SUMMER solstice, the longest day, and as Frank Tyndall reminded me, the worst of winter is still to come in Australia, 'but at the least the sun is on its way back from you guys'.
We are cutting silage today, six weeks to the day since first cut, and it looks good. Values should be high, and the forecast is for sunny weather, but with Wimbledon taking shape, there is a good chance of some downpours in the next two weeks for th
e aftermath! We shall be putting our new pump into action this week to spread dirty water on all the silage fields in order to promote re-growth and save on chemical fertilizer.
The maize is now really motoring away, a dark green and enjoying the sunny weather, it is looking good, and apart from some serious rabbit damage on some of the headlands up at Ripley, its all going to plan.
We will need to consider how to tackle the rabbit problem in these sandy areas, and apart from the obvious approach of shooting as many as possible, the answer may be to drill the headlands with grass seed for them to eat. They don't really like maize, but of course will eat the young plants if hungry enough. I wonder if they would leave it alone if they had some grass to eat around the edge. It would also save a great deal of money, as maize is a very expensive crop to grow, and I would ask not to pay rent on the acres in grass for rabbits! It would also make it easier to shoot them, and see if we can bring the problem under control.
The 'combined heat and power unit' (CHP) has arrived on site. Early one morning last week, a massive crane with more wheels than your average 'Thunderbirds' equivalent rolled up our farm drive; brand new, costing a million pounds and weighing ninety tonnes!
It had an escort with orange lights everywhere just to make sure everyone knew it was coming. It was followed by a huge articulated truck, again with multi steering axles on its massive trailer, which carried all the counterweights for the crane.
This weighed an incredible 100 tonnes (the trailer itself was 30 tonnes unladen).
This lot had trundled up from Southampton, and the route they had been given (not allowed to go anywhere without a planned and agreed route) was along the coast to Worthing and up the A24 to Horsham, arriving in Plaistow village luckily before the school run, where the combined might of the mothers in their AWD vehicles is even greater!
It takes hours to set these things up, but they were waiting to lift by 11.00am, but we had no German truck with its precious cargo; it was lost!
Eventually, three hours late, another convoy arrived. A large truck carrying the exhaust and air intake systems for the CHP unit, another carrying the heat exchanger units and various other ducts and pipes, followed by a huge multi-wheeled affair with a very heavy, large container, still in one piece although there were some 'tree marks' on it, to show it had travelled through West Sussex.
The container weighed over thirty tonnes, but this crane just lifted it as if it was nothing, extended the boom and swung it over the cattle shed roof, and down on its concrete plinth.
