Innovative Time Keeping

Trust the Japanese to come up with this…

Dear Diary

I’m a day late, but I’m going to persevere and post anyway.

Wednesday

Every two weeks I get up very early and toddle off down to Moulton College to spend a day doing paperwork to support my Apprenticeship. Last Wednesday I would have been at College, but they are closed for the Easter Holidays. Instead I got to take a day off work and spend it sat in the Dining Room doing Evidence Sheets. I managed to do all of the Job Sheets that I had pending and even got some Photo Evidence Sheets sorted, so all in all it was a very productive day. My time here at the Farm ends when my course is completed. – so it’s in my interest to get this paperwork done and out of the way PDQ.
Of course the morning was filled the wonders of feeding the Sheep.
At 8.00pm I made my way down to the Merry Monk pub in Oakham where I run a Rock Night every second Wednesday. So far turn out has been pretty poor, but tonight was a real success!
I had sorted a great playlist beforehand and it paid dividends since there were people on the dance floor and people bought me drinks. I wrapped it up early at midnight since the booze had been flowing a little too freely and the punters were getting a little raucous. 

Thursday

 We fed the beasties

We met up with James afterwards and headed down to Wardley to continue hedging.
A rather uneventful day had to be honest.

 

A very pretty moonscape to wrap up the evening with and then Joe made Spaghetti and Meatballs for dinner. Delicious.

 

Dear Diary

I have always wanted to blog about the mundane day-to-day activities that occur on the Farm, but I have never been organised enough to break the ice and start diarising (it’s a real word because I said so).

I plan to update Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays with relevant pictures to support my activities. This works well in my favour since I am obliged to take lots of Farm related photos to support my Agriculture Course at Moulton College.
Any and all suggestions and constructive criticism from more experienced Bloggers will be appreciated.

Let’s begin.

Monday
The day started much like any other with feeding of the Sheep. Currently on site we have all of our pregnant Ewes, some assorted Goats, Three Isolated Castlemilk Moorit Rams and some Juvenile Shetland Rams. Oh, and my Turkey, Moriak.
All told there’s about 250 animals to feed, water and keep clean.

Daily Feeds and General Information

To assist with the development of the Farm we take on Volunteers from various agencies HelpX , WWOOF and Workaway. Currently we have Eight volunteers with us from a range of countries. Most of them are living together at the volunteer house in the next town over, but two of them are living here with the Farmers and myself.

Joe from England

Fred from Belgium

An English lad called Joe and a Belgian lad called Fred.

So they help me feed the beasties each morning and evening. Currently we are feeding the pregnant Ewes 252kg of concentrates per day with an additional 50kg going to the Rams and Goats.
After their concentrates they all get Hay, which is averaging at about 10 bales per day, and all water tanks need to be topped up.
Once all of THAT is attended to there’s the small matter of four hungry Collie dogs and a escape artist Turkey to feed, water and clean up after.

Moriak the Turkey

Shortly after we’d completed the feeds the Farmers son, James, arrived and after having a quick site meeting where we discussed what had been happening over the weekend, we started the mornings activities.

I should probably bring you up to speed on some Sheep Management systems we have in place.

A few weeks ago a man came to the farm to do an ultrasound scan on all of our Ewes so we could ascertain how many (if any) Lambs they were going to have. This allows us to sort them in to groups based upon this data and adjust feeds accordingly, since a Ewe having

Scanning the pregnant Ewes

Twins clearly needs more food than a Ewe having just the one.
Well each year there will always be a certain percentage that don’t fall pregnant, and these were the Ewes that we were going to be working with today.

The point of the exercise was assess the health of the animals and to perform some routine stock procedures. We brought the animals in from the fields and ran them through our medical penning where we trimmed their hooves and checked their teeth before releasing them in to specific groups according to whether they had or had not gotten pregnant the year before. Anyone that had failed to be productive for more than two years running is sent off to market.
Fortunately the bulk of the group were okay, and have been sent to another farm.

Now that this was complete we could focus on more important issues, such as Lunch. We headed off to get only the finest Tescos Meal Deal and some Doughnuts and to plan this afternoons activities.
The farmers son had work elsewhere to attend to so Joe, Fred and myself were left at Bridge Farm by ourselves with a list of jobs to do.

Fred was charged with Mowing the garden, which he did quite successfully whilst Joe and myself were mucking out some Lambing Pens, rehoused the Turkey and generally tiding up. We kept busy with cleaning and odd jobs until it got dark, we then fed the Ewes that needed an evening feed and packed up and went inside for Coffees and Dinner.

Tuesday

The day started much like most others with the feeding of the Sheep.
Today we had one primary task and that was to continue, with an aim to complete, the cutting of the Hedges in our fields at Wardley.

