Mower news and other farm updates

The sit-down mower's drive belt to the blade has melted and snapped. The replacement would be about 14,000 HUF so we've decided not to replace the mower as the bio-mowers (sheep) are doing an excellent job, most look rather pregant and are quite controllable with electric fencing
The sit-down mower will be used as farm tractor and can be used a lawn sweeper (picks up cut grass, small twigs, leaves and sheep poo), a grass dethatcher and trailer which is highly useful. The remaining areas can be treated with the exceptionally noisy scissor mower, now fixed after snapping the drive belt! this time just a 3000 HUF replacement.
Other rivotting news includes the replacement of the pressure switch on our home well water system. This switch was over 40 years old and the contacts have worn away, mainly from frying mice which borrowed into the connection. Our electrician friend, Csaba, found a replacement and installed it (a non-trival situation considering the wiring) and now our house has 3.5 bar water pressure :) I'm looking forward to saying goodbye to the days of showering under a drip.

Autumn update

Its been a while since the last post and here are the latest update which kinda build on eachother

1. Andy is finally on his feet and slowly limping around the farm.
2. The sheep count is up at 20 - We've about 8 black racka now - This is the last year of Heepy being our active ram - Next year we will swap him out to make sure that there is no inbreeding.
3. Most of the original trees on the farm are dead or on the way out - We've hired a tree surgeon who has felled and sorted the trees. We should get some planks of various lengths and lots and lots of firewood from these trees.
4. We need to plant lots of trees so that we can have firewood and new fruit trees. The last batch of young trees have been successfully killed off by the flock of sheep who preferred tree bark to hay. The problem is that the areas that are suitable for planting are very exposed.
5. The lovely Graham and Sue came out to help us with the sheep management. With their excellent help, we've managed to partition the orchard and former vegetable patch from the sheep. We've reused old fencing and gates, reinforced with pig-wiring around the orchard (pictured) and then laid an electric fence with two spring gates to seal off the former veg patch. Digging out the old posts were challenging even in the sandy soil as at the base of the 2m post was a wooden cross prevent us from pulling them out of the ground.

The next steps are waiting and testing the sheep-proofness of the fence and then planting fruit and wood-burning trees,