making hay whilst the sun shines ....

.. not really making hay, but certainly making progress here on our little "farm".  The arrival of two experienced and v hard working farm labourers, aka my Dad and Jane, on Tuesday has meant that after 5 days hard, hard graft on their part and Russell's we have achieved lots, including the following:

1. The Turkey house is FINISHED (I will post pictures soon, it really is fabulous);

2. The turkeys have had their wings clipped (Jane is a super turkey catcher, who knew?) and are in their new home and fully free ranging;

3. The rappa fencing is complete, with the electric cable neatly buried (thanks dad for digging the trench), the biggest earth stakes you have ever seen all dug into the ground;

4. We have hose pipes out to the field, a harder job than it sounds;

5. I have a neat muck heap, with panelled sides and everything, I'll show you we mean business when we say we will keep the farm neat;

6. The sheeps are tame, bucket trained and in the top paddock with the ponies;

7. The sheep have shelter.

The compliance officer came to see us last week and we showed him around. Apart from one slightly sticky moment when I had to leave the compliance officer  alone with Russell whilst I saw the grass topping guy it all went very well.  Russell isn't safe to be left alone with anyone from the council, just in case he starts going through all the little bug bears he has with the Council.  Anyway, the compliance officer has since written us a very nice letter, saying that our turkey house and shelters are all legit and no further action is needed.  Plus he gave us some advice as to how to use our permitted development rights, i.e. we have the right to erect buildings for agricultural purposes such as barns, animal houses etc but we need to write to the council first.  So now we know and he has printed out a copy of the policy for me and popped it in the post.  He signed off his letter by saying "May I take this opportunity to wish you every success in your farm business".  How nice.

xx

Mary had a little lamb

After what seems like months of waiting I finally picked up the sheep on Saturday night.  We haven't got a trailer yet and after looking into hiring one or bottowing one it dawned on me that they would probably fit in the back of the 4 x 4.  "Can I take them home in the back of my car?" I asked Jane, who runs the Rodings Plantery where we bought them from. "Err I'll have to check" came the reply.  Anyway, Russell laid the back seats down flat, and this space combined with the already large boot, made plenty of room for the 6 three month old ewe lambs. I took Luke to pick them up with me on Saturday evening after he had been to a party and well, they are gorgeous.  is it rude to brag about how gorgeous your sheep are? Well they are and they are in the bridge paddock until they are tame.  After a week they are starting to get used to us. 

In every post I write "the turkeys are enormous" but really, they are now. We were meant to be in Scarborough on holiday this week, but we cancelled and actually I'm so pleased we did.  The kids are having such a great time on the field anyway, and the Rappa fencing went up today - giving the turkeys an acre to free range in. As soon as Russell has the house finished we will move them to their new one acre home. 

I was in Homebase buying a power hose to clean the garage and managed to get into an awful converstaion with the guy that works there. In certain walks of life and situations, I have discovered one tends to come across people who have worked in turkey farms / chicken farms / or know someone who has and they seem to want to discuss the grizzly details of the business. I was looking at the power hoses when the shop assistant came over to me and began to ask me lots of questions.  I feared he may be a person with turkey farm / chicken farm experience or know someone who has and so I didn't want to tell him that I wanted the hose to clean the garage where the Christmas turkeys had been kept whilst little.  However he kept asking and so eventually I told him, as soon as I had his first question was "how are you gonna kill them?" and he then launched into a discussion of the many and varied forms of slaughter, hand signals and gestures and everything.  Yuck.

Of course the truth is I don't know how we're gonna kill them, it certainly won't be me but a "professional" and I don't want a discussion of it. In fact, the word is banned from now on. I am slightly concerned that we may have 26 pet turkeys come January 1st. Joke - for those of you who will order one, I really am joking but I am fond of the strange feathered creatures.

xxxx