Thankfully the slight reprieve in the weather for a few days last week allowed me to eventually get some slurry out. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were three good days and it was amazing how much land dried out in a short length of time.
My contractor arrived last Saturday morning and lowered the level in the tanks considerably in just a few hours. You gotta love the pipeline and the trailing shoe.
Ground conditions were not ideal, but we managed to get away with an acceptable amount of damage and with the tank levels lowered, at least that’s one less thing to worry about for a while anyway.
It was a very short window, but I managed to take advantage of it nicely. Ground conditions have deteriorated considerably since and there wouldn’t be a hope of spreading anything today.
The long-range weather forecast does not look good, with rain forecast every day as far forward as it goes. It doesn’t look like I’ll be needing any urea for the foreseeable future.
I’m plodding along with the daily routine of feeding and bedding stock. Nothing else really can be done at the minute. Of course, I have a list as long as my arm that needs to be looked at as soon as the weather allows.
As the saying goes,“there’s a great stretch in the evenings” and it will be nice to get out of the yard and get a bit of field work done.
First thing on the agenda will be a bit of fencing. There’s always the obligatory patching, as I like to call it. There are two strainers broken on this side of the field and 10 posts on the other side.
One of the strainers has been broken for the past three years and I drove an ordinary post in behind it to hold it up, saying I’ll get to that the next time the post driver is on.
Now I just can’t look at it any longer and something will have to be done.
Fencing
Then there’s the fence that was put up in 1967. As they say: “Posts and wire were made of far better stuff back then, no last in them anymore.”
The sheep managed to put a hole in it 10 years ago and the pallet I tied on temporarily back then has since decided to rot away. I can’t bring myself to be tying on pallets anymore. I’m better than that now, so something will have to be done.
Patching might be more difficult and twice as time-consuming as actually putting up a brand-new fence, but as all farmers know, it has to be done.
Read more
Farmer writes: Game of Thrones-like winter testing shed capacity
Farmer Writes: a Belgian Blue heifer that thinks it's a showjumper
Farmer Writes: relentless rainfall puts pressure on farming
Thankfully the slight reprieve in the weather for a few days last week allowed me to eventually get some slurry out. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were three good days and it was amazing how much land dried out in a short length of time.
My contractor arrived last Saturday morning and lowered the level in the tanks considerably in just a few hours. You gotta love the pipeline and the trailing shoe.
Ground conditions were not ideal, but we managed to get away with an acceptable amount of damage and with the tank levels lowered, at least that’s one less thing to worry about for a while anyway.
It was a very short window, but I managed to take advantage of it nicely. Ground conditions have deteriorated considerably since and there wouldn’t be a hope of spreading anything today.
The long-range weather forecast does not look good, with rain forecast every day as far forward as it goes. It doesn’t look like I’ll be needing any urea for the foreseeable future.
I’m plodding along with the daily routine of feeding and bedding stock. Nothing else really can be done at the minute. Of course, I have a list as long as my arm that needs to be looked at as soon as the weather allows.
As the saying goes,“there’s a great stretch in the evenings” and it will be nice to get out of the yard and get a bit of field work done.
First thing on the agenda will be a bit of fencing. There’s always the obligatory patching, as I like to call it. There are two strainers broken on this side of the field and 10 posts on the other side.
One of the strainers has been broken for the past three years and I drove an ordinary post in behind it to hold it up, saying I’ll get to that the next time the post driver is on.
Now I just can’t look at it any longer and something will have to be done.
Fencing
Then there’s the fence that was put up in 1967. As they say: “Posts and wire were made of far better stuff back then, no last in them anymore.”
The sheep managed to put a hole in it 10 years ago and the pallet I tied on temporarily back then has since decided to rot away. I can’t bring myself to be tying on pallets anymore. I’m better than that now, so something will have to be done.
Patching might be more difficult and twice as time-consuming as actually putting up a brand-new fence, but as all farmers know, it has to be done.
Read more
Farmer writes: Game of Thrones-like winter testing shed capacity
Farmer Writes: a Belgian Blue heifer that thinks it's a showjumper
Farmer Writes: relentless rainfall puts pressure on farming
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