New Kid on the block!!

The latest arrival to the Scaife Hall Farm family arrived on Sunday. This is Thomas, so called after the chap we bought him off!! Hes a Belted Galloway and is now with his 'ladies' and settling in well. At present hes not registered with the Society but the paperwork is being processed along with his hair samples for DNA testing.A bull can only be registered in the Herd book if it has no other white than the belt.

The origin of the white belt is unknown, but generally its presumed to come from cross breeding with Dutch Belted cattle. The Dun and Belted Galloway Association was formed in Scotland in 1921, and in 1951 the name of the organization was changed to the Belted Galloway Society and dun cattle were no longer registered. It also keeps and records pedigrees for Belted Galloways and oversees the registration of White and Red Galloways. Currently in the UK there is a thriving breeding programme overseen and guided by the Belted Galloway Cattle Society.



Betty says Hello!!!

Hay Making

After a couple of glorious days of sunshine, and no rain, the grass Chris cut at the weekend was ready to bale yesterday afternoon. Les Wilson came along with his tractor and baler to help out. The tractor is a Fordson Major which was built in 1945. In 1966 it was put into a shed and never moved until Les bought it in 2008. It had flat tyres and needed new spark plugs but once this was done the engine fired up and it was driven out and back to life. The Massey Harris baler was built in the 1950s. In those days there wasnt anything on a tractor, PTO shaft, to drive machinery and so the baler has its own engine and is self propelled. It baled in excess of 200 bales yesterday and amazingly it didnt throw one loose bale out.
David Pennock came along with the big baler and made everything look easy and I still think his way is the best as the bales are moved by tractor!!!. The small bales Les did all had to be moved by hand, by Chris and I last night, and stacked into the barn.
David sat on the old tractor but I doubt he will be contemplating getting one for himself any time soon!!

Kilnsey Show

Yesterday was the annual Kilnsey Show. Set in the heart of the Yorkshre Dales, in the most picturesque setting, the crowds flocked in and enjoyed the best weather Kilnsey Show has has in years!! The last two shows have certainly resembled Glastonbury on a bad day !!!
The area of the show I was involved with was the REAL Village and our aims over the last 4 years have been to promote the importance of the rural hill farming communities and businesses there in and to promote local food. We had a marquee with over 33 stall selling the very best of Yorkshire Food courtesy of the Northern Dales Farmers Market. A second marquee promoted all kind of rural businesses from Petties Paws Kennels at Fewston to Yorkshire Water and we also once again supported a charity called ARC Addington, who we did the breakfast event for earlier this year.
A third marquee houses the cookery theatre and 5 demonstrations took place through the day featuring local chefs using food from the farmers market. They were from Coniston Hall Hotel, The Angel at Hetton, Rudding Park, The Bull at Broughton and Grassington House Hotel. The smells in there were absolutely wonderful and made your mouth water!!
The fourth marquee was the childrens area. This one buzzed all day with children making collages, colouring, decorating biscuits and making bread with award winning chef Andrew Wood. Andrew is based at York University and must be the most patient man I know. He educates and enthuses all the children and every session he did, which is about every 45 minutes, was fully booked from 9.30am to 5.3pm.
Chris Heseltine from Hesketh Farm Park at Bolton Abbey brought along guinea pigs and they spent the whole day being stroked by the children, they too were extremely patient and went home very tired!!
All in all it was a very long day but very rewarding and it goes without saying that after being there for for 12 hours we came home absolutely shattered!!