The endless task of harvest

It's pitch dark outside but I can still hear the combine harvesters running .. Everyone has had another frantic few days trying to get harvest done whilst the weather holds out.

Rained off for a few days, David has been busy carting straw bales again this week.  He managed to borrow a large trailer from another farmer so that he could move more bales in one load (22 instead of 16 on our trailer). 

However, when some b***ards decided to start setting fire to some of the bales still in the field one night, he decided that an even larger trailer was needed to get everything off the field as quickly as possible.  Another farmer very kindly lent us a HUGE trailer ... 36 bales ...

 

And so, to everyone who has been crawling along the A20 behind a red tractor with a very long trailer full of straw ... humble apologies :-)

You can just see the tiny dot of a tractor slightly to the left of centre in this picture.  Large field and around 500 bales to move.  Great sigh of relief when it was all finished tonight and all straw safely in barns.

Needless to say, goaties have been completely oblivious to all this frantic activity which has been taking place in order to provide them with food and bedding for the year ahead.

There was some anxiety though during morning milking when 3 sheep appeared in the goats' 'old' field.  They must have wandered through a weak part of the fence and were happily trotting along the hedge munching all sorts of yummy things.

 

They were spotted by Lulu and a couple of the others .. 

 

But no harm  done .. and they soon wandered back down the field and disappeared back through the hedge!

 

Wild Country Organics sent me home with a lovely bag of bits and pieces after Parson's Green market on Sunday.  Here's Wilma helping herself to a selection of yummy greens and carrots.

 

Incidentally, dear Wilma is expecting twins within the next few weeks!

You may remember that we had a few 'late' girls due to kid ... we had our scanning man in last week just to check a few of them over and we also have a couple more 'surprises' that we had not planned!  So, in a couple of weeks, I think we may get rather more kids than we expected.  But it's all good and it means that we will have more milkers still productive as we go into that 'winter dip'.

And finally .. what of Marmite cat?  Well, as I write to you this evening she is curled up on top of my printer .. very helpful!