6th November 2008

This Summer

I noticed that its been 3 months since I last updated this news page. Should have done it sooner but time flew.

It's been a long summer even for a couple of Oldies like us for whom the time passes in a twinkling. This was partly, I suspect, because the weather was pretty awful which made the long summer days a bit of a chore to get through. Nevertheless, there were three beacons of good weather for us: The Royal Welsh Show a garden party at Gilfachwen and the Lampeter Show.

If all this news seems to be about cattle, showing and things agricultural you must forgive me; it is because this website is a farming website. I do , however, feel a bit bad leaving out all the other things that go to make up our lives so I have added one or two sociable things. I'm not a full time farmer and my life has many other elements. So does Geoff's although his revolves more closely around the farm. Anyway, this is a long winded way of saying that there will be another news page that you can click if you want to hear a bit more about the other things that happen here in the Panteg Valley; or outside it for that matter!

 

And so back to the farm and its activities.

 

Long before the current recession; and I have no hesitation in calling it that because I can see no reason why the economy should recover with the lightening speed predicted after such a heavy toll on its resources. The government has borrowed massively to bail the banks out. That means that we, the people of this country, will be footing the bill one way or another. Anway, as I said: long before the current recession I had decided that it was time to become a lot more self sufficient than we are. The reason why I came to Wales was to be self sufficient and that aim has never really wavered even though it has been sacrificed to the needs of fiscal growth. Now that we were secure as we can be it was time to think of going back to that ideal. But it's been a long time coming back to the ideal!

 

To that end I installed a green house, an orchard and began to create yet another vegetable garden near Gilfachwen. The big veggetable garden up at Panteg was retained, but it wont be enough to feed us. Even the new vegetable garden will struggle to provide us with all our vegetable; especially potatoes. To grow more potatoes I have commandeered the big half ton tote bags that our animal feed is delivered in. They are being filled with the muck form the shed where the calves were housed last year; just a foot full at the moment. These will make three excellent, large, temporary containers for the planting of extra potato plants.

 

Now all this news is rather boring because there are no pictures and so now it is time for a few illustrations of the year's activities.

Here's one of the Lampeter Show. The trophy being presented is the June Dawson memorial Trophy for "The Best Animal Bred by its Owner in Wales". A bit of a mouthfull, but it had to be something like that to encourage people in Wales to breed and show their own animals. So far we've won it every year since its inception. Time for someone else to get in there I think.

At the end of March we hosted the first Training event of the year at The May. Friends from Scotland, Liz and Ron Shaw came down to demonstrate the handling of cattle to a rapt audience, most of whom are hidden from view! The heifer with Liz is Correaman 1st of The May and a great favourite with everyone who comes into contact with her. She obviously likes humans and has been a wonderful show animal. Liz was superb as a trainer; she is a true show woman and a splendid teacher. It was lovely to see people gaining confidence through the day.

 

 

 

I said that the weather was awful most of the time this year, and here I am chatting away to Marsha Hamlon, an American friend from Richmond who was staying with our excellent neighbours Mike and Marion Dent. The photograph was taken during a barbecue at Mikey and Marion's. As you can see, Mike has been banned from the house for smoking but seems determined to join in! It was rather a good evening in spite of the rain, (there is another photograph of us holding up umbrellas as we finish our char-grilled supper!) with lots of good conversation and plenty of wine and well executed barbecue in spite of the rain.

There was one other day that sticks in my mind that was golden. We did a buffet lunch in the garden at little tables by the lake. This photograph of Dot Evans and I was taken at six o'clock in the evening and the sun still shone on the water and the guests were all still nibbling and drinking. I have cut the bottom off this photograph because there was a large plastic box full of crockery waiting to be taken to the house just beside Dot and I. It made the photograph look untidy and spoilt the view. Just a little poetic license there!

To make things even better there was the birth of our third grandson, Charlie. Geoff and I went up to Manchester to welcome him. He is a merry, bouncing fellow now, much resembling both parents. He seems to have the lovely sunny disposition of his father, and if he has half his mother's looks he'll be gorgeous!

This will be the last time we visit Oban for a while now. We've been going twice a year for nearly 20 years so it will be a bit of a job to get used to being at home in Februray and October. I have a feeling that we'll miss it more that we know.

 

 

 

18th August 2008

The Royal Welsh Show

I don't know about you but there is something very attractive about a gathering of people and animals, music and food that makes even the most sour temperament perk up. And this, I hasten to add, is when you are utterly exhausted from bathing, grooming, mucking out, preparing, dressing and I don't know whatall! Add to that the fact that many people rise at 5, work physically hard for ten hours, drink and celebrate until midnight for six days. You would expect to feed spiritually, mentally and physically jaded.

Like this:

.

Of course at my age one cannot expect to look to smart after all that!

But on the whole none of us look as exhausted as we are. Of course one has to dig deep. One even has to wear clothes that one would not be seen dead in! Look at this picture! the cow and calf look great, I look like the marshmallow man in Ghostbusters!

They even made me wear a tie!

But just before that, Fanny the cow, Daisy her bull calf (don't ask!) and I were looking as crisp as anything. Well, Fanny and Daisy were; I never look that crisp at shows. I just don't have the conformation. But here is Fanny with her full sister competing against each other.

Her sis won!

 

But as you can see there were no hard feelings. We were so pleased for Becky Russell. She bought two heifers from us last year and won with both. It was the first time she'd won the Championship in many years of showing. This little three year old of hers was Breed Champion: Frangag Millicent the 2nd of The May! Becky did a fantastic job with her and we were proud of her (and the heifer!)

