Well this is the aftermath of Storm Doris!! It is quite a remarkable scene: sunshine, grass that looks as though it is actively growing and animals enjoying being out in the open. We must have had a fair bit of rain in the early hours but on waking at around 8am, the rain had gone and we simply had some rather welcome drying wind. It was a tad gusty but worse in the garden and poultry area, the 4-acre thankfully remained pretty calm. We are so pleased as we were having serious misgivings about the cows being out but although we are due more rain and wind at the weekend, it is far more in keeping with ‘normal’ weather for this time of year and as such conditions, under foot should stay okay we hope.
Our Cow Pad matting arrived today and despite the wind we managed to get half of it laid and covered with a couple of trailer loads of woodchip. When we set up the Cow Pad back in December, we think we put six or seven trailer loads in. We are aiming to get a good ten in there this time which in theory should give us a depth of well over 15 cms. Although the matting should stand the odd cow hoof standing directly on it, we want to try to avoid this and so to an extent, the deeper the better.
In other news. There are just four more days until the poultry lockdown ends (unless DEFRA change their minds of course). We wonder how the birds will react when we open their doors: some of them will probably take a while to go outside as a little like battery hens, being inside for the last three months will have made them a bit nervous of open spaces. We are sure they will get over it reasonably quickly and then it should be business as usual with Jack desperately trying to find eggs amongst the hay stacks and despairing as the chickens rake up her beautifully cleaned out goat stalls!!!