Yes! Yes yes yes!

I have been dreaming that I could write this post, this way, the past couple of weeks.  Here goes....

Over the summer I have been a busy bee writing lesson plans, presentations and swotting up on theory and today I have passed my BHS PTT.  This basically means that with one or two more things (first aid course, child protection course - no more exams at any rate!) I am a qualified riding instructor. Amazing, I am really pleased.  I am now able to work as a riding instructor in a commercial riding establishment or private yard or as a freelance coach.

I went to Newton Hall, in Suffolk this morning to complete the exam - one of the modules I had to have a second go at, but no need to dwell on such details :-) The important thing is I have now passed all the modules.  The feeling when you pass an exam is so wonderful - you can't bottle it, its great.  Yet the feelings of nerves and panic in the hours leading up to the exam are not so great. I feel I am getting a little too old for doing this sort of thing - I went to college and university in my younger days and went through my fair share of exam stress. And practical exams make me even more nervous for some reason, a bit like taking your driving test. Awful. The examiner told me I need to work on my nerves and be more confident - hmmm, I merely nodded, nervously.

The day was not without hitches however, I forgot my watch (quite important for teaching a lesson as one needs to know how much time one has left ) and so stopped off, in an increasing panic, at numerous service station en routé to Suffolk, but to no avail -  none of them sold watches (sure I bought a watch once in a service station .....) I was only about 20 minutes away from the exam venue when I thankfully I passed one of those enormous Tesco Extras and they, of course, had watches. "Thank God for Tescos!" I cried to the woman on the check out.

Anyway now on with BHS Stage 3 training. The Stage 3 exam will be the last one I take. Everrrr . It will be all I need to run the riding school and that's good enough for me.

On my way home I stopped off at the shop to pick up a bottle of something to celebrate with - and ever thrifty -  I purchased some cava, not champagne.  This also means we can drink two bottles of cava for the same price as one bottle champagne. Ha ha ha aha.

xx

Bob the Builder

Right, well here with go with an update. As you can see, building work has STARTED. Both we and the builders completely underestimated the size of the building - more bricks are going into this baby than 3 detached houses (ok, a slight exaggeration, maybe just 2 detached houses) - concrete blocks and bricks are being ordered in their thousands from Ridgeon's. We have exhausted all local supplies of concrete blocks and are now getting them from Norfolk.

I am loving the yard as it takes shape and I can't sleep as I'm too excited. However the costs are spiralling and are, frankly, scary. If it wasn't for Russell's calming influence it would definitely be a valium job for me by now. Still, we decided a long time ago that we didn't want to just build stables, rather a beautiful building which will last for hundreds of years and be our legacy. Russell has just found some beautiful wooden barn doors and arched doors for the entrance from a reclamation yard - if they're not too expensive they will finish the yard off beautifully.

Ooo lots of "beautiful" and beautifully" in that para - you get the picture anyway.

We have two "Bob the Builders" - though strictly speaking one is "Bob the Brick Layer". Poor "Bob the Bricklayer" had a bit of a false start, on day 2 he got bitten by something, possibly a horse fly, near his eye and he had to have a week off whilst his poor swollen eye got better. Plus we have Tony the builder and Mark the Digger driver. There is also a young bricklayer, but he is v shy and I don't know his name. Think I scared him last week as I was having a slight go at Tony and Bob over various things - have been a bit stroppy with them, but I hope we are all friends again now.   I am also teaching the builders about horses - today I gave Tony a very interesting talk on sweet itch (a condition horses can get - one horse I may take on loan has it, so it is on my mind at the moment). They (the builders)  said they didn't mind having their photo on my blog so here they are ... lots of tanned flesh on show - I never know quite where to look when I go out there ..........

I have also started my search for suitable horses and ponies for the riding school. I'm hoping to open in December / January and so want to get some more ponies here by the end of the summer so I can school them and settle them in. Luke is proving a useful jockey - when we go to see potential ponies I put him on them and send them off. If Luke can hold onto the pony and just about control it in canter in an open field it is ok for the riding school. If the pony tanks off with him squealing then its a no no. Fear not, Luke loves it really.

The baby turkeys are outside in their cage - its so nice to have them outside and out of the garage.  They have survived the recent thunderstorms (baby turkeys are known to keel over and die in response to loud noises) and seem v happy. They are growing (don't worry, I will not post every time from now on saying how big the turkeys are getting like I did last year - see what I mean about the cyclical nature of farming making for a repetitive blog!).

