Honey Harvest, More Silage, Wool Collection

A whole month has gone by since my last post and here we are at the beginning of August which in its turn promises to be as busy as July.
Amongst other things the Farmer found time to take the honey off from the hives when the weather was good. We have had bumper crop this year which the Farmer says is down to him having made time to manage the colonies better. He and I spent an evening bottling over 100lbs of honey and labelling the jars in order to sell it in the locality. It was very satisfying sight, a mass of new jars with smart labels. There is a great demand for local honey and its great that we are able to have enough to help feed that demand. As well as just harvesting the honey the Farmer has sent a sample off to have its pollen DNA analysed so that we know which plants and trees the bees use in the main. It will very interesting to get the results back. We know that there will be lot of clover and probably bramble as the blossom has been very good this year...I hope there will be good crop of brambles as a result after the rather poor hedgerow harvest last year.

Work continues with the new parlour. A heavy roller was brought in last week to level & consolidate the floors in preparation for the delivery of concrete which will be poured and levelled...a tricky process as it has to have a very specific slope in two directions for the water used to wash the parlour after every milking to drain away.

Second cut silage is in along with a triple-crop of oats, barley & vetches all nicely layered with first & second cut grass into a sort of silage lasagne. The cows love it!

We took our wool sacks to the collection point at the rugby club in our nearest town on the date and time specified by the Wool Board. The organisation was running very efficiently as we did not have to join a queue as is usually the case but were the only vehicle there, thought the lorry had large number of woolsacks already loaded. We send only two sacks and they are green to mark that the wool is organic. Conventional wool is packed into white sacks.

The holiday cottage is now fully booked out for the summer. So far,we have had lovely guests who despite the somewhat patchy weather have been able to discover west Wales in all its enchanting and verdant loveliness. With the weather being a mixture of sunshine and showers it is still possible to have great days out clambering over rocks at the beach or exploring wondrous castles.