Amongst all the other exciting and busy things happening this spring, one big event has not been mentioned at all so far: the completion of our new tool shed! As soon as it was done, our horse-drawn equipment moved in....and 20 minutes later the shed was full! But how great to have a dedicated space for all the horse-drawntools (and our little rowing boat we use every year for the mackeral season). Henry can back into the shed to be hitched to the cart in the dry - how handy is that!?
Pulling all our tools out of the big barn, we noticed that we actually have quite a lot of horse-drawns things by now - too many really. So I will have a photo session soon and put up a few ploughs and other things on the website for sale - if you are interested, keep looking out!
This year's planting was held up a bit by the prolonged frosty mornings and then the sudden wet weather. But finally, we are coming to the end of this year's planting. Our planned potato planting day last week turned out to be a bit too wet to really get stuck into it - with potatoes ending up floating in the water-filled trench after all the heavy showers...! - but now that it has dried a bit, the job is nearly done, and we will be doing our morning walk along the trenches, looking out for the first shoots of green showing.
For this season, logging will be finished in the Mealagh valley. All trees that needed to be felled are down and extracted, waiting in the yard to be sold. There is still a lot of wood waiting for extraction from trees that fell over some time ago, but access will be a bit of a struggle, as they are all lying criss-cross in a boggy corner of the land...
Meanwhile, there are things to get on with at home like harrowing the patch for the beet and finishing planting the potatoes!
Last weekend, we started the season for our work horse courses with two one-day workshops held here on our smallholding.
On Saturday, people gathered in wonderful spring sunshine to learn about the basics around work horses. The day finished in the field, where everybody took to the reins, guiding Winnie and Henry hitched to the harrow.
On Sunday, again in beautiful sunshine, 5 more people came together to find out about how to start training a horse to work in harness. In the afternoon, horses and humans took to the field to set some potatoes. This was a great opportunity to learn about the practical application of work horse skills, and for some, it was the first time planting spuds at all - so plenty of new experiences.
Anybody interested in attending a course, go to our "courses" page to find out more!
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