I had a couple of comments on Twitter from followers who didn’t know what silage making involved and remembering when we had 2 friends from England come to stay during silage and they thought we re-spread the silage on the field as fertiliser!, i thought I’d share the process with you!  And this is especially for Bob who requested some photos. I’m beginning to think the farming is taking over the interiors on this blog but heyho – it probably reflects my life at the moment

Silage is long grass that is cut and chopped and then stored to be fed to cattle during the winter when they are kept indoors.  It is important that it is of as high a quality that is possible as this reflects the feeding quality of it during the winter and that means cutting it dry and getting it in as dry as possible which can be easier said than done in Ireland . It is an expensive process too so doubly important to get good quality – for example, it cost us €11,000 to get the first cut of silage in.

Starting to mow – they use 2 mowers, one in front of the tractor and the other to the back and side.  Will had a great time doing three rounds of the field.

As kids, we always loved jumping over the swards and my kids do too

Cutting silage in the Chapel Field

Grass up to her waist

Picking up the silage. There is usually 4 or 5 silage trailers bringing it into the pit.

Tipping up

Rolling the silage (to ensure it is packed in tightly)

Covering the silage last year.  The silage is covered with 2 layers of black polythene and then either dung or tyres are laid on top to keep the air out and ensure that the polythene is not torn by birds etc.

Last week our new (well, very second-hand) JCB loader arrived so we were able to cover the silage ourselves. Hence, I was out spronging dung and throwing tyres around instead of taking photos! A good workout

Icecream is an essential part of silage-making!

I love going for a walk on our ‘high’ part of the farm which is known as Kerr’s after the last owner although I still think of the house as Bolger’s house after the bachelor that lived there when I was a child.  It is one of those places where it is so isolated with no other people around, just the birds singing and yet it doesn’t feel lonely with those views.

Cattle looking at me, sizing me up and wondering if they have to stand up before I approach them

This is the house we are going to renovate and live in when we retire, accessed by a back lane, we will need a 4×4!

Cattle coming to say Hello

With its small fields and large hedges, this farm seems set in the 1950s but the 21st century is very apparent now in this striking wind turbines

This gate leads to an ancient walkway through the farm

As so many people tell me they enjoy my farming tweets, posts and facebook updates, I thought I’d let you know what was going on recently.

Jessie has gone to sheep heaven, well, her soul has!  We got them in to vaccinate them and decided that it might be a good idea if we would persuade Will to sell Jessie as she is so fat and he buy little Lucy from Kate.  Rather surprisingly, he agreed. He was a bit teary going to the bus on that Tuesday morning as he said goodbye to her but I cajoled him by telling him he would have the cheque the next day and he was learning how to be a farmer!!

So, as we don’t have a sheep trailer, we loaded Jessie into the boot of the Estate (now the farm car) and brought her down to the butcher.

Will was delighted to get his first cheque (we decided we couldn’t possibly eat Jessie so I bought some lamb that came from another lamb if you know what I mean!) and Kate was happy to get part of it.

I think this is a lovely photo of the sheep walking towards me – Matilda followed by Bill, Sally and little Lucy.

Matilda was shorn the other day and it is so windy today, I’d say she is missing her woolly coat. She was separated from the lambs for about an hour  and the lambs didn’t know her when she came back probably because she smelt differently. We woke up at 6 the next morning to hear bleating from the back garden and the lambs having a great time frolicking in my raised vegetable beds!  But after we put them into the shed for a couple of hours, they had suckled again.

The breeding season started here about a week ago – the time of the year again when it is time to put the cows in calf so they will calve next Feb/March. We use about 95% Artificial Insemination in order to improve the EBI (Economic Breeding Index) of the herd.  So the AI man visits morning and evening.  Last year, whenever Will saw his car going up the yard, he would say in a very knowing tone ‘That’s the AI man, he’s going to put a seed into the cow which will grow into a calf’, and it just used to crack me up as I just knew he was picturing an apple seed or something similar.

He is now nearly 8 and this is the conversation we had the other day:

Will: Mum, can I go up the yard on my bike?

Me: No, wait until Paul has gone

Will: Who is Paul?

Me: The AI man

Will: What is he doing?

Me: Putting a seed into the cow that will grow into a calf.

Pause – Will is thinking.

Will: Why does he have to put a seed in?

Me: Um, well, the calf grows from the seed

Will: So you have to put a seed in to make a calf?

Me: Yes.

Long Pause

Will: So for cows, you have to put a seed in.  Is the seed already there for humans?

Me: Yes!

End of conversation!

I really enjoy reading Imen’s blog, I married an Irish Farmer, and it is refreshing to see it from her ‘city’ eyes.  I am often struck by the pic of sparkling clean red wellies that she uses as her twitter avatar. Now, I’m sure her wellies are much muddier in real life but I couldn’t resist taking a photo of my own much-abused wellies the last time I was out helping Brian move cattle:

Not quite as  impressive!

Imen recently wrote a post about her husband and interviewed him for the post along with a picture of him alongside his cows.

Looks very dashing!

Now this is my husband, busy dosing cattle with his young assistant:

And the goats and sheep have been moved to our side garden, fenced in to keep them away from the flower beds!  I caught Becky the other day, salivating as she was about to take a mouthful of flowers from one of the pots at the front door.

Lambs are all doing well. Lucy is still tiny, still half the size of the others and about a third of their weight but managing to suckle from Matilda. Here’s a  photo of Bill and Sally: