Grass

  For the first time in a while, I've had to cut the grass on the farm. We've had many sheep and the grassed areas were over grazed. So, we dispatched the sheep and then gave the ground a sabbath rest. The resulting weed jungle has been cleared with streamers but now we have grass everywhere. The challenge is to mow the the grass regularly to prevent weeds, mainly stinging nettles, from taking root... This takes about 90 mins pushing a petrol lawnmower and will be my pre 7am ritual at the weekends in the summer 

Hobbs - RIP

 With a sad heart, I have to report that Hobbs, our oldest cat passed away on the same day as the queen.She was very frail and it seems she passed in her sleep. 

Hobbs wasn't one of our original 5 cats but she just appeared on the farm when we started to feed the other cats. She was the only cat which let us stroke her and she became a family friend. She also seemed to have a lot of babies

About 6 years ago, she disappeared. We thought she was gone but 3 weeks later, she limped in with no tail and massive scars/cuts and blood everywhere. She was very hungry but somehow she came through it and has had even more babies!

She was looks slow, frail and old and it seems it was her time 

We will miss you!

Restarting

Life is interesting and comes in waves.
For many years, the farm hasn't been our priority.
Recently, however, we have rediscovered it.
Chickens have returned,
eggs are appearing,
seeds have been planted,
new dogs have been chewing everything,
cats have been stealing food,
building have been removed, repaired and replaced...
There is still life in the old bones

Piggies

Pigs are great animals, they eat virtually anything, dig up the ground, produce great manure and are really fun animals. The only problem with pigs is the feed. Normal domestic pigs eat loads and without harvesting grain, pigs are prohibitively expensive. 

The solution to all the problems is a mini pig! These pot belly pigs grow only to 50 kgs and they don't need lots of food whilst providing all the benefits of pigs. Zolibacsi also has a continuous source of reject vegetables which will keep these pig ticking. 

No More naked Soil!

I've finally returned to health and one of the first things I've been up to is reclaiming our inner garden.

This has usually been a dumping ground for rubbish and a place of growth of weeds. However, inspired by our Swedish friends, I've reclaimed the ground for an inner kitchen garden/flower bed. First, a lot of the travelling weeds/trees/plants and a dodgy fence had to be removed to leave naked soil. 

The idea is to cover bare soil with a biodegrade material of various sizes which then holds in the moisture, and makes weeding easy. The ideal material is wood chip but I had a couple of bales of old rotting hay in the back field. This complemented with some well-trodden, weed and pooed straw/hay from the sheep will make a excellent first attempt. The plan is to let the ground recover and start planting in the spring. The covering is about 30 cm deep all over.

Also, there is a less spotted relativistic cat approaching the speed of light in the second photo! 

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,

RagWeed

Ragweed is the bane of our farm. It grows in every nock and crany; it grows fast and strong and when flowers, causes hayfever for virtually everyone around. This summer, we've had rain, sun, heat and the farm has turned into a ragweed jungle. We can also get fined by the local government for excess ragweed.

Left Achilles, 2016

Right Achilles, 2015

Usually, every summer at the crack of dawn, I get up and strim down the jungle and try to pull up the weeds. However, the last two years, I've been unable to walk over the summer, let alone use light machinary due to 100% snapping my right (2015) and left (2016) achilles tendons. 

The discovery of 2016 is that sheep don't just eat ragweed, they love it and go mental for it. Our flock of 13 sheep are in heaven munching away on the former vile

weed, which is full of vitamins and protein. My days of strimming and sneezing are over :)

Lambs

Proud Mama

The two older lambs

Heepy the Stud

Latest Lamb

Sorry for the lack of blog activity, We've been distracted with other things. Anyway, This year we've had a good run with lambs with all our girls getting pregnant. Unfortunately the Racka lamb didn't make it but we've three strong lambs from Heepy, our Ram.
The last lamb, born on the 2nd March, didn't want to feed so Zolibacsi and HuszkaMama helped it find the udders and now it is drinking like a sailor

Cheesemobile

In all the craziness of last year, we forgot to mention that we bought a new car.

Here is the new cheesemobile in all its glory. It is a 20 year Suzuki 1.6L petrol 4x4 which comes highly recommended by the local vet and  mechanics. 

