Hate saying goodbye

It came round to that time yesterday when we said goodbye to two good friends - the pigs went off to the abattoir.  I don't know about you but I hate it when you have to do it.

We discussed keeping the two girls for breeding, as they were such wonderful natured pigs, but we didn't think that a pig breeding operation would be viable as there are so many other people doing it and pig feed being so expensive, so off they went.

Loading was easy.  We backed the trailer up to their compound and I scattered pig nuts down the ramp. Having not fed them that morning, they were hungry, so just scoffed nuts all the way up the ramp until they were in!

And Yes, these are the same pigs we bought in July - see the post from last July when we first brought them home!

Ear tags next -

Ear tagger machine with tag loaded

Both tagged - lets hope they stay in until they get to the abattoir!

And then they were off -

Michael exchanged the tractor for a 4x4 once out of the muddy field and that was it.  The butcher told me he would be sorting them out on Monday, so probably by the end of next week/beginning of the following week I shall be collecting a whole heap of lovely home-grown, tasty pork - can't wait!

Still harvesting potatoes

And No I don't mean the ones from the bags in the shed!

I went into the polytunnel over the weekend to have a check on how my micro-greens were doing and found potatoes growing.  We always grow our first earlies in the polytunnel, just so we can beat everyone else to it and start harvesting delicious new potatoes early.  That time of year when you're desperate for summer food, and new potatoes covered in lashings of herb butter - delish!

The potatoes I found were just ones that had been left over from the 2013 harvest but not wanting to let them go to waste I stuck in my fork and this is what I came out with.

The evidence!

The haul!

And extremely delicious they were too.

Stats today - 

Eggs produced = 7

Sales - 1 dozen eggs - £2.00

Expenses - Nil

Movement Ramblings!

Had to laugh earlier, as whilst reading the latest edition of Country Smallholding magazine, February edition, I came across an article about new movement regulations for sheep and goats.

From April 2014 sheep and goat owners will be able to record movements electronically.  The article also says that the new system will provide on online flock/herd register for owners to use, all voluntarily. All on and off movements will be recorded against an owner's register.  Paper copies of movements will also be able to be printed as these will need to go with the livestock

Don't fret, for all those pen and paper fanatics, you will still be able to use the carbonated forms as is currently the case.  This is only the case for England and all current registered keepers will be informed in due course.

This is great news, for me anyway being a bit of a computer geek (according to my husband!), not having to worry if I've got the right form, always the case here as we don't buy and sell that many livestock that often.  So good news if this simplifies the system for all involved.

Stats today -

Eggs produced = 4

Sales - Nil
Expenses - Nil

TB Testing time

Now if you have cattle, and I know not many of you do, then you have to go through the action of TB testing.  It's all organised through DEFRA, as you have to notify them when you start keeping cattle.  Your local vet is put in charge of the testing with no charge to yourselves.

Interval's of testing depend on where you are in the country, more prevalent areas are done every six months; we are lucky here in that our testing interval is every 48 months.

The test itself is relatively simple.  Two areas on the cow's neck are shaved of hair, which are then injected; one area with a small amount of bovine TB and the other with a small area of avian TB.  This was done on Monday.  72 hours pass before the vet re-visits to check the tests.  If either of the areas have raised lumps then the animal is considered a reactor to TB and has to be transported to a specific DEFRA site to be euthanaised for which the owner is compensated at near market value.

East Anglia is not that prevalent in TB thankfully and so it was with great relief that on the vet re-visit today, no reaction was found.  Phew!

Red - our Dexter cow, showing the two shaved patches on the side of her neck

Stats today - 

Eggs produced = 4

Sales - 1 & 1/2 dozen eggs £2.70

Expenses - £38.49 Seed potatoes, seeds, garden sundry items

Stats

Just realised I haven't given you the sales stats for a few months, so here you go -

October 2013

12 doz eggs	21.6
12 & 1/2 Kg Tomatoes	12.5
2 x cucumber	1
2 bags Bramley apples	2
2 bags Plums	2
4 bags Onions	4
3 Pumpkins	4.5
2 Cabbages	1.4
	49

November 2013

6 doz eggs		10.9
1 bag sticks		1.5
7 bags potatoes		7
		19.4

December 2013

13.5 doz eggs		24.8
4 bags potatoes		4
1 bag sticks		1.5
		30.3

Remainder of Greenhouse and other expenses = £227.25

Oct, Nov & Dec Sales = £98.70

Still left to pay off = £128.55, phew it's getting there!  But we've soon got the seed order to buy!  Oh well here's to an excellent 2014 season.

Movement books

Now I don't know about you, but I find that the movement book and the vet & med book is one of those jobs that gets left behind somewhat, and then when you need the thing for whatever reason, it's practically years out of date.

So having a very important vet visit today (more on that in another post), I thought I had better check that the things were up to date.  It used to be that if you had a visit from the vet, especially the vets from the Ministry (MAFF, in the old days), they went through all this type of paperwork religiously, and having had it drilled into me at college about it's importance (my old college mates will back me up on this!) I set about the task.

