A Big Friendly Bull and the End of Lambing

Hello, I am experimenting with a couple of new lavalier microphones. So the idea is that I can go to the farm and if I'm doing something like feeding the calves or doing something with the sheep, I can do it hands-free. It's often very difficult trying to record anything when you're holding a lamb or you're feeding sheep or whatever's going on. So I thought having these microphones might work really well. The range is supposed to be 20 metres. So I'm just standing in one of our bedrooms and the phone that I'm using is in my study. So hopefully the sound will be okay.

What have we been doing? I had a birthday and we went for an afternoon tea, which was very nice. They had my favourite lemon curd, which is just absolutely delicious. Yesterday I went with Phil the Farmer and we went to a farm about an hour away in Leicestershire and we went to see some Lincoln Red cows that Phil's buying. He's currently got a Wagyu herd and he's changing to Lincoln Reds. So we got on the back of this little trailer on the tractor. So you sort of stand in this box and then it's elevated off the ground and we bounced along through two fields to where the cows were and there was this massive, massive bull. I would imagine it probably weighs at least a tonne and he was lovely. He came over, let us stroke him and he kept sort of nudging me with his head, which was lovely. There were a few calves. The calves were quite shy. Their mums came over and let us stroke them. And then we had a look at another cow. Well, there was another bull at that farm that was quite sweet. And then there was another cow and calf at another farm about half an hour, 40 minutes away that Phil's also going to buy. She was called Orchid and the calf was actually born on my birthday. So they're staying at the farm for a while. I think they'll be coming back to Phil's sometime in the autumn, but he'll probably go and see them again, maybe in June. So if I'm free, I'll go with him. But all these cows have got names. They're all very tame. The farmer goes to see them two and three times a day. So they're well used to seeing people, which is perfect for me because I like having the interaction with the animals.

We've got the 22 calves at the moment on the farm and they're all very sweet. They're probably coming up to four weeks old now. You can see them starting to grow a bit. We've got six that are quite small still. They're short horns and they're the smallest of all of them. But some of the others, the British Blues, are growing quite well. You can start to see their personalities coming out. They're getting quite friendly. Some of them, what I call my little pals, they always come over every morning. So when I've done the hens and I've watered everything in the garden in the polytunnel, I'll just go and help Phil feed the calves. So we've got into a bit of a routine now. We've got two lots of five and two lots of six and we have two milk bars. So one has five teats and one has six. So we just sort of do one group and then when they finish we do the next group. So we can do two groups at the same time. So yeah, we just measure out all the milk. I usually do the water in the buckets for them. This morning was quite funny because I'd just done the water for the smallest calves. Everything was all nice and clean and then one of the calves just sort of positioned itself with its back end above the bucket and decided to have a bit of a poo. So I had to start all over again with that one. It's funny how they do these things. The sheep do it as well. You sort of do wonder what goes through their heads when they do it. But anyway, easily sorted so got him organised again.

We've been busy on the shed. So I'm a director of a men's shed and we're renovating a building. So we managed to acquire this building. We're renting it, but it's absolutely perfect. It's in a great location. It's accessible for people to come to visit. It's all about creativity and making to help people who have mental health challenges or who need to find somewhere they can socialise and be part of a community. So it's taken us a bit longer than we anticipated getting it ready. But we've literally taken it back to the walls. Everything's been plastered. We're now on the painting phase. So we'll be there again this weekend doing some more painting. But we're getting closer. We're putting in funding bids. So that's sort of my bag really. I need to look at a couple of others to see what else we can do and then we'll start marketing the shed. But I think we're going to be not inundated, but I think we're going to have lots of people who want to join when it's ready. So that's keeping us busy. I'm doing the website and different bits of marketing, networking.

Yeah, I think that's probably all I'm doing at the minute with the shed. Chris has been quite busy with his woodturning. So if you don't know, Chris is my husband and he's completely blind and he's a woodturner. So we've had a few commissions recently. So I get involved with all the admin, the invoicing, ordering all the parts and stuff that he needs, doing anything like getting stuff engraved or pyroed. So I've got quite a long list of things to do for that. So I'm just working my way through. I'm on a podcast this afternoon for a lady called Stacey Vajta in America. She's been on my podcast and we're kind of talking about what happens to women in particular when they get into their 60s and I don't know, we've both experienced this shift where there's always a sense, I think, with women over 60 or anybody over 60, you're kind of on your way out and it's all downhill from here and neither of us feel that. We feel that we're just embarking on a new journey. So that's what we're talking about this afternoon. So yeah, that should be a really good conversation.

I'm just hitting my printer here, my printer that's not working at the minute. I don't know what's wrong with it. It's not connecting. I've done all sorts of things with it, rebooted it, reset it, reinstalled the drivers, updated software, updated my Mac. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know whether it's had it, but I'm just going to see if I can sort it out. But I've tried quite a few things, so I don't know if anybody's got any ideas. That would be great. But yeah, it's just stopped connecting to my computer.

So what else have I been doing? Let's just have a quick look. I'm using Kortex, which I really love. So it's a bit like Obsidian, but with more AI stuff. So I'm very much into that at the moment. I'm probably not that up to date with my daily logs. I usually do daily logs in Twos, as well as what I put in Voicenotes. It really helps with my writing. Let me just have a quick look at what we did. Yeah, last week was quite Belper Shed-y. That's the Men's Shed. And just lots of admin and errands and cows, that sort of thing. The sheep now have nearly finished, we've got one ewe left to lamb, the other two lambed yesterday, so the third ewe that was left, she's likely to lamb any time now, so it may be today or tomorrow, and then that's it, lambing done for another year, which is quite sad really because I love my sheep, but yeah, another year done.

So I think that's about it really, so hopefully this has recorded okay, and it just means that I'll be able to record a bit more easily at the farm, I'll be hands free and I can sort of wander around a bit, and hopefully it will capture everything. So that's it, thanks for listening, and I shall be back soon, bye for now.