Husky's day out

Today was a busy day both home and away.  David was at home looking after goaties and getting all that lovely haylage baled, whilst I was swanning about around the M25 to attend the Rackspace Green Fayre once again.  Obviously we didn't make too much mess on their well-manicured lawn last year as they invited us back again!

A much better journey than last year saw us arrive well before time to get everyone settled and unloaded.  Husky had decided to make a return trip (she went as a kid last year) and I also took the Three Amigos and the little Beamish black man.

The little Nubes spent most of the day just chilling in the back of the trailer

Husky was relaxing by her hayrack

And the little black man also had to have a rest after he had managed to get several of the 'Rackers' to give him a bottle of milk ..

Next to us, everyone was having a go at 'Milking the Cow'

But by far the best part of the day was having our lovely friend Sal come to visit the goaties and help out selling our cheese.

When she was a young girl (only a few years ago..!)  Sal had her own goat called Victoria - you can read many of the stories about her on Sal's own blog  http://www.geegeeparrot.blogspot.co.uk/.  Sadly she has not had the chance to cuddle a goatie person for many many years and so she was thrilled that we were coming near to London so that she could pop over and meet Husky and friends.

Her first job was to give that little black fellow his late breakfast ..

We chatted to the Rackers, had a splendid lunch that we had compiled between us (lots of yummy deli treats from Sal), sold a bit of cheese ... and then it was time to load everyone back into the trailer and head for home.

David had been busy turning, rowing and baling .. so when I arrived home, both fields were full of nice round bales

We don't have a wrapping machine and so we were waiting for our friend Farmer Joe to come and wrap the bales for us once he had finished doing his own late this afternoon.

He arrived as we were milking and all the goaties were very interested to see what this strange tractor was doing in THEIR field ...

 

It is a fascinating bit of machinery ... Here's Joe in action wrapping the final bale of the day:

 

And in case you're wondering what David's dad is doing there at the very end ... The seagulls land on top of the bales and peck holes in the plastic - this means that the air can get in and the bale then goes mouldy.  We can't feed mouldy haylage to the goaties as it can make them extremely ill and so we either have to throw it on the dung heap or feed it to the Gracie Moos (who are far more robust and tolerant of a bit of mould). 

 

David has discovered that if he sticks a black patch on top of the bale, the seagulls won't land on it.  The theory is that the patch has writing on it which could appear to them as a face or something they don't like.  Whatever the theory, it seems to work!

 

Once Joe had finished and the show was over, the goaties all went back out into their own field

So that's a good job done and the first bales of the year safely wrapped and ready to be stacked and stored.  Many more to come before harvest is over!