After the rainfall of August this month has seemed like a drought with just 61mm of rain.

This has given things a chance to dry up slightly and we seem to have less mud under our feet.

 

This has been fortunate, as the parlour ceiling has now been replaced.

This picture is of one of the offending holes and this is the new ceiling.

However how do you milk the cows when the parlour is out of bounds unless you wear a suit like this, come to think about it what about the cows should they get suits too!!

This is the answer a “milking bail” on loan from Grindy brothers who fitted the new plastic ceiling.

These pictures show Grindy’s in action plus the cows (on a nice sunny morning) in the bail.

Finally this is me after our first milking (encounter) in the milking bail as you can see it made the cows nervous and when a cow gets nervous this is the result.

As the pictures of the Milking Bail show you are stood below them and I assure you I was not covered with mud!! (Webbys Note HA HA HA HA ..... No don't laugh Ha Ha...)

Next is silaging and this year due to the large first cut we have big baled making about 90 bales on the drive field. Here they are in the hollow in the drive field prior to stacking shown here on the right.

The hardstanding is progressing and Dave is about halfway with its construction. I’m currently sorting out some bricks (Dave calls it rubble) to finish that wall I started in August 2000 (see report).

Dave’s excavations revealed this long line of bricks which Webby after going into Phil Harding (from Time Team) mode has excavated showing that they are not as first suspected the foundation remains of some long gone building but they are in fact a drain made from bricks.

Line of Bricks in soil	Small Trench over line of bricks
Shape of drain starts to reveal itself	The drain reveals itself. Note: The bricks capping the drain were already missing and not removed by myself.

Before the pond was filled in there was a ditch running to it which carried the water from the dairy roof and the washings from the dairy floor (imagine that pollution in the modern day) so I suspect that was where it went to. (Webbys note: I have to disagree with that. I think it ran towards the gully)

In this month’s nature report we have a Leopard found on the farm, and we now have our new temperature sensor working so the weather page is back to speed.

See you next month PHIL.

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