Tuesday 18 February 2014

Itchy feet.

Sunday - brilliant sunny day; Monday - thick, chilly fog;
 today - lovely sunny day again.  Yesterday and today we had appointments at the hospital (all is well) which meant the same drive twice over.

Everywhere is beginning to look as though it is waking up.   Snow drops and aconites are out everywhere -oh yes, the sun definitely bringing them out.   It is actually 8 degrees today - the warmest (relatively speaking) for a long time.

It is not just the farmer and I who are noticing it.   The cows are getting itchy feet.   It happens every year.   Two days of sunshine, a slight smell of the grass growing and they want to be out there.   If the loose housing gate was left for a moment I know what would happen - they would be off down the field like rockets, tails up in the air, churning up the grass and flinging mud everywhere.   The farmer and his dog would hotfoot it behind and there would be a few choice words.

The sheep, on the other hand, munch on, and seem to be oblivious to the sunshine.   Later on - perhaps the middle of March, they will begin to be restless and ready to get back on the tops.   These are last years lambs and so they will not be lambing themselves this year.

At present a state-of-the-art slurry machine (driven by a contractor) is spreading slurry on our fields.   The machine is huge - very wide with about thirty tubes sticking out of it and a two mile long pipe connected to the slurry tank so that there is no need for back and forth journeys.   I was hoping for a photograph but he seems to have gone for now.   In any case, to make a real impression it would
need to be a smelliegraph, to coin a new word.

14 comments:

Jenny Woolf said...

I would love to have some smells of the countryside here in London, although slurry probably isn't one of them! :)

Gwil W said...

I'm glued to both your blog and the first James Herriot series. I can't get enough of farm fresh air.

Sue in Suffolk said...

We have a new big farming company farming the land all around us and their machinery seems to be 5 times bigger than the man who owned the land before. At the mo. we have giant lorries going back and forth along our little back road because they are lifting turf, something else that never happened years ago.

Mary said...

No farmyard or pasture smells around here sadly - I'm cutting up a salmon for the freezer so it's just a bit fishy right now!!!

Glad it's warming and you've enjoyed a sunny day again. Lovely day here but nothing blooming yet - a few more weeks perhaps.
Mary X

Maureen @ Josephina Ballerina said...

Absolute worst smell ever (and as a nurse for 33 years, this is saying something) a truck full of chum in Maine in the summer. Wow. Wow.

JoAnn ( Scene Through My Eyes) said...

We are deep in the middle of another very windy, rainy cold storm - they seem to come in every other day - or more often. It isn't bad here - since it is only rain, but they move to the east and cause havoc with the midwest and the east coasts. Not many signs of spring here - it needs to be warmer than our 38-42 degree weather to show us some spring. Oh - and we need sunshine too.

Heather said...

Most farmyard smells are good healthy ones but maybe not slurry! We too have had alternate days of sun and heavy cloud cover, but it is noticeably milder and things are beginning to sprout all over the place. I can't wait for the soil to dry out a bit so I can get to work on the garden. It is still very soggy out there.

jerilanders said...

I know Spring is nearly come, we have 3 baby chicks already!

A Heron's View said...

There be no finer a smell in the countryside than some ripe pig slurry, beats all so it does.

Cloudia said...

I can smell your words!




ALOHA from Honolulu
Comfort Spiral
=^..^= <3

angryparsnip said...

Happy to hear all is well with the hospital visit.
How is the local farmer doing that lost all his feed when his barn burned. This weather is not helping.

No new chickens yet ?
Give Tess a belly rub for me.

cheers, parsnip

Cro Magnon said...

And my hens are now laying more regularly. A sure sign!

Becca McCallum said...

Here in Scotland there are snowdrops a-plenty and crocuses are pushing up purple through the grass. I can smell lemon as I am drinking hot-water and lemon to soothe my throat; I'm off work with a bad cough, hence the reason I'm writing replies to blog posts.

Bovey Belle said...

We have LOTS of frogspawn here and vast numbers of frogs, especially in the wildlife pond. Plus crocuses out, and daffs in bud, and the birds are signing their hearts out.

You have a Very Posh slurry machine working for you. Next Door still sticks to the tried and tested (and nearly worn out) slurry lagoon on wheels with a big pipe to blow it over the hedge when necessary . . .