Hedging at Wardley

The point of this exercise is to turn 40 acres of non-productive Hay Fields into safe and secure grazing land for our Sheep. The fields were neglected by the previous owners and subsequently the hedges have gone wild and are now Trees! We have been working our way around two of the six fields for the last couple of months and I am glad to say that we’re nearly done cutting back the ingrowth and preparing the boundary to receive Fencing.

Today we hit it hard and cleared a hell of a lot of brash off the boundary. All the sticks and twigs that we clear are mounded up in to ‘dead hedges’ whilst any logs are cut to size and stacked to be taken away and stored elsewhere.

Hedging at Wardley

I managed to get this picture taken in the few dry moments of dry weather we had between the downpours that dogged our progress all day.

By days end we were all soaked, cold and knackered. However a good days work had been done and we predict that there’s only one or two more days of clearing to do before we can start fencing.

We got back to Brooke at about 8.00pm and prepared and decanted the evenings feed before collapsing in front of the Fire with a hot cup of Brew and a fry up cooking on the grill.

All in all it’s been a productive couple of days, which is always a nice way to start a week. The weather forecast is  dire for the next few days, with rain, cold and even snow predicted – a drastic change from the Summer weather we had only last week!

Until next time, farewell from the Farm.

PR

 

It’s time for…

When I was growing up I was greatly influenced by the Cartoons that were on television, much like most of the digital generation were/are.

However the television that I enjoyed was far superior in conten, subject and delivery than any of the c**p that is on television today.

The reason for this moan? I just remembered a particular favourite of mine – the Animaniacs.

PR

Friday Foto Finder – Cuirous

It's Friday!

I have struggled all week to find an image that says ‘curious’. I have looked high and low, under chairs and under tables, tried to find the key, to fifty million fables, they call me the Seeker (whoops, too much listening to The Who)

 

I have chosen this image because of the curiousness that the image invokes as to what the hell you are being taken to. It was taken by me in Dehra Dun, North India in early 2009.

 

Stay lucky.

 

PR

The Creature that Crawled in the Sky

I don’t know if you are the same, but when I come across a web comic whilst browsing the Internet – I feel compelled to go back to the very beginning and read them all. Now in the case of Louis vs. Rick (my last post) that isn’t too difficult since there’s only 13 comics made.

Last year I came across Calvin and Hobbes (I’d never heard of them before. Yeah, yeah – I know, how’d I miss that?!) and that was a very long weekend of reading. Oh, and don’t even get me started on Dilbert.

Whilst considering this neurosis of mine earlier today, I remembered a comic that I haven’t been following for quite a while now – so I went in to the Archives to find where I was last and I suddenly remembered a fantastic post from a few years ago.

Have a little read and I hope you’ll agree with me.

So far, so good – continue reading for some more questionable rhyming.

Bizarrester, what a great word. I’m going to try and use that in a sentence.

Courtesy of  http://buttersafe.com
PR

Cats that can Instant Message?

So I was stumbling around the Internet t’other day, when I came across

this

Louis vs. Rick – The story of a man who taught his cat how to instant message.
There are only thirteen of them made so far, but I sincerely hope the creator keeps making more.

 

PR

Friday Foto Finder – Dedication

I sat and thought about this long and hard and after sifting through my photos I decided that when it comes to dedications – there’s only one photo I have that properly fits the bill.

The Taj Mahal is a marble mausoleum built by the Mughal emperor Shar Jahan in memory of his third wife Mumtaz Muhal. 
In 1631 the emperor was grief stricken when his wife died during the birth of his 14th child, Gauhara Begum. Construction began in 1632 with the principle mausoleum being completed in 1648 and the surrounding buildings and garden were finished five years later. Emperor Shar Jahan described the Taj in these words:

Should guilty seek asylum here,
Like one pardoned, he becomes free from sin.
Should a sinner make his way to this mansion,
All his past sins are to be washed away.
The sight of this mansion creates sorrowing sighs;
And the sun and the moon shed tears from their eyes.
In this world this edifice has been made;
To display thereby the creator’s glory.

 

That’s enough Wikipedia for now.

Basically I feel that to build a tomb of such proportions shows a certain <b> dedication </b> to a person and their memory. Sure, you can say it’s extravagant, costly and wholly unnecessary, but as a symbol to the power of love between two people — there’s not much that can better that.

PR

Friday Foto Finder (belated)

Friday Foto Finder

Sorry for the ‘tardy’ submission, but Gitwizard only told me about the Friday Foto Finder last night.

Here is my submission:

WELCOME (to the world)

Again, sorry for my lateness.

PR

The Quest of Gimmesome Roy

I was Stumble’ing around on the Internet a while back when I came across this Youtube Clip. I was never a great fan of Poetry and I still remember the suffering that I endured studying Poetry at School.

