May 2005

This was a month of moving cows! They turned out and we are determined to improve our pasture management to control the docks more effectively and enable a more diverse sward. So the cows went out (and the rain came down!). We separated them neatly into 3 groups: mums and Prospect, young stock and the finishing steers with a couple of not-so-well heifers who we'd like to be near the house to keep an eye on. That's how we left them at midday... by 1pm they had reshuffled themselves into 2 groups!!! Well, what do we know! So they are in two groups and we are rotating them around two very large fields, topping and harrowing as they go. It's a lot of work but we expect it will pay dividends.

Gloria has taken on the garden as a project (one of the many that we have on the farm). She's been pruning the willow fedge, developing the seating area she created last month and planting seeds. Unfortunately, amidst a particularly enthusiastic wave, the brush cutter let us down and we're awaiting the delivery of a new coil from China!

Mother Goose did a much better job than we of hatching some goslings. We took half a dozen eggs from the nest to incubate in the hopes of keeping the females and growing the boys for the Christmas table. We currently have one female and 4 males out there and she's a bit out numbered... but none have hatched. Under nature's guidance however, she hatched 4 little goslings, although as we stand at the end of the month, she is down to 2. One little one was found in the house, upside down and stuck. He seemed to have a dodgy leg and couldn't keep up with the others, so we brought him into the house, put him under the heat lamp and the children who came on the Biodynamic Community day especially, had a wonderful time watching him. The following day we put him out and he was seen running off through the long grass with his family. I don't think he's one of the one's that's survived, but as the dowsing suggested he was a HE, that's probably not too much of a worry to the flock.

We also lost a dear friend this month. Ivory, the farm cat who was very old, passed away. We expect she had a heart attack as she was found in the open in a posture that suggested she was running along, with her eyes wide open. She came to the farm with Jules and her horses and Jules was intending to take her to her field when their barn was completed. Ivory's bones rest under the oak tree in the field that was to be her next home. It was sad and she's missed around the barns. We are looking for a couple of kittens to take over the ratting duties.

And as the process of life and death continues, we bought some more Ixworth hens and a cockerel. Gloria helped fix up the chicken house and they have been laying eggs. We have 11 in the incubator, which we have moved back into the house and we hope to be more successful with these than we have been with the last 2 lots. The first chicks we managed to hatch back in March are doing wonderfully. They are all now running, free range, around with the pigs and we've heard our first little "cock-a-doodle-do" from the baby cockerels. Claude, the farmyard Lavender Aruncana, is NOT amused and has been in there to sort them out and put them all in their place.