Monday 25 November 2013

A hacking,slashing and burning weekend...

Much thanks to Paul Beswick of Du Prem alpacas who gave up his Saturday to give me a hand cutting back the overgrown hedges on a new parcel of land we have taken on at Toft. 
This new addition to the Toft Alpaca Stud will be a real bonus and is self contained which will enhance our general farm biosecurity and once we have cut the grass a dozen times the alpacas will love it!
It's about 14 acres and directly adjoins our farm which is the upside. However the downside is it hasn't been grazed for at least six or more likely possibly eight years. The grass and weeds were four foot high last weekend but six hours with tractor and flail mower made short work of that to enable us to see the fences.
Much hacking and slashing at the weekend means we can now at least see the fence in one of the fields. That's the good news, the bad news is there  are three fields and the other two need a bit more work than the one we started on.
Once we can see the fences then we can repair them. I think this is definitely called work in progress and there are no prizes for guessing what I shall be doing every spare minute over the winter.
The burning however was a disaster, three cans of paraffin, much huffing and puffing and not a sustained fire in sight. As a good Boy Scout I was very miffed I indeed, hey ho the burning will wait for another day.
Thanks again Paul - you'll be as fit as a butchers dog come the spring if you keep at it!

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