The End To A Manic Week

Well its been awhile getting out that big hole I dug........Its just been so manic here over the last few days, with some crazy hours being put in, trying to get all our jobs that we wanted done before it,s back to my full-time job in the morning.

So the electric guys turned up on Wednesday and that's when the mess started, the weather turned against us and the mud bath began!!

Unfortunately because of our water pipe that runs down the edge of are yard, the drive way area took a hit with the digger to allow the ducting to be put down. Lily can be seen sitting on a wall we have surveying the work.

The ducting has now gone in and covered with "Caution Electric Cable Below" tape that we have to put on top of the ducting, so this was now Thursday and I have come to the decision that I'm surprised anything gets down with the company installing the electric.....these guys are nice enough but are constantly on tea breaks, its taken them two days to dig 3/4 the distance I have and they still have got to install the ducting for there bit. I'm not blowing my own trumpet......just standing on my soap box.......what are they playing at.........come on lads pull your fingers out!!

Friday midday brings us the occasional sunshine and our electric cable appears......Yippee!! this is an amazing sight for us, its like we are getting that step closer from using candles! The guys finally get the cable to our meter box and speed off into the distance to hit the pubs.
Well with the work force gone it was time to start back filling the trench, we could have started this sooner but I wanted to make sure the cable came through without any problems. It soon became apparent that with all the rain we had, we needed to do something to the yard as it had turned to sledge as clay does, so after a quick phone call Friday afternoon we had 40t of stone on its way.


Now hats off to the brave driver who was more than happy to back his wagon into our yard, but what you can't see on this picture is that the other side of the lorry has sank deep into the ground.......apologies for no pictures of this but we became a little busy trying to free the lorry, after several attempts and the lorry sliding ever closer to our gate post which would have put stop to everything, we finally got him out.......needless to say the second load got tip just off the road in the start of our drive way.

Well that's all for tonight as we are all so worn out and my bed is calling.

Things You Can Do With A Shovel!!

Another busy day on the farm, the rain has held off again for us but I'm sure we are going to get it at some point.... I have give up with the digger and decided that I can do things quicker with a shovel.....just look at what you can do when you put your mind to it, I did this in about an hour!!

Only joking......couldn't resist the picture.

Any guesses what the hole's for? Lisa has a use for it but luckily I took the keys out the digger....I'm sure filling it in with me still in it crossed her mind.

The electric guys are coming in the morning, they have confirmed this and plan to pull the cable through on Thursday. I guess this is when it will rain, just as I get the trenches dug it will rain and fill them with water, never mind I'm sure putting electric cable in water is the norm!

This is how the banking is taking shape

This is an earlier picture of the banking

Most of the work that needs to involve me driving the digger over the grass is almost complete, so with the rain staying away for now, it has saved the land getting completely churned up, with a little rolling and grass seeding you will never know.

So lets see what tomorrow brings with the electric board being on seen. more photos too.

Rain Held Off For Us

Another day on the digger today and the new banks that we are creating are starting to take shape. We still have a long way to get them looking how we want them but that will come in time.

Once the new banks have been grass seeded and the grass grows the plan is that the new banks will just blend in to the background, well that's what happens in my head!!

Lily was feeling a little better today and decided that standing in the back of our car, would be the best position to view the farm from. Lisa took advantage of the soft ground and got the roller out, we have not got a tractor or quad at the moment so the car has to do the job, its not to much of a hassle and it gets the job done.

So with all the work going on around the farm its a fairly busy week to come, our guys from the electric company arrive on Wednesday to start installing the cable along the road side and into our farm, lets just hope they turn up.

Well with all the fresh air that we have been getting, it Finally took its toll on Lily the bear and as we got back home she couldn't hold on any longer and decided to nod off.

Yes those are rats that Lily is cuddled up with, She adores them and will not go anywhere without them, she has three altogether and heaven forbid we should ever loose one.

That's all for now, more picture still to come.

Still No Donkeys Rob!!

If you have any questions about the title, Rob at Wellground Alpacas will be pleased to help....


Well its been a fantastic day weather wise today and we have managed to get some more earth moved around the farm. You may ask why we are moving all this earth around, all will come apparent in the future, the reason we have all the earth is that when we built our barns, to get the correct levels we had to dig out a far bit of land as there was a 2.5mtr fall across the distance we wanted to erect the barns in, hence all this earth.


Now considering it rained on and off all day yesterday, we are not actually in that bad of a state. We are going to level the new banks out and grass seed so the finished banks will blend in with the surroundings.

We have moved some banking from the entrance to our farm to allow better access, we always struggle to get large vehicles into the farm so with some of the banking removed this should help.

