Farming Friends

Today my husband and I entered the Weetabix Crop Art Competition to build a structure using wheat bales. If we win we will have turned our bales into £3000, so it is very exciting and I have to say that it was alot of fun. We decided to build a tractor, what do you think of our new Weetabix tractor?

I think every farmer will want our new, latest, top of the range Weetabix tractor, don’t you?!

Bales Weetabix Wheat

My mum filled my hanging basket for the Winter, so thanks Mum. I think it looks lovely filled with ajuga, violas and ivy.

What plants are in your hanging basket at the moment?

Join

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As The Garden Grows for more information.

Ajuga Flowers Green Thumb Sunday Hanging Basket Ivy Viola

Carol @ May Dreams Gardens has a gardenblogger’s book club which I think is a brilliant idea. I have always wanted to be in a book club but always worried that I would turn up to the meeting and be the only one who had not finished the book. Anyway Carol’s club is great because you get two months to read the book and if you don’t finish the book it doesn’t matter as you can post about a garden related issue instead.

The choice of book for August and September caught my eye as it was a fictional garden mystery story. It couldn’t be better. I love mystery and who-dunnit stories, I love gardening and I love reading. A win, win, win situation and let me tell you it was. 

The chosen book was A Hoe Lot Of Trouble By Heather Webber. I thought this was a light and entertaining read. The story was easy to follow and the main character Nina Quinn was a likeable person who I was able to warm to immediately as she was such a down to earth character. Even though Nina is a successful business woman she does have a vulnerable side and this made her easy to relate to and I could imagine myself in her shoes investigating the crime.

Although this was a mystery novel the gory elements were not described in detail which kept the story light and easy to read. With every new character the author hooked me into the mystery even more as I wanted to know if this character was capable of committing the heinous crime. But if you want to know who dunnit then read the book.

If you wanted to learn about gardening and garden design then this book is not for you. Nina Quinn, the main character, owns a garden makeover business called Taken By Surprise but information relating to this is secondary to other aspects of her life like her marriage. Nina’s sleuthing and marital difficulties meant that there wasn’t much time for her to work on the garden makeovers although there is an epilogue from Nina Quinn which looks at poison ivy and how to manage this unwanted plant, but if I really wanted to know how to manage poison ivy I would be looking at a gardening manual and not a garden mystery novel. Despite this, I found this novel difficult to put down purely because it was an easy to read mystery.

This novel is the first in a series of Nina Quinn mysteries and I will certainly be reading the others, not for their gardening information but for their entertaining whodunnit plots and the chance to get to know Nina Quinn a little more and see how her life turns out.

Thanks Carol for introducing me to this entertaining series of mystery books and the opportunity to take part in a book club.

Click on the image below to visit Amazon.co.uk to find out more about this book or visit one of the Farming Friends Bookshops.

 

 

 

Books Gardenbloggers Book Club

What an honour it is to be tagged by my new blogpal, Curtis @ Growing Thumbs. So You Think You Know Me is a tag that asks you to reveal some facts about yourself. The facts can be funny, random and weird! I have decided to link my facts to my life on the farm, so here goes;

Funny Farm Fact - I have to confess that I talk to my animals which some of you might think is a little funny but I can assure you that all of the animals respond to my voice. When the poultry hear my voice in a morning they know that I am about to let them out of their hut and they start running up and down. On a night when I want to get the hens in I just shout “C…’mon, c….’mon” and they come running. It’s an amazing and funny sight to see which I will try to capture on video for you all to watch! When I call the pigs by their names before they can even see me they get up from their sleepy laying down positions and are sniffing around the barns door. My cats call back with a miaow when I call their names which is great when you think that they are outdoor cats. The time that I have spent talking to them and petting them has certainly paid off.

