The Comings and Goings of Cows

We are now, to all intents and purposes, surrounded by land grazed by Mike the Cows's Charolais herd. Well, mainly Charolais, the nearly white beef breed, but the group of 20 or so does include a couple of black Angus and some more Hereford-y gingery beef animals with the Hereford white face. Those are Charolais crosses. The bull, Felix, is purebred Charolais. Many of these girls have calves at foot, and/or are in calf at the moment. They will be taken back to Mike's Grand-dad's farm to actually have their calves, which won't be long now. They are very broad in the beam.

You'll already know that I drive Mum and Dad nuts by my regular chasing out across the fields to the west of us to shout at the cows if I think they are coming too close to our gate. I get up quite close to the cows. They mainly ignore me but occasionally I have to nip back a bit quick because one of the Mums has a little go at charging at me, especially if I'm a bit close to one of the calves.

We have now (on Monday) opened up the gap at the bottom of the east field now that we have the new cow-proof fence keeping the beasties off the garden and the lane. The grass in the east field, not grazed at all this year, is nice and long, if a little infested with docks and rushes but it's a welcome bite for the cows who were struggling a bit on the short, over-grazed land around us owned by Vendor Anna L and grazed almost continuously through the Summer.

The pups are getting quite interested in all this cow activity and I have sometimes tried to lead them astray into the cow fields but they are not that brave yet, and seem to take my barking as a cause for concern, so they don't come that far into the field and nip bacvk a bit smartish if Dad does his "Pupuppuppuppup!" shout.

Wandering Wendy and Lucy Long-drop

Thursday 26^th

Hin3 does it again with the egg from 7 feet up stunt. Please don't let this become a habit. Mum and Dad like these eggs and they taste nothing like as nice when collided with poo-y sawdust and concrete.

A scorcher of a day here so what's more sensible, asks Dad, than to don a sweaty chain-saw hard-hat and thick kevlar glubs and go throw that petrol engine around again at the neighbour Una's? He is rewarded by more beautiful tea, scones and farmhouse kitchen. Lovely! Mum takes advantage of his absence and blitzes the floors. Kitten unspecified has managed to poo one end of the leather sofa and wee the other end. Happy, contented young animals will sleep in kitchen from now on. Living room is returned to 'best parlour' status and animals are barred.

The West Field gets mowed and Dad digs a third raised bed. Mum and Dad do lots of weeding in kitchen garden and thinning of young, but too close-planted carrots. There is lots of communing with happy animals in evening sunshine of yard. Dad even got the hand-held camcorder out to record but we promise not to inflict another cute kittens playing video to the millions on You-Tube. There is a SUPERB oxtail stew from Restaurant Feigh and so to bed.

27^th /28^th

Meanwhile, back in diary territory, we had a bimbly Friday. Dad was aching a bit from chain saw wielding Thursday, so he pottered and did tidy up jobs, thinned carrots, weeded, moved some corrugated iron sheeting and left-over concreting gravel and plastering sand off the "bit to the left of the hay-barn" (we have snappy titles for our bits of garden). 'Lucy Long-drop' did NOT, for once, lay her egg early morning from the 7 foot perch, so we know we got 100% productivity - 4 heggs from 4 hins. Go the Lovely Girls . All be it 'Wandering Wendy' still hops out of the run and nips off to our woods to sneak hers out privately. We have now 'busted' her and found where she's a-laying but we think she might be getting a clutch together to go broody on (5 so far) so we are sneakily date-marking them and returning them to the nest each day, leaving them be till she has, in her view, enough, whereupon she may start to sit, and will be gathered up, eggs and all and put in a broody-box somewhere safe from foxes and out of the rain, probably the calf house.

On the Saturday Dad is off up to Dublin to help Sparks in his attic. The alarm goes at 0530 and we have that usual flurry of feeding pup and kittens and mopping up any badly located poo and wee, then letting out bunnies and letting out and feeding chooks. Lucy Longdrop has, this morning, done another 7-foot up egg, so Dad has to clear that up, chuntering about stretching necks and the stock pot. He gets a good run up to Dublin (2 and a half hours on almost clear roads) and gets stuck in to 'slabbing' (cutting and fitting thermal panels and then plasterboard) in which we they, rather delightfully, joined by Dad’s old friend and Best Man, Billy T. He is a good friend but one of those you sadly let drift, till it's barely a Christmas Card a year and it’s always easier to make the effort some other time (all be it they have been chatting on Facebook for the last couple of months but never actually got together). Well, says Dad, they had a brilliant day working with Billy and chatting to him and it just highlights that you should never let good friends drift away in the first place. 

Sparks reimbursed Dad petrol this time in the form of a couple of chainsaw toys; a new chain/blade and a sharpener/grinder. Hours of fun trying to work out how to use that later. He has a nice run home into the sun always seeming to on a stretch of road just AFTER it had rained, so had all the spray and glare driving west into the setting sun, with his eyes already sore from the dust from the thermal panel 'foam'. He has a “beautiful shower” and lovely chickenny pasta provided by the welcoming Mum (love her!) and a glass of wine or two before we all settle down to watch a recording of that superb and uplifting Olympic Opening Ceremony. And so, via another try-to-open-your-eyes-under-water-in-the-sink eye wash, to bed.