Second cut bales

Rather a lot of bales - about 150 - especially from the red clover ley sown last year.

Demise of the feed bin

This had started to look rather unsafe with corrosion at the bottom of the legs and a hole appearing by the hatch - and auger outlet disintegrating.
Rather than have it fall over in a winter gale when cows were in, it seemed prudent to get it broken up in a controlled way.

There was a real risk it could have slid of the foundation block rather than toppling where expected, but all went well and two hours later it was cut up and loaded in  trailer.

We now have access to refurbish the slate roof behind, which has been in a bad way for several years.
Two substantial holes appeared last winter!

Silage 2016

Silage has been delayed by foggy drizzly weather through May and June, however when it did finally dry up crops were very heavy. This was cut 25th June and most of it was picked up on 27th.

Houlstons have a much newer Claas Jaguar this year, and it made quite easy work of the huge rows even on the steepest field in this video.

There was an extra eight acres this year and as expected the pit was full without it so that got baled and wrapped the following day - just before a very wet afternoon.

That was annoying as the second field of hay was just about ready - I got more than half baled but at 2pm a sudden heavy burst of rain stopped that for now.

Cattle to Malton

Suckler calf bullocks have been going to Malton through March and April - today was planned to be the last sale for now, but could not quite fit four in so I guess the last one might go on his own next week or I might take another of some description with him.

The remaining ones were going out any day now, but the line between go out and sell is rather arbitrary. It's strange but there are only four heifers of this age so keeping them all as replacements.

 Prices for store cattle are down a little on last year but still quite strong with most of them this year making around £900

Ruswarp Market run

Taking some last year's lambs.
The Hero4 camera behaved well but did seem to get very hot in the case.
There's an alternative open back I should use for longer periods of recording perhaps.

Mucking out calving shed

I got a GoPro Hero4 a couple of weeks ago, and am in two minds about doing occasional video blog style videos.

The quality from it is brilliant really, and I already had a selection of mounts which came with a much cheaper SJ4000 a couple of years ago. The problem is that even a 3 minute video at 1080p is about 500mb and our increasingly left behind broadband speed of 373kb up needs all night to upload that.

This will become increasingly exasperating with no chance of faster fibre being laid to install a cabinet nearer than Castleton 3 miles away. (unless we do it ourselves apparently!) They were given £1.5 billion to connect almost everyone to 10mb+ but it seems very easy to claim outlying villages are too difficult even when like Westerdale we also don't have mobile cover let alone 3G. Meanwhile York is getting upgrades from 50mb+ to 300mb and they also have 4G

Building update late August - almost done

The major re-build of pig-sty corner is all but complete after most of five months though not continuous work it must be said!
It has taken rather longer than expected mainly cutting the stones seemed to take forever, but quite a lot of fiddly bits at the end still not quite finished - almost another week maybe yet?

Gallery link http://postimg.org/gallery/1x9y779ny/
Those are a bit random and can't be moved about so some of the main stages below.
They've uploaded in reverse order so go down then come back up ;)

Final bits - more concrete, retaining wall, BIG stone gatepost. Pot Plant!

Soil replaced around foundations

Mainly doors to do at last

Inside larger room

Windows in, roof well underway.

Insulation all round seems a no-brainer in a relatively small building which will benefit from stable temperatures and minimal condensation

More stone. Lintels from Eskdale Stone near Whitby

Roof takes shape and stones going around from original wall remains

Mud hut stage

Early stages

Concrete raft foundation as there was all kinds of soft ground and rubble.

Rebuilding the corner bottom left

Rough shed over partly demolished stone pig stys