Thankfully it wasn't far out of date, so the task wasn't so onerous.  But it did get me thinking, is this just a job that is completely outdated and a waste of time?  I understand the need for keeping medical records, for meat withdrawal purposes etc, but if you're like us here and don't use that many medicines unless absolutely necessary - welfare grounds etc, then you don't run the risk of tainting the meat before eating it.  But the movement book seems rather a waste of time these days.  Pigs are all done online now; cattle can be, but still need paperwork to follow them wherever they go; sheep are still followed by bits of paper, but even now they have electronic tags in their ears, although I wish someone would devise one that actually stayed in! The system is not foolproof by any means, cattle movements, like visiting the bull, means that the passport has to go with them, but then you have nothing at all to identify that the animal belongs to you, it's all done on trust.  I do believe the whole system needs a complete overhaul, surely it can't be that difficult to identify each animal and follow its passage through life, can it?  Should we go back to tattooing?  At least that was permanent, ear tags never are!  Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Stats today

Eggs produced = 2 (!)

Sales - Nil
Expenses - Nil

Daffodils & Poo!

Evening all!  Thought I'd give you an update on one of our new ventures.

Remember me telling you we had decided to grow some Daffodils?  Well Michael had been reading up on the subject and said we needed to feed them, make them grow healthy and strong, with lots of flowers!  So we need poo and lots of it.  Enter bags of Kayal poo (my horse).  Collected from the stables in the trailer on the back of the tractor and we set about emptying the bags.

Obviously we had help, in the end we got so that we stopped scattering it about and let the 'unpaid' help do that for us, well, it's what they do best!

Keep going Michael, nearly there!

Thanks girls, you're doing a fine job!

Well that's about half way down the lines of bulbs, and would you believe it, we ran out of poo!  A whole trailer load of the stuff and we were short by about half a dozen bags!  Oh well, still plenty more to go at down at the stables - guess what we're doing next weekend too!

There's plenty more where they came from, and recyclable too, will refill over the next few months!

Stats today - 

Eggs produced = 4

Sales - Nil

Expenses - Nil

Microgreens

Well, Happy New Year to you all, and as you can see I'm back in blog land again.  It's good to be back with you all.

Plans are afoot for this year, extra enterprises are to be ventured into with the view of making a bit more out of what we have, fingers crossed - all will be come clear in due course.

Having read the November edition of 'Grow It', magazine, (a fab magazine for all things growable!), and absorbed the article on microgreens, I decided to do a trial.  So out came the seed box and I sorted through to see what I'd got that would be microgreen-able.

Now I'm never one to follow rules too rigidly and with an empty polytunnel I decided to plant a row of each of my seeds and see what happens.  Hopefully something will grow that is harvestable, if nothing grows, well I haven't lost much apart from my time; these were all seed packets we had anyway.

So I sowed the following, one row of each -
Parsley - French plain leaf
Basil - Sweet Genovese
Chives
Broccoli - Romanesco
Cabbage - Xmas Drumhead
Kale - Dwarf green curled
Savoy Cabbage - Winter King
Radish - French breakfast
Beetroot - Boltardy
Peas
Landcress
Lettuce - Arctic King
Rocket
Tatsoi
(the last four packets were free with a previous edition of Grow It magazine)

So I'm hoping this will make a fabulous mix of greens and I'll keep you posted on their progress.  If all they do is get to the seedling stage and survive the winter giving me some delicious spring greens to eat I shall be delighted, but am hoping for the microgreen stage instead.

Stats today -

Eggs produced = 4

Sales -
Nil

Expenses -
Nil

Potatoes & Update

Well we seem to have come to the end of our crisis for now, thankfully.  Dad is back at home, I took him home last weekend, and he seems fine, albeit rather weak.  He's just going to relax and regain his strength over the winter and come out fighting a little bit fitter next spring.  Phew!

Onto to smallholding matters again for me -

One crop that always does well here is potatoes.  I say it does well, but only because we are vigilant about their watering through the summer as they are definitely our winter staple.

The ground is double dug in February/March and heavily manured with rotted stable manure.  Usually three long trenches are hand dug to accommodate one bag of second earlies and one bag of main-crop.  Unfortunately I cannot remember the name of the second earlies we had this year, but the main-crop is Cara - a firm favourite of ours as it does so well on our light, sandy soil.

Michael spent the day last Sunday digging up all the main-crop; I had used the second earlies before this straight from the ground.  They were OK, a red skinned variety that suffered a bit with scab, and therefore not good enough to sell, but fine for us to use.

The main-crop are excellent.  A good variety of sizes with some really big ones in there two.  Out of one bag of seed potatoes Michael has harvested five paper sacks full (the 25Kg size).  We are chuffed to bits.  Hopefully that will mean we won't have to buy any this winter and they will see us through until next spring when the new potatoes that we always grow in the polytunnel will be ready, but more on that topic in the new year.

Stats today -

Eggs produced = 4

Sales - Nil

Expenses - Nil

Update

Apologies for not posting in ages.  I'll explain.

My father fell ill whilst on holiday in Austria and the coach company that he was travelling with 'dropped him off' at a hospital in Luxembourg on the way back.  He spent five weeks there and was discharged a week ago.  His insurance company flew him home with a Doctor escort, who then handed him over to a paramedic who drove him home to me here in Norfolk in an Ambucar.  Part of his discharge from the hospital in Luxembourg was that he had to have a chest x-ray as soon as possible, so I duly took him off to my local doctor who arranged for this to be done that very afternoon at the Norfolk and Norwich University hospital in Norwich.  Chest x-ray done and a doctor was called who admitted him.  And he's still there!  Another operation later and he's on the mend, but very weak.  So our life here is taken up with hospital visiting, feeding livestock and not much else at the moment.

Apologies but until all this with Dad has been sorted I won't be able to post much.  We are hoping that he will be able to go home sometime next week, so please bear with me until normal service is resumed!