Random Farm Fact - I seem to spend much of my day looking for eggs laid by my guinea fowl or Hatty the hen. The guinea fowl like to lay their eggs in the hedgerows and particularly like to find a large patch of nettles to lay in. This year I have been competing with the magpies that are circling the hedgerows looking for eggs too! To date I have collected 725 guinea fowl eggs and the magpies have taken approximately 300+ eggs. I am beating the magpies in my hunt for eggs but only just. Hatty’s eggs are not so difficult to find as she has her favourite spots to lay eggs. This year she has laid her eggs on top of the mill in a pile of grain, on top of the silage wrap mountain and in the silage feeder machine. To date Hatty has laid 101 eggs. So this year I have collected 826 eggs - no wonder I’m tired!!
Weird Farm Fact - I love the livestock on our farm and every morning I get up early (well early for me!) to feed my pigs, guinea pig, cats, hen and guinea fowl, however the weird thing is I am still a little afraid of the cattle that we farm. We normally have about 80 cows on our farm and I am still gettting used to just how big they are when they are in the field. When I have to go into the field with my husband to round up the cattle or bring in a cow and calf when the cow has just calved in the field, I get all nervous and behave like a little lap dog following at my husband’s heals hoping that the cattle will not notice me and won’t bound up to me in their curious, inquisitive way. The more time I spend with the cattle, the less nervous I am becoming. It’s amazing how confident you get when they are in the fold yard and you have a strong metal gate and wooden feeding trough between you and these beautiful strong and inquisitive beasts. Are there any animals you are a little nervous of?

Well I hope you have enjoyed my funny, random and weird farm facts.

Now I would like to tag;

Sunk Island

Bird Table News

Smallest Smallholding

Not A Proper Farmer

Family Natters

TopVeg

This Is My Patch

The guidelines for this tag:
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules
2. Write some facts about yourself: some random, some weird, some just plain fun.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them)
4. Let those 7 people know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

The Farm

The Foot And Mouth Disease that plagued the UK back in 2001 is back in the UK and with a number of FMD cases identified in the last few months it is important that everyone knows what signs to look out for.

“Foot and mouth disease is an infectious disease affecting cloven-hoofed animals, in particular cattle, sheep, pigs, goats and deer.” Defra.

Signs of Foot And Mouth Disease In Sheep

• Sudden, severe lameness.
• Lies down frequently and is very unwilling to rise.
• When made to rise stands in a half-crouching position, with hind legs brought well forward.
• Reluctant to move.
• Blisters may be found on the hoof where the horn joins the skin which may extend all round the coronet and in the cleft of the foot. When they burst the horn is separated from the tissues underneath, and hair round the hoof may appear damp.
• Blisters may appear on the dental pad and sometimes the tongue.
• Fatigue in young lambs.
• Higher rate of lamb mortality and abortions.
• Ewes unwilling to allow lambs to suckle.

Source: Defra.

For more detailed information visit the Defra website.

Defra Foot And Mouth Disease Sheep

This week’s Photo Hunt Theme is original and I have decided to share some of my original art work which I really like. This original art work has an Autumnal feel to it.

If you would like to create Autumnal art like this, then go out and collect a variety of different coloured leaves. Lay the leaves out with different colours overlapping each other and re-arrange until you are happy with the combination. Then place a viewfinder (piece of paper with a large square cut out of the centre) over the top and tape into position. Draw or paint the arrangement of leaves that can be seen within the viewfinder.

I really like this artwork and I am particularly proud of the Autumnal Leaves in chalk pastel. Which of the two original artwork do you prefer?

If you would like to join Photo Hunters then click on the image below for more information.

 

 

Art Autumn Leaves Photo Hunt School Activities

 

 

 

 

Earlier in September, the calves that were born last year, moved back indoors into the fold yard for the Winter. The reason for this is because the grass in the paddock and back field had all been eaten and the weather was beginning to turn colder and wetter. Bringing the cattle into the fold yard for the Winter means that they will keep warm and dry, sheltered from the weather. The cattle need more looking after when they are housed indoors as they have to be bedded up with straw once daily and fed silage and barley twice a day.

Beef Cattle Calves Cattle 2007