This proves to be a notable exception. Please, tell me what you think.

There once was a boy named Gimmesome Roy. He was nothing like me or you.
‘Cause laying back and getting high was all he cared to do.
It started when he was a boy, sitting in his basement, sniffing on airplane glue.
And then he started smoking banana peels — which back then was the thing to do.
He tried aspirin in Coca-Cola, sniffed helium on the sly,
And his life became an endless search to find that perfect high.
Smoking grass just made him lay back and eat chocolate-chip pizza all night,
And the beautiful things he wrote while stoned looked like shit by the morning light.
Speed just made him rap all day, reds just laid him back,
And Cocaine Rose was sweet to his nose, but the price nearly broke his back.
He tried PCP and THC, but they didn’t quite do the trick,
Poppers nearly blew his heart and mushrooms made him sick.
Acid made him see the light, but he couldn’t remember it long.
And hashish was just a bit too weak, and smack was a lot too strong,
And Quaaludes made him stumble, and booze just made him cry,
Till he heard of a cat named Baba Fats who knew of the perfect high.

Now, Baba was this hermit cat who lived up in Nepal,
On a far and lonely mountain top, up a high and icy wall.
“But hell,” says Roy, “I’m a healthy boy, and I’ll crawl or climb or fly,
But I will pursue that guru who knows the perfect high.”
So out and off goes Gimmesome Roy to the land that knows no time,
Up a trail no man could conquer to a cliff no man could climb.
For fourteen years he climbs that cliff, then back down again he slides
Then sits — and cries — and climbs again, pursuing the perfect high.
He’s grinding his teeth, he’s coughing blood, he’s aching and shaking and weak,
As starving and sore and bleeding and tore, he reaches the mountain peak.
And he blinked just once with his snow-blind eyes, and he snarls the snarl of a rat,
As there in perfect repose and wearing no clothes — sits the godlike Baba Fats.

“What’s happening, Fats?” says Roy with joy, “I’ve come to state my biz.
I hear you’re hip to the perfect trip. Please tell me what it is.
For you can see,” says Roy to he, “that I’m about to die,
So for my last ride, Fats, how can I achieve the perfect high?”
“Well, dog my cats!” says Baba Fats. “here’s one more burnt-out soul,
Who’s looking for some alchemist to turn his trip to gold.
But you won’t find it in no dealer’s stash, or on no druggist’s shelf.
Son, if you would seek the perfect high — find it in yourself.”

“Why, you jive motherfucker!” screamed Gimmesome Roy, “I’ve braved wind, rain, snow and sleet,
I’ve lost three fingers off my hands and four toes off my feet!
I’ve braved the lair of the polar bear and tasted the maggot’s kiss.
Now, you tell me the high is in myself. What kind of bull shit is this?
My ears ‘fore they froze off,” says Roy, “had heard all kind of crap,
But I didn’t climb for fourteen years to listen to this sophomore rap.
And I didn’t come all this way to hear that the high is on the natch,
So you tell me where the real stuff is or I’ll kill your guru ass!”

“Ok, OK,” says Baba Fats, “you’re forcing it out of me.
There is a land beyond the sun that’s known as Zaboli.
And in this devil’s garden blooms the mystic Tzu-Tzu tree.
And every ten years it blooms one flower as white as the Key West sky,
And he who eats of the Tzu-Tzu flower will know the perfect high.
For the rush comes on like a tidal wave and it hits like the blazing sun.
And the high, it lasts a lifetime and the down don’t ever come.
But the Zaboli land is ruled by a giant who stands twelve cubits high.
With eyes of red in his hundred heads, he waits for the passers-by.
And you must slay the red-eyed giant, and swim slimy sea,
Where the mucous beasts, they wait to feast on suckers like you and me.
And if you survive the giant and the beasts and swim that slimy sea,
There’s a blood-drinking witch who sharpens her teeth as she guards that Tzu-Tzu tree.”
“To hell with your witches and giants,” laughs Roy. “To hell with the beasts of the sea.
As long as the Tzu-Tzu flower blooms, some hope still blooms for me.”
And he twirls around, does a little dance and hands the guru a five,
And out and off goes Gimmiesome Roy, pursuing that perfect high.

“Well, that is that,” says Baba Fats, sitting back down on his stone,
Facing another thousand years of talking to God alone.
“It seems to me”, says Fats, “it’s always the same, old men or bright-eyed youth,
It’s always easier to sell them some shit than it is to tell them the truth.”

I have altered the original text slightly to suit a) the style of the video I linked earlier and b) because I think this altered version sounds a little bit better.

If you are curious, the original lyrics can be found here

Until next time,

PR