It is just perfect for the farm - The high off-road action means that when there is 150kg+ of animal feed in the boot, we are not fearful of our dirt road removing the exhaust system. The Suzuki can drive in 2w and 4w high and low which means the smallish (compared to 2.5 tdl pickup trucks) engine is quite efficient whilst still having lots of power. It doesn't really like driving over 100 KMH but cruise nicely at 90. The high roof means you can fill the car with stuff and there is a towbar too. Five people can also comfortably fit in. There are lots of these cars around so finding parts/spare bits shouldn't be too expensive or difficult

Most importantly it is green

Baby Chickens and Ducks

We've not planned it but we've had a brown Japanese duck and a naked neck chicken sit and successfully hatch out eggs. We've got 9 baby ducks (5 yellow, 4 brown) and about 9 naked neck chickens and two Brahma chickens. We've left the poultry to do their own things, just making sure they are dry and fed with ground corn and water.
Cue the cute photos

176 days later

Today, I've managed to do my first piece of real farm work this year. It has been 176 days since I completely snapped my Achilles tendon in my right leg and it still isn't 100%

Today, I ventured into the garden with the Stihl strimmer and spent three hours hacking down Weeds, fast-shooting Weedy trees(grow fast but don't give out much heat when burnt) and long grass.
It looks like next year we will have to get a piggy or two to go through the orchard and dig up all the roots of these pesky plants and eat all the grass. This requires careful planning and some new fences or some of our beloved departed pets may make a return from the grave

End of an Era

Today marks the end of another era on the farm. We've butchered the three goats and have temporarily suspended raising rabbits.

The Goats were proving more hassle than worth. They were destroying fences and vegetation whilst not producing much milk and the offspring were dying too young and weak. They were burning money whilst not providing anything. The butcher came and we now have a freezer full of goat meat all expertly chopped for  £20.
We've been slimming down our rabbit collection since Andy broke his Achilles and today we swapped out our remain 3 rabbits for a new set in September. It gives a us time to repair the hutches; makes our animal sitters lives a little easier and reduces our grain purchasing as the remain animals can live off the grass and things growing on the farm

Goodbye to the Goats

Like the English buses, there have been no posts for a while and up come two! Life has been rather crazy and Andy has only just started to be able to walk after rupturing his Achilles tendon.

The season of change is blowing through the farm, we are currently having the house renovated and it's been time we've reassessed how the farm is working and doing.

The poultry has been an amazing success this year - All traditional breeds of Chickens, Ducks and turkeys have laid and hatched babies. Some have been more successful than others at keeping their offspring alive but it has been a joy to see them grow. In the dodgy picture below, there are a couple of the 14 baby turkeys.

The problem has been the rabbits and the goats. Andy's increased working hours have put pressure on the number of animals that need direct feeding. The sheep and poultry, to a large extent,  look after themselves and only need the occasional bucket of grain. We've already purged the rabbits down to 4 bunnies and we've made the tough choice to butcher the goats. The goats have not been the healthiest animals, due to genetic problems, the off-spring haven't lived and they require feeding or being tethered in a safe place. The mounting vet's bill aren't off-set by the amount of milk produced. Also, the rabbits are more maintainable especially if we need some guest feeders. A rabbit is quite easy and quick to dispatch, process and eat .

We are currently trying to fatten the two non-milking goats and when the other dries up, we butcher her too.  It is a bit sad but this is farm life, you have to make hard but right choices.

It might not be the end of Goats on our farm, we know two other farms so we could repopulate but until our livestyles change, we will be a sheep and poultry farm.

Rats

Whilst topping up our animal feeds, we found this monster dead rat. Though it is scary that there are monstrous rats on the farm. It seems that one of the cats(probably Hobbes or the ghost of Jess) took it out. Another reason Why  we'll always have farm cats

Baby Turkeys

Good News - After a winter of death (see the last four posts), We have life!!!! We discovered 3 baby turkeys have hatched :) They are being very cute and hopefully their mummy will be ultra-protect and they will survive!

Crunchy

Crunchy passed away in the night from liver failure.

She was a lovely,friendly dog who always loved to hug (aka lean on you) and was always hungry and never looking where she was running .

She never had it easy, she had a dodgy womb which was removed, eyelid trouble and many other scrapes and issues.

In her time, she killed a sheep, a snake and numerous chickens and cats but in the end death got her.
Another reason why this world needs to be renewed and restored.

Goodbye old friend

Weathering the Storm?

So far this year, we have sick rabbits, goats,dogs and cats and it isn't march yet! I've had to bury more dead animals then I can remember, the Vet is a frequent visitor and it become draining.

Are we weathering the storm or trying to hard to  make something happen? I just don't know

Mr Brown

With a sad heart, I am sad to say Mr Brown passed away. He survived 3 years, myxomatosis, the clap and produced loads of children. He was always polite, gentle and friendly and had the nicest fur in the world - He will be missed

Wethered

We came home from a long day out from playing guitar at two church services and preaching to find that Wethered goat was lying on the floor and bleating sadly. We tried to revive him but by the time the Vet had come, his nervous system had collapsed and he was slowly dying. We made the sad decision to have him put down and he just fade away without a struggle.
It isn't a pleasant start to the year but we are grateful that the ground wasn't frozen and we could dig a big hole in the moonlight relatively easily.
Looking back, he wasn't putting weight on and wanting to eat grain - there could be many  factors which could have hindered his growth but this is one of those sad things which sometimes happen on a farm.