Hay on Hold

It's been a rather peculiar haytime so far. Plenty of grass considering it is still early, but really quite chilly but dry days this past week.
Without the tractors having cabs, I would have been riding around with a big coat on I think!

Last year it was about 27C doing these top fields.
The other day more like 13C
Cloudy until 1pm or would have been able to finish all three, but has been very little rain just enough  to damp the top so hope to get it done Sunday or Monday.

Next weekend sounds dodgy then dry + quite hot to follow most likely.
Have two good sized fields still to cut, not sure whether to do them ASAP or wait to see what if the weekend rain event comes off.
They were grazed by sheep until mid-April so not as forward as what I've done.

Grass is growing ...

Spring barley and lambing

Ready to sow this today although I think it will be tomorrow before I finish as I need put fert on first. Like last year I ballast rolled the ploughing before power harrowing and what a difference it makes with only one pass needed and far more easy to level it. Even the strong clay patches in Osseker Crook have broken down well. There's a chance of showery rain almost reaching here Sunday/Monday which would be ideal to start it off. Things are generally well ahead of 2013 with more grass already than we had at start of May last year. There was a keen frost the other night though, and the cows night grazing across the river where sheep over-winter is only just starting to wake up. The dry mild-ish weather has been ideal for lambing and generally few problems but any singles have tended to be very large and need help.

Mid-April

From above

New Izuzu

 

Picked this up today, at a glance it looks much like the old one, but there are huge differences.

It’s more powerful especially lower down the rev range yet uses less fuel.
When driving it is far more planted and less bouncy.
There’s traction control too – not sure how effective that is but it’s supposed to detect one wheel starting to spin and transfer drive to the other or others if in 4x4
It can tow 3.5 tons too.
The only down side is it’s a bit bigger all round - and the older one was big enough for small parking spaces!

The dealer seemed generally OK aside from the hopelessly optimistic delivery schedule – I expected anyway.
The one annoyance was not just a low fuel tank but a tank so near empty I wondered if I would get 5 miles to Guisborough - which was the first one I passed.
Admittedly I left mine near 1/4 but if the new one had been about half full it would hardly be generous.
They had to drive it to Ripon for the canopy to be put on so must have consciously only put about £10 in.

It took £84 to fill it!

Malton there and back

January has been so soggy it's been hard to get much done.
Last Friday I went over to Malton to see how store cattle were doing, as I have a couple of loads ready to go.
The smaller ones seemed down quite a bit but better ones were getting over £1000 - probably bigger than mine though.

Surprisingly, very little flooding to be seen, rivers were about level full though