Stormy weather

Cold, wet and windy. Not ideal weather for shearing, bees, or gardening and sadly all the storms have done damage to some of the trees.

The only upside is that after a morning spent with the chainsaw clearing up the fallen branches we have a trailer load of firewood to put away to season.

Most of the trees to lose branches were sycamore and ash. One damson tree split in two and another was damaged by branches falling from a sycamore.

There are lots of lichens on the branches as you can see from the above photos.
They are great bio-indicators of air purity and only grow profusely where there is no air pollution. Good, clean Westmeath air!

Update!

I seem to have completely jinxed the weather with my previous post. Almost from the moment I hit the 'Publish' button the weather changed and it has been cold windy and showery ever since. Needless to say the bees are not best pleased and have not been able to take advantage of the wonderful hawthorn blossom.

May or Hawthorn Blossom taken on a sunny day last year!

Temperature and humidity play a very big roll in the availability of nectar and just because a plant is in flower doesn't mean the bees can get nectar from it. In fact I have feeders on the hives and am giving them ApiInvert as required.

It's that time of year again when we take up the meadow for haylage, so that we have fodder to feed to the sheep cattle and horses over the winter. I always chain harrow the field which pulls out dead grass and moss, much like a scarifier, and then roll it to level off any bumps and bed in small stones so that the mower does not hit them.

As soon as May arrives, thoughts also turn to shearing. If the April weather had continued, our sheep would all be sheared by now but as it is I'll probably leave them until next weekend or even the 1st week of June. Anyway, the shed is mucked out ready to go so that I can shear them dry, and I'm off to Whelan's Sawmakers to get the combs and cutters sharpened. (Click here to see last years post on shearing)

Comb (stationary) on bottom, Cutter (reciprocates) on top

I've said it before so I'll say it again, there is something fascinating about watching sheep shearing, so take advantage of the opportunity and mark your diary for the Sheep Shearing Championships in Kilkenny on 4th and 5th June.
And just to whet your appetite, this is my favourite shearing video, and no you may not turn off the music! Keep your eye out for the blue timer behind the shearers.