This month has seen some rain 51mm and the fine weather has continued giving a good start to the Autumn see our weather report for more.

Only one cow calved this month giving an Angus heifer bad news however as the cow got complications after calving and died the calf however is doing fine and feeding from a bucket.

Eight of the biggest heifers have gone on their holidays this month to Dorothy’s father and brothers farm Norcroft and as there was a large amount of grass on the field they are occupying firstly we have made some “big bale” silage.

Seen here the grass is firstly mown and then rowed in like silage.

Then Chris arrived with his big baler seen here on the right..

It firstly makes the bales and next they are wrapped with this machine.

Silage wrap is very similar to the cling-film you may use in the kitchen at home.

This seals out the air and allows the silage to make.

We only have these spikes to handle the bales although some farmers use a machine which “grips” the bales without piercing the wrap we however reseal them using agritape (a type of wide insulation/duck tape) shown here by Dorothy and Simon.

These bales are very heavy weighing in at about 1500kgs too heavy for my pitchfork I think.

We stacked them by the heifer cubicals and as we made them during the first week of September at time of writing we are just feeding the first ones.

This month has seen us starting the big clean-up and our collection of scrap metal has greatly diminished having been sold for recycling.

Sarah feeds Tabby her cat every day and every day for the last 5 years she puts the empty cans into an old oil drum (well 3 old oil drums to be precise).

This collection has now gone in the scrap skip left by local scrap merchants Roberts, who will sort and recycle the various metals.

The clean-up meant I missed this years ploughing match however Chris and David our neighbours attended and so the report was saved click here to see their day out.

Last year was the first year for Nantwich food festival, this year it has gone from strength to strength. Click here for a full report and be sure to read the tee shirt Simon is wearing.

Now for the nature report with news of the swallows departure, and don't forget to drop in on our look at how things used to be done, with our Now and Then report

See you next month PHIL.

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