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16 October 2014

On Top Of Ward Hill


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Hay and Tatties

Our nearest neighbours across the brae are fine folk and this weekend I spent the afternoon with them enjoying the good weather and sharing a meal

It is a busy time of year for them as always and I love to go over and see the new calves and the caddie lamb called Tyson who greets you at the fence as you walk across from Barebraes to them.

Yesterday afternoon was a typical day for them, they work a full day and then get up in the night to inspect the cows that are still to have calves just in case theres a problem. I didn't realise how physical and hard the work was. I spent an afternoon there and this morning I had aches everywhere.

It was time to plant the tatties and this was good fun. You sit on the back of a ploughing machine that has a hopper with 2 tubes. There is a seat either side and 2 people can sit on it and the task is to listen for the bell and every time the bell rings you drop a seed tattie down the tube. Behind you appears 2 lovely drills of freshly turned soil and the gulls and other birds follow you along hoping for a tasty meal. The tractor pulls the plough along and when you gett to the end you are raised up and there is a sprint back to the start to do another drill. I helped do a few drills and then got a ride back to the house in the bucket of the other tractor with their son. His dad tried to frighten me by danglin us over a ditch and I was worried that he might tip us in. The grin he had when I looked back said it all.

After that we had the pleasure of shovelling out the byres and placing silage in the pens. A short trip up the road in another tractor with the wifey to fetch some hay bales was the next task and I have never had such a laugh. They build a hay house that is made of bales and it is covered with a net. The wifey mananged to get 10 bales then I said I would have a go. To pull out the bales which are wedged in is quite dificuollt so I tried to climb up to get more leverage. The bales came out and so did a few others I fell from the side and both me and the wifey were showered with bales . No one was hurt apart from my sides from laughing. We took the bales to another byre and fed the cows.

On returning to the farm it was time for tea. This was eaten and then it was out again to place the calves onto the cows for their evening feed. More muscles required. The calves are frisky and they always want to go where they are not supposed to be.
By this time it was getting on for 9pm and I headed home, happy and tired. But I knew that the day hadn't finished for them. They would be up till late no doubt, mending fences and getting ready for the release of the cows into grazing.

I slept very well.

Posted on On Top Of Ward Hill at 14:24

Comments

Thank you for a very interesting article, the content was brilliant and your power of description took me back sixty years to my childhood. i could smell the freshly-turned earth and hear the sounds of the sea-gulls. in those days the furrows were turned by two draught horses and a plough with blades so shiny they could be used as a mirror, as for planting the seed tatties it was a case of heads down and hands into the bucket and set them one by one.

plough-boy. from primrose farm


Thankyou plough-boy I am sure that farming was a great deal harder then than it is now. Would have loved to seen the horses pulling the plough

Barebraes from Shapinsay


There is a fine pair of horses hanging about the pierheid here in Stromness. They don't seem to be doing much....

Flying Cat from The Pier Heid


Flying cat, If those horses are real do not chase them away, they are probably the steaks for this weeks visitors from Canada.

plough-boy. from primrose farm


They eat horses do they?

Flying Cat from ancient filmfiles


no offence meant to the people of orkney or our canadian guests, actually horse steak can be very nice , i know , ihad plenty of it during the war.

plough-boy. from primrose farm


Of course, Canadians eat horses. At least in Quebec they do (following an old French tradition). # Horse meat is pretty good too: smoked and cut ultra thin, spread over a nice piece of baguette, with some red wine. Ask Carol, she knows all about it.

mjc from NM,USA


to mjc, of course i loved horse-meat but i found the bits at the bottom of the legs a bit hard to chew, my mother would boil these peices for hours and what i could not eat my father would use to stick the kitchen furniture back together. Im only kidding ,we did not have any kitchen furniture, my dad sold it to buy the horse- meat.

plough boy from primose farm


No horsing around then when growing up, ploughboy. It crossed my mind that a good taxidermist could turn a trusty steed into a piece of furniture. One could play cowboy and indian right there in the parlor (eh, FC?), and a Lazyboy would be superfluous. Join the action while watching Silverado or High Noon on HD tv screen, and blaze away with the best of them, sitting on the saddle of an unflustered Appaloosa. An ercol piece of furniture, indeed.

mjc from NM,USA


I heard that Roy Rogers had Trigger stuffed. After he died of course

Barebraes from Shapisnay


Dont be daft we eat them raw

THE GOOSE from Canada


mjc: yep over here quite a lot of people eat horse meat:hubby nused to love it,although i always to have it in the house!! scoop for you-did you know that the new prime minister-francois fillon's wife is welsh?? hubby's cousin told me this morning-so if there is a "leek" in goverment papers we know who to blame. no??

carol from basking in the sun


Trigger would be ercol, of course.

mjc from NM,USA


Yes Carol, I did hear that Fillon had the good taste of marrying a Welsh. # If there are too many leeks, I expect they will be in the soup...

mjc from NM,USA


Was Roy Rogers a necrophiliac, then? Think of the splinters...

Flying Cat from Cheshire Grin


Roy Rogers had Trigger stuffed! What with? and did he eat him all at one sitting?

Hyper-Borean from The Hole in the Wall


Yes, Goose, that's how you Canadians keep your carbon footprint low (no barbecuing with charcoal for them). Horsemeat sushi.

mjc from NM


FC what a suggestion!! Did you know there was a nobel prize awarded to a Dutch researcher Kees Moeliker for his research into Necrophilia among ducks. Its an interesting read I found it on Google together with all manner of other stuff

Barebraes from Shapisnay


It gives new insight into the well-known phrase "Go f*** a duck....not that I would. When I could eat it instead.... I know my limitations!

Flying Cat from dribblingalloverthejoint


Methinks you killed the duck, FC. Let's have a new posting, and rev it all up. I am falling asleep going through the blogs.

mjc from NM,USA


Me too,MJC! meeting trevor for coffee at the market tomorrow-more to come!!

carol from counting the hours,in windy but sunny france


Well to tell the truth we have had 2 duck dinners so far and another 7 are fattenning up as we speak. I will try to rev it up mjc if I can. Must admit theres not a lot going on on the blog front of late. We need some scandal. Speaking of which good luck with your rendevous Carol

Barebraes from Shapinsay


There you are mjc, two blogs for the price of one, before I go into Big Cage again...satisfied?

Flying Cat from Creative Writing Course




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