Weather Blog on my Farm 46

After one of the driest years since 1976 it looks like the fodder situation is going to be tight, last year quantities of hay and silage were lower than normal, and bearing in mind what my farther always said, “A bay of hay is worth more than money in the bank” we still have almost a bay of hay left from last year.

We have almost 60acres of peat meadows that nearly all of it is mown, some years its too wet and spongy and even if you can mow it and even bale it, the difficulty is hauling it off.

But this dry year has been kind to us on the meadows; the grass (and a few rushes) has grown well and produced around average yield of bales. Our biggest problem is the fishing pools that have been recently established on the meadows down stream, they are the nesting ground now for a few hundred Canadian Geese. In mid June when each pair has hatched eight or ten goslings, they emerge from the area of the pools to graze on my meadows, holding back the growth of grass over up to four acres.

The cows and calves have been taken down on those meadows to graze the aftermath, the only green grass we got, grass on the higher ground has gradually burnt up and now that some rain has come it will still take a long while to recover.

This is a 2008 picture dated  August, this year all the vegitation has been grazed down to the edge of the water

We hear about the Hurricane Irene flooding New York, we hear about heavy rain up the north of England and Scotland, we hear about harvest held up by rain in the South east and south west. But here in the Midlands of UK 30 miles North West of Birmingham the rain has missed us since last February. On the forecast maps on TV the cloud formations seem to part as they come over Wales and head north of us, or just skim south, we see the clouds passing us by.

However today August 27, 2011 we have had a few sharp showers, with more rain falling now will do the pastures good, it will take quite a few nights of continuous steady rain to soften the ground for the moisture to soak in properly.  But that has not happened so far.

Up date to Sep 4^th 2011 still no rain, only enough to damp the concrete on the yard, no rain water run down our drains through this spring and summer. I think we must be the driest spot in the UK.

What bit of damp we have had has just stopped the grass from dying off, the cattle have stayed down on the peat ground for over a month now, the only place where we have grass

Father always told us that

 “A bay of hay is worth more than money in the bank”