Good morning everyone,
We hope you are enjoying the long weekend. It is a special weekend, as we remember our past!
Well, there has been so much happening on the farm that I don’t know where to start.
Fencing:
This continues – but it has it’s own issues. We have been struggling to make sure our cattle are secure in paddocks with good grass cover. With all our barberry hedges removed and not all fencing completed it has been a challenge, but we are just in control. We have the cows in some much larger paddocks (where fence lines have been removed). We are hopeful that in this next week we will have all the fencing in the bottom half of the farm completed. We are going away in mid May for 10 days, so it is essential that we are completely finished at that point. As we move into winter is is also essential that we have an adequate “bank” of grass ahead of us, to feed our herd through the winter. I’m sure we will get there, though!
Solar Array:
This is now installed and looks very impressive (almost an overkill). It is not commissioned yet.
Apparently there is an issue with one of the “grid supply phases” and we need to get the power company to check the pole fuses. We have recently had the power poles on the farm upgraded to larger concrete poles, so there might be some issues. The Solar company technician is coming here tomorrow, and meeting up with PowerCo (who look after power in this area). Fingers crossed they can get it sorted straight away.
The panels face north in an area behind our old tennis court. We are working on a special walled garden design so they will be hidden from view. Our fencing guys need to install new fencing in front of the array, to protect it from our very inquisitive cattle. There will be no battens in the fence – to allow 100% sun on the panels.
Spotlight on:
Today we need to spotlight a special little guy. This is Wilbur, who is a well bred bull calf.
The reason to spotlight Wilbur is the issues the poor guy got into on Saturday. All the old fencing wire that has been removed is rolled up ready for removal. Unfortunately there was a roll that was missed, and we found this poor little guy very distraught and almost totally wrapped up in wire. I tried a few times to get close enough to cut the wire off him, but he was so distressed that I could not get near him. We tried to settle him down and slowly walked him up the races to our yards (dragging the wire) where we could secure him to remove the wire.
High tensile wire can do a lot of damage to livestock. We were so thankful there was no injury to him, but the wire did take a chunk off my finger. It is quite painful!
Lol – the joys of farming! But I would definitely not want to do anything else.
That’s all for this week. We hope you all have a great week ahead!
As always – we LOVE feedback.
Cheers