Future planning

Posted in Farm on Tuesday 1st April 2014 at 12:13pm

We are at the time of year when we have to start thinking about the future and all the things we need to prepare for. Uppermost in our minds at the moment is the field work. We need to harrow and roll all the fields we are laying up to cut for silage and hay later in the summer. This has to be done when the ground is moist enough to roll flat but dry enough not to leave tractor wheel ruts so when we come to cut the grass we keep soil out of the grass mixture to be made into big bale silage. One of the many pests we have to deal with are moles. They love the moist soil beneath grass as it contains so many worms but the mole hills they leave behind can contaminate our grass silage and one mole hill can rot one big bale of silage. The answer is to catch the moles in the spring thus eliminating the mole hills. This year we have been successful with our catching programme but also surprised by catching, for the first time, a white mole. Rare but not unheard of.