Bog Myrtle & Peat

Courthill, Buittle – 5/4/20

One month away from calving, and things look promising. The cows are full, and a few have begun to show a “vessel” in their udders to indicate that time marches on.

Having stumbled through two calvings which were staggered, delayed or problematic, I would love to think that things will be brisk and straightforward this year. It would be a fine thing if all the calves were born in a single three week window; if they arrived at the perfect moment to catch and be away. May feels like the right month to have calves, but in previous years I have stumbled all the way into July with slip-ups and latecomers. Perhaps it’s just blind optimism, but I hope things will go better this year.

In recent weeks, the cows have been on silage that we made in November; the grim, sloppy stuff which made me squirm when it was cut because the ground was wet and the crop lay in the frost like mush as we waited for the baler to come. These bales have been hard work to lift and feed. Some are tolerably sweet, but others are brown and foul like rotten sacking. It is a horrible job to make late season silage, but feeding it out is almost worse.

It won’t be long until there is new fresh grass, so I try to focus on that instead.