The two hundred day winter 91

I was brought up to cater for a two hundred day winters, and rarely did the cows go out until the third week of April. Hay with kale was fed up to the turn of the year then on to hay and stored mangols for the rest of the winter, corn was fed according to the yields

This was the hub of the dairy farming just after the war, a new flat roofed churn dairy was built along with its churn stand seen in the foreground behind it is the engine shed where at one time the open crank oil engine powered all the barn machinery. It also housed the coal /coke boiler for sterilizing the dairy utensils. The higher loft section is where the barn drive shaft went to drive the cake crusher, mangol pulper, chaff cutter, and roller mill to crush the oats.The sheds to the left were the cow sheds and a similar run of stalls ran to the right as well, but here these buildings stand empty and redundant having had a few hundred years of use. There seems to be four or five additions to these buildings over the years the first being built with very narrow bricks.


Silage took over from hay in the 1960's it being cut direct with a flail harvester loaded green without wilting, this was long stemmed and only bruised and difficult to consolidate, often getting over heated in the clamp. During the early years of clamping molasses was added with water can, then all sorts of powders came in with wild claims as to how they would help the fermentation, but often as not in good weather conditions it was better not to add anything.

As the years have progressed spring turn out has got earlier by around three weeks, and the autumn housing later into November bringing it nearer to a one hundred and seventy day winter

Time is measured in portions

Time goes by for ever, to history that we can't reset,
Minutes made up of seconds, sixty seconds every minute,
And hours are made up of minutes, sixty minutes show,
Days made up of hours, twenty four in a row,

Week made up of seven days Monday to Sunday peaks,
A month is one of twelve, in which it has four weeks,
Spring summer autumn winter, winter has the snow,
A year it follows the seasons, four seasons in a row,

A decade that is ten years, for knowledge to acquire,
A score of years is twenty, at three score five retire,
A century seems a long time, for humans to cavort,
Time is measured in portions, sometimes long or short,

A lifetimes usually shorter, but it varies quite a lot,
Time on earth it tests you, before you hit your plot.

Countryman

Quote; By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son that thinks he is wrong.Charles Wadsworth