Hay making 2018

This years haymaking saga - A very wet April, May and Early June has lead to exceptional grass growth, when the dry hot weather finally arrived the meadow was 4 feet high! My finger bar mower with newly sharpened blades coped admirably, but the weight of cut grass on the bar meant stopping every 25m to clear it.

The busatis double reciprocating finger bar mower

Half way through the cutting a disaster - each set of cutter blades are held in place by a bolt with a conical end that locates in a counter sunk hole in the blades. The bolt ultimately works loose and before eventually parting company with the blades, vibrates itself to near destruction. Over the years the bolt threads are stripped and need to be re-tapped. This year the cast component that the bolt screws into, had its thread stripped so the bolt wouldn't tighten. Fortunately in the box of spares I obtained from the seller was another identical piece! Changing was a nightmare as the casting was locating on a double ball joint and a tapered pin - After 3 hours I succeeded and the rest of the mowing went plan.

Tedding the hay went without a problem apart from a broken tine on the tedder.

Next up was forming the rows for the bailer. Last year Nanou our neighbour did this. But he has just had an accident and severed his finger so he was in hospital. I went to see Michel at Courex who owns the "andaineur". He was fine with me borrowing it but the size of the machine was on the limit of the capabilities of my little tractor. I managed to collect it and get it into the field but When I tried to attach it to the power take off on the tractor the adaptor was too long. Normal these are removable and you can put an appropriate sized adaptor on suit your tractor - not so this machine! The adaptor was permanently fixed. No choice but to return the machine. In our steep field when I tried to exit uphill the weight of the andaineur lifted the front wheels of the tractor off the ground so I had no steering! Eventually Susie helped steer the tractor but exerting sideways force on the andaineur and I made it to the road. Implement returned all the rows had to be raked by hand.

Kuhn "cocinelle" bailer ( basically a John Deere machine made under licence in the 1950's)

Next up bailing. My old bailer refused to worked. For a whole day we struggled with only one knotter working and hence one string per bail. I tried every adjustment under the sun but it wouldnt work. At sunset I discovered that a piece in the knotter mechanism was broken and so the knotters weren't synchronised. After an hour of trying to free the broken part to adjust it, I resorted to removing it all together and swapping it with a part from the similar abandoned machine in the Pla d'Artigue. After re-synchronising success....until I ran out of bailer twine. The twine has to be old Sisal twine as modern plastic twine is too slippery for the old John Deere knotters. After trips to several suppliers in St Girons I found the twine and at last we bailed all the hay (including re-bailing most of the one string bails from the day before). over 200 bails compared to 130 last year.

Its not over until the fat lady sings  - the bails need to be safe in the dry of the barn. We borrowed Patrick and Michelle's bigger trailer to move the bails. With planks and ropes we managed to get 24 bails on the trailer so after 8 or 9 trips - which took most the day in 32 degrees of heat - the job was done. Definitely time for a Champagne celebration.

Tuc de la Messe

With a day of good weather forecast Susie and I headed off to Col de la Core this morning to climb Tuc de la Messe. the weather was warm and we made steady progress to l'etang d'eychelle...spotting a ringed ouzel and a vulture as ell as some new wild flowers en route.

After the etang the snow started to quickly appear on the ground, there are still some significant depths in the mountains (locally 2-3m). We spotted an isard from the cabane d'eychelle then followed some huge footprints all the way to the col de la crouzette. We thought a bear - but there were only 4 forward facing toes so perhaps a patou?

Onward through the snow, until finally summit, by which time the clouds had risen and we were looking across a sea of clouds.

 Still alot of snow above Milouga

 The descent was hot in soft snow and we got burnt. Eventually we entered the cloud layer but it was only a few hundred meter thick and we were soon in the clear again;

 Two vultures eyed our descent

6 hours and about 1200m of ascent.

Montgalas

After the longest period of awful weather in the Couserans anyone can remember, things are starting to improve. Susie was beginning to lose the plot and I was definitely getting cabin fever.

The vegetable gardens and poly tunnel are starting to produce food, but everything is behind and desperately needs sun.

A free afternoon on Sunday was an opportunity to stretch our legs and we decided to climb Montgalas (1326m) from the house. Our friend and neighbour Anne-Marie in Biech had recommended it. A 14km round trip with 6-700m of ascent. There was a lot of forestry tracks and alas no view, even from the summit...disappointing. 

 The summit

  One of many wood ants nests

 
Back at Quélébu we've been topping the fields which aren't for hay - there's so much grass after all the rain that the sheep can't keep up and can't even find each other!

More orchids

 Green woodpecker

 Common twayblade

 A rare wild white columbine

 Scented orchid

Greater butterfly orchid

Pond life and carding

more vintage machines from Lee Sharp on Vimeo.

We borrowed an old carding machine from Patrick and Michelle to make lighter work of carding all the fleeces; They still need a hand card to make rollags before spinning but the machine saves a lot of work.

Despite only being 5 weeks since we filled the pond it's already full of life - frogs and insects as well as some snails and fish we bought.

 common blue damselfly

 pond skater

 libellula depressa

 water boatman

The symbiotic garden is doing well and at last we have some sun, though the storms and rain are ever present.

Sheep shearing

We found out a few weeks ago that Transito who comes to Susie's dance classes used to be a sheep shearer, and she agreed to come and shear our sheep. I have some sheep electric shears but they always seemed to just get stuck and I assumed I lacked technique or the shears were poor. In flat it turned out they were blunt and after some honing on the diamond stone they worked fine. Transito hadn't sheared for 10 years but her technique hadn't been lost and she made light work of the sheep.

 

Rupert was also on his annual visit and got to see all the action which might come in handy as he's just bought a 100 acre farm in Australia!

Just before the shearing we noticed that one of the lambs, "tiny dancer" was very lame after some inspection we think he fractured his front leg below the knee. Some bandages, a splint made from half a piece of bamboo of the appropriate diameter and hopefully it'll heal in a couple of weeks.

Another new orchid discovery at Quélébu - a bee orchid

Update

Last week my dad and his partner Jane came to stay. We went for a few walks and visited Foix. The weather was a bit poor but fortunately they got to the mountain view.

On the last night of their stay, Susie and I were awoken at a quarter to five in the morning by the chickens squawking. Susie was first on the scene and found a badger in the hen house! We had forgotten to close it before bed. The badger made a break for the hole in the fence it had made, but got stuck allowing Susie to give it a bit of a kick up the arse!! The cockerel was crowing but the hens had scattered. I quickly found Shelley in the grass but we feared the worst for Nutmeg and Zsa-zsa. Fortunately an hour so later they returned and all was well.

This week we have had hot weather in the mornings and storms in the late afternoon. Two sheep have been sheared but one of Susie's dancers is an ex-sheep shearer, so professional help maybe at hand for the others.