(Note from Andy - Before your read this I must offer my apologies for the quality of the images. I used the wrong algorithm when I was resizing them, sorry)

Drier than October with 72mm of rain but enough to stop any muckspreading. For a more detailed graph see our weather page.

The Autumn being so mild the cows were out at night until the 7th and then coming in altogether about 10 days later mainly due to wet conditions.

We were feeding some of the big bales until they came in but then we opened the clamp.

Also this month on the 28th we saw our first snow only a few mm as this picture shows.

It was taken in the morning and had all gone the next day.

 

The shed now has two bays and a roof.

For bonfire night and the Manchester university visit on the 17th our toilets were also plumbed in.

The shed is already in use for a fertilizer store as the cubical shed now has the cows in for the winter.

J&B skips had contributed some of the wood for the bonfire but Simon couldn't resist the sign which he retrieved as shown here.

As we know Webby does some metal detecting and not without success however I did need him to find one thing from a muddy gateway namely my mobile phone which had been dropped running after cows and then buried when the whole herd went through the gate.

At the start of the month we finally managed to get the maize harvested.

Our contractors, Richardson's, came on the 1st and despite a couple of difficulties in the soft ground they successfully completed the harvest.

This next picture shows the fearsome jaws of the maize harvester.

Looking like something from out of a horror film I would not like to be accidentally caught in this machine.

Although like most farmers I carry an armored phone it hadn't survived two days and the cows and was dead on retrieval.

This is a major problem for me as it held around 200+ numbers and I hadn't backed up since April.

This month saw me fitting a teat sprayer in our milking parlors. These can be used instead of dipping the teats post milking but we aim to use it to spray a sterilizer pre-milking instead of just water and wipes at our dairy inspector’s recommendation.

December is supposed to be colder and drier so more muckspreading is the aim and some more shed building.

Don't forget to look in on our nature report a task I have consigned to Andy.

Finally December also brings CHRISTMAS so have a very merry one and a happy NEW YEAR.

See you next month PHIL

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