Down on the farm.

Hello there my lovlies, i hope youve had a good few days, ive seen a few snowy posts but im afraid Hampshire hasnt been lucky enough to receive any yet!

This morning i did the school run, and came home to this...

Well, every room in the house looked like this-what a mess!-the kitchen was the result of my not emptying the dishwasher in the daytime yesterday, so after tea, i couldnt be bothered to either wash up, or unload and reload the dishwasher!

Never mind, it took me all day, but i got there in the end and the house is now looking spotless!

So, whats been going on down on the farm??..

Well, this BEAST is Mr P's new toy. Obviously times are hard for all at the moment, not just farmers, but we seem to be scraping the barrel a little more than usual, what with a huge mortgage looming over the business since we bought this farm. So-we felt the need to diversify. Lots of dairy/livestock farmers have had a tough year as they didnt have enough silage saved up in the summer, to feed to their animals this winter.

So, what you see her is a 'fodder beet lifter' Fodder beet is part of the turnip family basically, and sheep and cows love it! Its also the the highest yielding forage crop anyone can grow...so, we thought we'd grow some for us, some to sell, and buy a machine to harvest it as there isnt one this big anywhere in the south of England.

Its so large it has to have escorts to go on the main roads and doesnt even fit through some farm gates so Mr P is on a steep learning curve!

Here is is this morning carrying out some essential maintenance..

So my job at the moment is to supply various people with coffees and cake regularly throughout the day-such as Mr P-seen here with his winter beard!

It gets piled up like this, then farmers come along with their tractors and trailers and load up.

The kids had fun last night as this lot is growing in the field next to the house-you know the one behind our big oak tree?...they took turns to sit on the toolbox and have a ride with dad.

Then yesterday evening word got round that we had harvested, and three different farmers turned up to take some away, some had only a day or two's feed supply left for their animals.Serious business.

That's alotta beets right?!

Here's a slightly closer up photo, some of them are huge, but im sure it wouldnt take a whole flock long to chomp through them!

And, as you can see, Ted took a keen interest in it too!

Anyway, i hope i havnt bored you all too much with farm talk?!.

Apart from trying to keep my fire going each day i really havnt been up to much as ive been off work with ligament pains in the bump and im trying to take it a little bit easy(read that as bake lots of cakes!)and the dogs are not happy that they're not getting their two walks a day and the dr said i musnt go shooting until im better...frustrating!!

So, i havnt really got anything pretty to show you at the moment, BUT the weather man has promised us at least a LITTLE bit of the powdery stuff-so watch this space....

Take care all......xxx