Big boys toys

I finally made it to Steve's (honest everyone here is called Steve, except the women)to get some feed for the critters. The snow and ind ice put paid to any trips out with Trixie our trailer, and as I am in the SAS (Saturdays and Sundays) category of farmers several busy Saturdays meant that the critters had to make do with feed from the Countrywide store, which price per bag was the equivalent of feeding them white truffles coated in caviar. The feed bill for December/January was five times the norm which was not making the bank manager or us cheerful long eared rodents. Need less to say getting the feed was not as straightforward as it could have been. The goats had to be evicted from the trailer, the door rehung and a new jockey wheel attached, all in minus temperatures making playing with bare metal a joy.
Finally I made it to the cavernous barn full of delicious morsels where there was enough stock piled to keep our motley crew going for decades. The very helpful Steve raced round in his amazing CAT shoving feed into piles, scooping it up, dropping it in the hopper, carrying the bag to the scales and finally dropping it into Trixie. Just to be super helpful he dropped the prong attachment off and pushed the loaded bag further into the trailer over the wheels making it a balanced load. At this point we both noted that it might have been an idea to check the handbrake was on Hazel the almost 4x4 but once she stopped rolling unmanned across the yard missing all the shiny red lorries we both breathed a sigh of relief and away I went. Unloading had to wait as the straw was due to arrive and lessons learned, it was going to go where it was going to stay until used, unlike the previous load of hay that got moved six times before it was eaten. To do this the workshop had to be sorted and after several hours we found we had enough room for the straw and a pressing need for a bonfire. The straw is now arriving tomorrow, which means among other things, the trailer needs unloading of feed, the bales need unloading off the lorry, the log pile needs replenishing, the pigs need moving, and the stables need pressure washing out and the Berners taking on another BBMC training session. Another quiet day ahead then!