Oh and we have hay - about 350 bales and it smells great.  I have problems that I can see in the future, and they come up and whoosh you in the face suddenly. Well the hay was like this. You see, I always knew that in the summer we would have 300 bales of hay cut on the field and we would then need somewhere to put them. Preferably a barn. However we don't have a barn, or anywhere else to put them. However, each day there seemed to be more pressing things to worry about and so I didn't ever get the hay storage problem sorted. So, one day last week, Keith cut the hay and whoosh there it was - the problem of where to put 300 bales on hay hitting me in the face, sudden like. In between watching kids at sports day I bought some pallets and ordered some tarpaulin and arranged with Keith he would stack then hay bales up on the field.  The whole Seddon clan then spent a merry evening putting tarpaulin over the bales.  We just got it done in the nick of time - that night after we covered them it pi**ed it down. Not an ideal way to store hay, but hopefully most of them will stay dry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 xx

Round and Round We Go

Ok so the cyclical nature of farming continues with the arrival of the 2013 Christmas turkey poults - so very cute at one day old.  I had been quite blasé and relaxed about the getting the turkeys this year, having been through it all once last year, but as I drove away from Pat's with the little turks cheeping in the box beside me on the passenger seat I felt the familiar feeling of worry and anxiety pass over me.  Rather like childbirth, I had forgotten what a worry the turks were last year from the moment they arrived until the moment they were eaten (sorry to be blunt).  Anyway, I remember it now!

Our home breeding programme is a wash out with now only 1 live poult remaining.  Next year we will invest in an incubator and hatch the eggs artificially.  I can see why these heritage breeds are almost extinct - the females do not make good natural mothers and the poults are intent on killing themselves.

I've been back on to various members of the council - landscape officer, planning officer, engineer etc to try to get some more of the planning conditions discharged.  A time consuming task and I find myself once again biting my tongue and being polite when really I want to scream "Oh My God just let us do it!!". 

Last Sunday was spent carefully spraying weedkiller round the 500 new hedge plants and spreading grass seed on the new bank.

The manege is nearly finished and the groundworks are underway for the stables and yard. Scarily we had two builders, a guy with a digger, keith working on the manege and Greg and Duncan taking out the old hedge all at the same time.  As I wondered out each day to speak to them all and check on progress / answer questions it felt a bit scary - how many workmen = how much £? Still, sure it will all be ok. Yes, completely sure. Sure I'm sure. There, have convinced myself.

We are a building site, and a very happy one at that!

x

Karma and wormer

News from Brook Cottage farm this week .....

Turkeys

The two female turkeys (plus Dudley, of course) laid around 30 eggs and began to sit on them.  So far we have only had two live hatchings with a large number of the eggs yet to hatch.  I will leave them another few days and then if nothing has hatched I will have to take them away. The new poults are a wonderful new source of worry - last year I went to great lengths to ensure the day old poults I bought from Pat did not go anywhere near a blade of hay or straw (as I had been told, by pat, that poults do not do well on hay or straw bedding as they tend to eat too much of it and it can kill them).  However, these poults are bedded on hay with their Mums. Argh. Seems ok so far but worry worry worry. Anyway, I have 25 poults on order from Pat, which will arrive on the 4 June.  I'm not sure if our home breeding programme has been a huge success, but two poults are better than none.

PSU (Project Set Up)

Oh God. Where to start. Think of a huge number, then double it and you might be close to budgeted expenditure to date on PSU. Still, I have it all captured on an excel spreadsheet so even though the costs are spiralling, I know by exactly how much. So, with the budget, I am frightened, but knowledgeable!

We have made progress:

• the access track and parking area are now laid with crushed concrete - the final topping will be put down once the stables have been built and all the heavy lorries have finished coming onto the site
• the new hedge seems to be establishing ok (lots of water....)
• the guys have made a start digging out the manege and I have found a suitable surface that is IN BUDGET!! (about the only thing that is)
• we are getting close to deciding on our builder for the stables and yard

I am trying to get through all my riding instructor qualification preparation, but tine is tight so this is slow progress.  I need to get up earlier in the morning, like 5am, and then I'd be fine. 

