
Great photo’s Snapper, motors looking tidy have you had the rims repainted ?Cheers Wrighty.
Hi new rims wrighty
A bit of a problem with fridge last week,
nothing major but was a lovely day in Pompey
Had a follower in Dover lol
