Farming Friends

Today has been a lovely sunny day, so I took the opportunity to plant out some of my vegetable seedlings and plants that are now ready to be planted out.

Jobs completed so far today include;

• Planting out a row of butternut squash plants.
• Planting out a row of purple sprouting broccoli plants.
• Planting out a row of cauliflower plants.
• Planting out a row of little gem lettuce.

I am very pleased with how well my plants have grown from seed this year. Reasons for this are because I have had my greenhouse to work in and protect my seedlings and plants and I have received lots of help and advice about vegetable growing from the top website - Top Veg.

I may potter about in the garden later on, so I’ll let you know what other jobs I manage to get done.

After a day out yesterday, I arrived home in time to get my guinea fowl and Hatty the Hen in for the night. Once locked up safely in their hut I did my usual hunt for guinea fowl eggs.

When I entered the garden I noticed the lid to the nest box was on the floor. I quickly stood on the garden chair to look inside to check on the blue tit chicks but they had gone. I replaced the lid and sadly pondered what had taken the blue tit chicks. I knew that they had not fledged as they take between 13 - 15 days to leave the nest and I knew that this amount of time had not past since I saw the eggs and the beaks of the chicks.

I will never know what took the little defenseless chicks and can only guess that it was one of the many magpies that are circling our fields and now the garden. I am going to nail down the lid to the old nest box so that this does not happen again.

I can highly recommend a Pampered Chef muffin tin.

I bought the fabulous stoneware muffin tin from a Pampered Chef party back in October 2006 and my only regret is that I didn’t purchase the largest muffin tin. Mine makes 6 muffins or in my case Yorkshire puddings although they are large puddings. The stoneware tin requires very little fat in the bottom, if any (making them a healthier option) and the puddings do not stick to the tin, so washing up after is never a chore.

Why is the Pampered Chef Muffin Tin Highly Recommended?

• Well made.
• Requires very little or no greasing so produces healthier food.
• Food doesn’t stick to the bottom.
• Easy to clean.
• Will last for a long time.
• Can be used for a range of recipes (not exclusively the muffin or Yorkshire pudding tin).

The Pampered Chef 6 muffin tin cost ?25. This is quite expensive but I see this as an investment in a high quality product that can be reused time and time again, lasting for a long time into the future. The Pampered Chef products can only be purchased through an agent at a Pampered Chef party so check out their website and organise a party today.

Well actually on Sunday it was not so much a cat on a hot tin roof as a guinea fowl on a cold tin roof!

Something must have spooked this male guinea fowl making it fly onto the roof of the barn to take refuge until it was safe to return to the ground. It did later fly back down to join the guinea gang on the ground!

A tractor is a very important machine on a farm today as it is able to turn it’s engine to many jobs!

Crop Spraying

The crop sprayer can be attached to the tractor and allows the farmer to spray the crops with herbicides, fungicides or insecticides.

Planting Crops - Seed Potatoes

The potato planter can be attached to the back of the tractor and sows the seed potatoes into the ground at the correct spacing and then covers them over with the soil.

Feeding Animals - Silage Feeder

Through the Winter the silage feeder is permanently attached to one of our tractors so that the cattle can be fed silage twice daily whilst they are in the fold yard.

Preparing The Land - Rolling The Soil

The rollers are attached to the back of the tractor and are used to firm the top of the soil after seeds have been planted.

Here are just a few of the many jobs assigned to the tractor. Jump aboard the tractor again soon to find out what other jobs the tractor can turn it’s engine to!

A comment left on my site the other day got me thinking about starting an Adopt A Farm Animal scheme on the farm.

In an article about my guinea pig called Guiness, I mentioned the fact that, “My nephew has adopted Guiness as a birthday gift and although Guiness still lives on the farm my nephew can tell his friends that he has a guinea pig. When he comes to visit he feeds Guiness and sometimes helps me to clean him out, which I think is great and so does my nephew and Guiness!”

The comment I received from Pat said, “What a good idea to adopt a guinea pig & keep it at someone else’s house. I bet other mum’s would be pleased with an adopted pet.”

As birthday gifts for friends and family, I have already adopted out;

• Guiness the Guinea Pig,
• Hatty The Hen,
• Camilla The Guinea Fowl,
• One Ear The Saler Cow,
• Snowy The Charolais Cow,
• Francis The Charolais Cow &
• Milky The Charolais Cow.

The children all received a certificate, photograph and a special letter from their animal. Some of the children have even visited their adopted animal and fed them. One of our friend’s little girl said when was her cow coming home to her house! My friend quickly replied that the cow was to stay here on the farm and that in fact she wouldn’t fit in the car to get home!!

All of the children have enjoyed receiving their certificate, photo and letter. They think it’s great that they can tell people that they have adopted a guinea pig, hen, guinea fowl or even a cow!

I would be very interested to hear your thoughts and ideas about the scheme I am considering setting up so please leave a comment.

I have five cats that live on the farm - Snowy, Fluffy, Snowball, Spot and Stripe. They have been brought up to live outside and can therefore easily pick up parasites from their environment.

Parasitic worms are easily picked up from the farm environment because cats instinctively hunt and eat infected prey. Although my cats are fed twice daily, they still like to supplement their diet with small rodents, birds and young rabbits which may be infected with parasites.

Worms live in the cat’s gut and other parts of their bodies. If not treated these parasites can cause;

• Diarrhoea.
• Vomiting.
• Weight loss.
• Abdominal pain.
• Adbominal swelling.
• Anaemia.
• Coughing.
• Blood in faeces.

A regular deworming routine is important, particularly with outdoor cats.

Deworming

1. Deworming should begin when kittens are 4 weeks (when they start to eat solid food).
2. From 4 weeks kittens should be dewormed every 2/3 weeks until they are 3 months old.
3. From 3 months kittens can be dewormed once every month until 3/6 months old.
4. After your cat is 6 months old they can be dewormed at least once or twice a year for indoor cats and from 2 to 4 times a year for outdoor cats.

My cats being outdoor cats are not completely used to humans and although they recognise me and are quite friendly to me (even allowing me to stroke them - and on occasions Spot will let me pick him up for a short time!), I am always aware that they have not had as much handling as indoor cats would have. Their aloof and wary nature can sometimes make administering medicine and flea sprays rather difficult.

There are different ways of deworming cats but due to the nature of my cats I normally put medicine in their food. My only concern about this method is the amount of medicine that each cat may get can vary as they like to share bowls. It is difficult therefore to gauge how much each cat has had.

Recently I found a liquid dewormer which can be squeezed onto the back of the cats neck. I tried it out last week and the cats did not run away when I placed the liquid on their neck. I am hopeful that I will be able to use this regularly to help treat the cats for worms. Now I just need to find something similar to combat fleas. Snowy runs away when she sees me with the aerosol can of flea spray, as they say, once sprayed, twice shy!!