Equines



Springtime and Lexi grazing in the new "summer grazing" field .......















Karma

I found a fox cub's skull one day when picking up droppings from the field and I thoughtlessly tossed it onto the muck heap.  A few weeks later we lost all our chickens to Mrs foxy - ...... next time I find a cub's skull I will treat it with more respect .......


Worming Sheep

The sheep needed a little tlc this month - they had to be wormed, given a heptavac injection and have anti fly strike spray put on them.  In the absence of a sensible sheep dog (no, Jack does not count), any sheep pens or similar useful pieces of equipment,  Sam and I coaxed the little sheepies with a bucket of feed and then grabbed them, one at a time, by the horns.  I then straddled the sheep with my legs whilst clinging onto the horns and tried to hang on as it sort of broncho bucked for a while and then went still.  Sam was then quick to put the wormed in the mouth, inject the heptavac and spray the bottom with spray. She only got me once with the anti fly strike spray :-)

We had done a couple, when we realised how similar the sheep actually look and that it would be extremely useful to mark each sheep - to identify those that had been "done" and those that hadn't. Again, in the absence of proper materials, I used a tube of Claudia's blue, washable paint (which incidentally, is not that washable, as it is still on the sheep some weeks later!). We either definitely did them all, or missed one and did one twice, but either way we were very pleased with ourselves for doing a good job.

 

 

 

xx

The boy who flew too close to the sun

One thing I didn't get chance to blog about last time was the awfully sad news that all of our chickens were killed by a fox.  Or, the big, bad wolf as Cassia called it.  The fox had them in three separate attacks, the first was early in the morning when it killed about 5, the second one evening when I was a little late shutting them in (around 6.30pm but it had gone dark) and the third attack was again early in the morning when I was actually up and about and saw it happen.  By the time I got to the chickens the fox had killed them all.   

I am tempted to join the hunt again! After the first attack I saw the fox most mornings on the field, waiting for me to slip up and for her chance to get at the chickens.  The fencing guy brought his gun a few mornings but couldn't get a good shot.  So there we have it, no more chickens free ranging on the farm.  We will have to get some more chicks in a few months, but keep them behind electric fencing.  I do miss them, they brighten the place up.

I have also had a quote for the SUDS (sustainable drainage system) - to simply design the bloody thing, not to build it or anything, I have been quoted £3,400.  Hmmmm, let me think about that for a while.  No thank you. Surely it can be done for less than this? I'm back on the phone, ringing around on that one.

The quotes are coming in for the stables and manege.  After some ridiculous quotes ranging from £105k right up to £250k (yes, we are building houses out there, a little estate!) I am taking the reins, so to speak.  Ordering the materials ourselves, project managing it, using local builders, chippies & roofers and reading my book on how to build stables ha and we are getting the cost down a bit.

Anyway, I have a ring bind folder with lots of A4 plastic wallets in, you know the sort I mean, and I have it filled with all the millions of details I need for the build.  I am calling it Project Set Up (PSU) and I have sections on the hedging and soft landscaping, the access track and fencing, the manege, the stables, costings and timescales.  I love doing this, it suits the J part of my preferences - Myers Briggs personality type indicator. I also have a calculator and a hole punch and a soil testing PH kit. I have always loved a job that requires a calculator.

Andy and his team have put in the new 100m of hedging for the access to the road, so we have officially made a start!

The new horse Lexi has settled in beautifully.


The turkeys are laying eggs and one of them has built a little nest. We stepped in and helped her out with the nest building (put in some wooden sides and plenty of straw) and she is now sitting on about 30 eggs.

Luke is now hacking out with me on his pony and we are enjoying long canters. When we canter I want to keep him on the lead rein for now, but Luke is always wanting to go faster and further, faster and further and on his own.  It feels a little bit like the story from Greek mythology, of Icarus, the boy who flew too close to the sun.  Don't go too fast, don't let him gallop too fast I say to a giggling Luke, not that anyone listens to me. 


                                                                                                                                                                                      

Starships are Meant to Fly

Starships are meant to fly
reach up and touch the sky

We have been singing this song over and over and over again. When I got back from the Planning Control Committee meeting on the 27 Feb, we whooped and laughed, I told the kids and then went outside and told the horses and then we got very drunk and I played these songs over and over until really late .... When you Say Nothing At all, Alison Krauss; True Colours and Songbird, Eva Cassidy.  These are now my "we got permission!" songs.

However, if I thought I was busy before we got planning permission, that aint nofink compared to how busy wot I am now. But, it has a lovely, exciting and positive feel to it and we are enjoying it. 

We are:

• still in dispute with the parish Council (sigh)

• getting quotes for the stables and manege (one guy actually quoted me £250k (yes, I know, can you believe it) to build the stables - don't think he wanted the job ha ha

• pulling together the information for the council to meet the planning conditions (of which there are seven -arghh) including: plans for a wildlife corridor.  Along the access track.  Now, I thought I ought to get in an expert to do this for me, and she is actually v good, but the wildlife corridor she has suggested is in fact wildflower meadow seed.  Even I could have thought of that, but still, its only money and money is no problem for us because it grows on trees round here.  Another annoying condition is that rather than having a normal soak away type thingy like normal developments do, we have to have a "sustainable drainage system" e.g.a pond or swale.  So, again at more cost, I am having to get in a "sustainable drainage systems" expert to do the plan for me

• I have ordered 25 turkey poults to continue with our Christmas Turkey business.  Our breeding turks have started to lay eggs, so we are hopeful that we may be able to breed some here naturally too

• I am trying to concentrate a little more on my BHS training for the riding instructor qualification

Claudia on Thistle

Luke at the Feb half term pony Club Rally (left) and out on a hack (right)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Very exciting things are happening after we had our permission covered in both the local newspapers ...fame at last and lots of people have been phoning me up. 

A local branch of RDA has been over to see me to discuss keeping a pony with me for RDA carriage driving - something which I have no experience of but am very excited about. A number of people have called for riding for children with disabilities, which again is just great.

 

A new horse is coming on loan on Monday - an ex polo pony called Lexi (thoroughbred, 15.2hh, 20 years old and a school mistress (hopefully) and we can't wait to have her here.

My other horses are behaving and getting a little fitter.

I am also behaving and getting a little fitter :-) Although the excuse to "celebrate getting our permission" is being used fairly frequently.

xx

Planning Permission Granted

Just a quick post as I am completely behind with everything but we had a fantastic result last week at the Development Control Committee and our stables and riding school were approved! All 11 councillors voted in favour of our scheme and it took no time for them to decide.  I'll post more detail next time but all I can say for now is that we are thrilled, elated and absolutely over the bloody moon about it :-)

xx

We Commence to the Committee

I am only going to write two sentences today, I'm not making a fuss about this and I can hardly breathe when I think about it but .....

Our planning application will be heard at Planning Committee on 27 February, with recommendation for approval from East Herts Council.

Planning Predicaments

Each problem we encounter during our planning application feels disastrous as we go through it, as though it may de-rail our application completely; resulting in us either having withdraw our application to fix the problem, or East Herts council rejecting us and not granting consent. Important though each problem feels a the time, a few weeks later we always find ourselves facing another, even larger problem, that feels even more disastrous than the previous one.

We are currently in the midst of such a crisis - to do with visibilty from the access track. But remember the last crisis, which we went through only a few days ago, to do with access to bridle ways?  Before that it was run off from the muck heap, before that "suds" (surface something drainage something - ponds to cope with excess surface water run off) - all of these have been dealt with. 

Before that the objections, and remember the good old days when it was the proximity to the overhead power cables that kept me awake at night? That has now been resolved. Even though the engineer from Power UK Networks came to carry out his site visit on the day I was plucking the turkeys - I was a bit feathery when I met him but he didn't seem to mind too much. And how could I forget the particularly stressful weekend after the environment agency said that although they had originally said otherwise, actually the access track would have to be 8m from the brook, which then required a change in our application and we weren't sure if the whole application would have to start again? Which it didn't.

Oh how we laugh, as my old friends at the Bank of England used to say. They probably still say it. And I should go back to saying it.  Or, as Luke says smile through the pain mummy - he got that from his karate teacher.



Springtime

Anyway, today I am worrying about visibility from the access point. But laughing and smiling I am off to consume my medicinal bottle of Pinto Grigio.




Me and Cass - winter 2011





Eggs a plenty



Cassia and Jack



xx



Snow and Mice

The snow brings with it a welcome and much needed psychological break from the mud, however the chore of carrying buckets of water out to the stables and other animal enclosures is now a real pain (literally, in my arms and back).  It is pretty (the snow) and the animals don't seem to mind it, but I am looking forward to the kids going back to school and "business as normal" resuming.