Little Lily Bear has not been feeling that good over the last few days and was not impressed when I took her photo, she really enjoys being on the farm but you would never have guessed it.

I have just seen the weather forecast on Country File and it looks like today may well have been the best day, rain is on its way!!

More photos to come soon.

Earth Moving

I have finally got some time off work, we made a start on sorting out for our electric to be connected next week. With the arrival of our machinery on Friday evening, it was all systems go this morning. I do love having machinery to play on although they say blokes can't do more than one thing so Lisa got her hands on the Dumper.....

Now I'm all up for Lisa giving it a go and getting stuck in, but it does help if your feet reach the foot plate and you can work out how to stop and start the machine!

Oh, spoke to soon she is off and raring to go, so that only left myself and Lily to start playing and making a mess with our machine. We had to remove some old posts out the ground first and rather than breaking my back I decided to get the digger involved to pull them out, this was done in seconds which left us to start removing some old grass banking that we want moving.

This was an old allotment we let over grow, which we are going to redevelop next year once we are a little more straight. None of these pictures show any of the main work that we have done today, so I will ensure that we take some more informative pictures tomorrow.

Well that's all for tonight, but more mess making tomorrow, at least its not supposed to rain tomorrow unlike today so Ill let you use your imagination to what state we are in, but you have to make a mess sometimes.

Stranger In The Barn

This morning I had a bit of a fright, I was down the farm early this morning loading hay into Jim's van, Jim is a guy we sell our hay too, he has a local feed store just a few miles from us. Anyway I crabbed a bale and suddenly out the corner of my eye something black darted off the bales and vanished, I picked the bale up that I had just dropped and after Jim had stopped laughing, I asked him what do you think that was? He replies "Not sure but it was black and fast" We continued to load his van even if we were both eagle eyed looking for the black thing!

Jim left and I let the horse and pony out in the paddocks, I was still unsure what this black thing was in the barn and then as I headed back to the barn, it was looking straight at me, we both stopped dead in our tracks wondering who was going to make the next move, it was almost like being a stranger walking into a country and western saloon, the piano has stopped playing everyone has turned round looking at the stranger, OK I might be getting carried away now, but here is the the black thing that was looking at me.........

Just poking its head over the top of the post

I'm not sure where the cat has come from, in fact its only a kitten, we are more than happy for it to stay on the farm as it will help with the keeping the mice down, that's if it stops......we have decided to call it "Little Puss"

Lisa has managed to come down the farm today and assist me slightly with the fencing, whoever She is taking things steady as not to over do it, I think the pain killers are well in Lisa system now which is helping.

Well that's all for now, back soon.

Not The Weekend We Wanted

Hi All

Well not much has been done on the farm, we had arranged to go and visit Rob & Les at Wellground Alpaca Stud today but unfortunately Lisa managed to put her back out quick badly on Thursday and is now currently on Strong pain killers which are helping slightly but Lisa is still in allot of pain. I am going to try and get some more fencing done this weekend and make the most of the peace and quite of Lisa being stuck at home!! only joking darling. The fencing is coming along and we can start to see what it will look like when its finished.

I have a fairly nice week coming up at work as I'm on an intensive firefighters training course in preparation for the runway that is being opened, myself and four others will be on standby every time a plane is due to land and have to meet the requirements set by the civil aviation authority, once I have passed this training and further training that is scheduled I would be allowed to work at any airport as a fully qualified airport firefighter, not that I intend to but its another bow to the belt as they say.

This next Friday my digger arrives, as the following week are electric supply is being installed, I have to dig the trenches on our side of the farm so that the electric guys can just lay the cable in the trench. I'm just hoping the weather stays dry so as not to cause to much of a mess.

That's all for now, but will update with pictures soon.

New Addition

Hi Folks,

Well its been a very hectic couple of weeks for me, my full time job has really kicked in now and I have been forced to do so some crazy hours, which unfortunately means the blog had to go on hold for a short while.

I have had chance though to finally select my new arrival to the family, everyone meet "Otto"

"Otto" is a pure bred German Shepherd, she is only 3 weeks old in this picture, so I have got to wait a few more weeks yet before she finally comes to live with us. "Otto" will be trained when old enough to the same standards as a police dog, as some of you may already know, I used to be in the police and spent some time assigned to the dog unit and enjoyed it thoroughly, this is also a fantastic way to keep "Otto" mentally fit as well as physically fit.

Lily & Otto

We have managed to get some more fencing done this morning, so that's ticking along nicely, if not a little slowly, but my hours should return to some kind of normality soon, so it will be action stations again, with the evening staying lighter I will have no excuse not to start fencing after work.

That's all for now back soon.