There wasn't a lot to choose between them, and it can't have been easy to judge them but Malcom Moy did an excellent job and made the whole thing fun to boot.

On the other hand Geoff always looks crisp. Here he is at the end of a gruelling day's showing - not looking at his smartest, but pretty tidy and a darn sight neater than I ever look! Our good friend Martin Tomkins is presenting Geoff with the HCCW Trophy for the Best Yearling Heifer. this lovely little yearling Baravalla Oighreag 1st of The May was also Reserve Breed Champion.

For us the Show was not really a competition because we were competing against ourselves. There was not a single beast that was not of our breeding and so effectively we won everything in the Highland Classes at the RWAS in 2008.

Above is the final line up of class winners to choose the champion, they are all our breeding and you can tell, they all look so alike.

And there's another thing regarding looks. Not only do you have to look as well groomed as your animals, an impossibility with me. But you have to look cool, fresh, unflurried and smile when you lose!

 

July 16th 2008

There's a lot of news, and it's not surorising because I haven't updated this page for over a month! I am still geting the hang of managing the site. Thanks to Jonathan Evans things are not at all difficult. He taught me to update all the pages in two easy 20 minute lessons. We were being charged £250 per anum for hosting and the few minutes it takes to update pages! Look, I've even changed the size of the font! It might not work, mind you, but it is much easier to read in my opinion.

I must tell you about Bethan Lloyd the McTimony Chiropractor who came to work on one of our cows. One of our best cows, Frangag, had an enormouos calf. She is known to have big calves and be very milky; but this one was huge! A couple of days later we saw that she was standing strangely and on examining her we noticed that he hip was lopsided and looked as if it was out of the socket. the Vet confirmed this and we had to get used to the idea that she would never calve again, and maybe we'd have to put her down.

A few days later we were talking to a friend of ours who has horses and she recommended a McTimony Chiropractor. Horses, we gathered, frequently had hip trouble and it might not be dislocated. So we called Bethan who came out within a couple of days.
She was extrordinary, she ahd never worked on a cow before, but that didn't bother her at all. She worked and massaged Frangag for about an hour and the olc cow loved it. After that we exercised Frangag twice a day and she improved visibly. About a month Bethan came back and did a final assessment and massage. Fanny (Frangag) is hugely improved. She broke into a canter the other day and is marching up and down our steep little fields like a good-un!

Bethan said she had a lot of flack from friends when she told them she'd been massaging a cow called Fanny!

 

June 13th 2008

This week we went to the three Counties Show. We were to have competed there but Malvern, where the shjow is held, is on the Blue Tongue zone, so we just took ourselves off to support our chums!

26th May 2008

Geoff in Charity Shave off at the Smallholders' and Garden Festival!

 

Not sure if the headline works really! But that's what happened. Trust Highland Cattle breeders to come up with something different!
The Smallholders' Show was quieter this year, mostly due to the Bluetongue ban. The only cattle that were competing were the Welsh Black and the Highlanders and there were fewer stands too! There's no doubt that we've promoted the breed with more energy and committment that any other breed. In spite of the fact that the Welsh Black Stand has won 3 times in 5 competitions with the most unimaginative, boring unwelcoming Stand one could hope to see. And surprise, surprise, the Ancient Cattle of Wales came second with a Stand that was almost as boring. I have wondered in my darker moments whether the dearth of cattle and stands is because the Welsh Black are always first! It certainly takes the fun out of competing. Having said that we had great fun, as always, and the highlight of the weekend was the Charity Shave off in aid of the Air Ambulance.
Here, in very rural Wales we are extremely vulnerable in terms of health provison. Our farm is 25 miles from the nearest hospital and when minutes count we are in the red danger zone. A motor amulance does well if it takes half an hour to get to us and then it has a 30-40 minute dash to the hospital!

below: George Vella ably assisted by daughter Charlie cut thoat in one hand and brush in the other

(due to health and safety concerns, George can no longer use a true cut throat razor)

13th May 2008

Watch out for us at The Smallholders' and Garden Festival!

It's that time again - when The Highland Cattle Club of Wales goes off to Builth Wells and represents Highland Cattle in Wales to an ever growing public. I say Highland Cattle in Wales, but as the Smallholders' is even bigger than before, we are promoting to the whole of the UK now. There are more cattle, more sheep, more stands and more people than ever before. The May Fold has been involved with showing cattle at the Smallholders' since before the Show had cattle! In fact ours were the first to be on show back in 2002. We were housed in the goat shed with the Fallabella horses and we slept with our cattle. It was freezing and the cow on the left kept licking Geoff's ear, thus preventing him from going to sleep! This year will be our 6th year of organising the HCCW Stand and we have comfortable beds in the Stockman's accommodation. It will probably be our last time in charge of organising, however. We'll still be around to help, of course as there is something about the friendliness of the Royal Welsh Showground people themselves and the cameraderie of a team effort that is very beguiling. There are other more motivated people who have a fresh take on things that are about to take over from us and we think they'll improve on what we've done. Watch this space for a couple of pictures and a short description of the activities! Meanwhile I'll leave you with a tranquil view of of Gilfachwen seen from the top lake.

10th May 2008

New Look News

We've moved our website to a new server: there's a story behind that! We can now manage the content ourselves and one of the first things we decided to do was to change the News page to make it a bit more user friendly. From now on the latest news will be at the top of the page and if your interested in more you can scroll down.

 

Miss Bun makes an announcement