After thinking the Parish Council weren't going to put in an objection, the Parish Council have put in an objection.  Quite a long one, with lots of points - none of which seem too significant but still need responding to.

Anyway, we have spent the weekend in a rather long and arduous e-mail exchange with said Parish Council (PC) - it is a war of will, a battle of the written word and implied suggestions. All weekend I was a mad, typing fiend; dashing in from the snow to check my inbox and then, on receiveing a reply from the PC, madly , and hotly, typing back a frenzied response.  The date for the Planning Committee meeting has also been put back, we are trying not to read too much into this.  Basically I am living on my nerves, and around a bottle of chardonnary a night.

I had been feeling quite smug about my new skills in this game - what with no objection from the PC after my meeting with them, and then managing over new year to poutlice my mare's foot and relieve her lameness I was thinking I was pretty damn clever.  This week however, not only has the PC objected, but when the farrier came to shoe Springtime he said there was still some abcess under her shoe and I have been poutlicing it all weekend.  Not so clever after all - feeling a little deflated, rather like a balloon watching all the air wush out of it.

I have changed you know.  Just tonight I found 2 mice in an empty feed bin (I had left the lid off it and they must have jumped in and then been unable to get out).  Now these are very cute little mice, in fact any vegetarians should stop reading now, but do you know what I did?

Before I tell you, bear in mind I have a  mouse problem in the garage where all the feed is kept and we have put traps and poison down to little avail.  Anyway, I called over the dog (who actually isn't too bad at catching the little mice) and tipped the feed bin over slightly so that he could get in and kill the mice. I even heard myself shout out, excitedly, " go on boy, get em" !!!! I would not have done this a year ago.  I would have ran, shrieking from the garage going "babe, babe!, there's mice in the feed bin - get rid of them - but don't kill them!".

Anyway the dog is fairly useless and only managed to get one.  He dropped the other one and it ran off.

Still, the thought of spring is cheering me on, we are nearly at the end of Jan and then only Feb to go ........... and after half a bottle of chardonnay this evening I am feeling quite cheerful :-)

Christmas Update

Turkey Business

We sold 20 turkeys this year and processed them all here on the "farm".  It all went very well and we got great feedback from people who bought one - saying it was delicious, the best turkey they have had etc etc.  We had one too and it was very tasty indeed. Russell and I worked really hard to get them dispatched, plucked and dressed - with help from my farrier and Sam and her mum. Russell and I only almost nearly killed each other once, when I threatend to stab him with the knife in the wood shed at about midnight one night, when we were trying to get two birds ready for the next morning, and I didn't really mean it. And actually the worry and fretting has meant I have lost weight - I am calling it the "producing 20 turkeys for Christmas Diet" and I really recommend it.

In a weird way I quite enjoyed the whole thing (after the dispatching part) and we felt really proud when these fabulous 20 birds were in boxes ready to be collected - compassionately farmed, free range, wholesome and good quality produce.  We still need to decide whether to definitely do it again next year, but we have kept 3 turks (plus Dudley,  of course) so we could try to breed out own poults in the Spring. 

Riding School Application

This is progressing - not too many objections (and non from neighbours or the Parish Council) and we are still working hard on this - lobbying, writing notes, dealing with the little issues that crop up.  If you want something bad enough, you really fight for it and that is what we are doing at the moment. 

Livestock

All animals are fine.  Oh, apart from the greedy cockerel who must have stayed out one night and ben eaten because he has gone :-( I am very sad about this, I was quite attached to him and his quircky ways.  I must butch up though; its tough out there in the world of mother nature - one false move and you've 'ad it, it seems!

PYO - Early Shoots

I have raspberries, blackberries and strawberry plants in the raised bed in the garden, waiting patiently to be planted out on the field - the beginnings of our PYO business.  I am not totally confident that I will get around to planting them out before the dog has them though, the to do list is so long each day that this particular job keeps been ignored.  As does ordering the hedging .... we just need a few more hours in each day.

And a bit more money - the animals are eating us out of house and home - bales of hay after bales of hay are being consumed - roll on Spring, the new grass and cheaper feed bills, that's what I say.