At last the weather has improved and we have had enough dry days to enable us to start cutting silage. Elder Son was out yesterday mowing and this morning before breakfast, the rake and other kit are being prepared for a long day. The rolls of plastic sheet for the silage pit were delivered yesterday and although it is a greyer morning than we'd like it is dry so hopefully after breakfast and all final preparations are done it will be full steam ahead.
We have yet to turn the cows out, the land is just too wet, but once the grass is off the fields they should be able to get the cows out...turnout has never been this late!
Yesterday the Farmer was on a farm up the valley helping get things ready for a farm sale. Our neighbour, with whom the Farmer was at primary school, has taken the major decision to sell up. His children are not interested in continueing farming and have careers outside agriculture and so having been on the farm since 1936, the family are selling everything. The farm itself has been sold and happily is going to continue as a dairy farm which is very encouraging. The preparation for a farm sale is a massive undertaking involving moving every item, no matter how small, out of buildings and sheds where they may have been for the last 60 or more years. All sorts of forgotten things are brought to light, antiquated machinery and tools that have been superceded by modern technology but remain as fascinating artefacts. Everything, from tractors, machinery, sheep hurdles & gates to boxes of old nuts and bolts & miscallaneous bits of metalwork, is set out in rows in good flat field ready for the sale day where they will be perused by all and sundry. There will also be some livestock going under the hammer, for of course, everything is sold by auction which is very interesting thing to watch. Some bidding is very subtle and it can be quite a game to see who is bidding for what. As well as moving everything, it all has to be washed and cleaned up, so the Farmer was busy with a pressure-washer all day sprucing up long-stored machinery. The buildings are all being pressure-washed too which is huge task...it is no joke spending days washing out cubicle sheds, calf pens and lambing sheds but everything must left spotlessly clean for the new family coming in to the farm.
A farm sale is a great social day for the neighbourhood and a meeting-up of old aquaintances, though farm sales such as this will are increasingly less frequent than they were. We shall be there of course, and all one can hope for is the the weather is kind on the day.
