Documenting Life on our small holding. Follow the adventures with our animals from birth through to meat production curing of hams, creating bacon, etc, experimenting with producing as much as we can from our little farm. Experience real quality of life. All the ups and downs including Planning permission wars....



Just an everyday walk with the kids!!

Friday 15 July 2011

Veg plot

All winter i planned my veg plot, the pigs lived and pooped on it for a year.... we added huge amounts of farm yard manure... in spring i bought loads of seeds ready to plant, I also planted some out in a cold frame... which was very warm, i bought sad veg plants to revive, chitted my potatoes, all nicely ready to plant.... and  my veg plot... mmm well, it looks very green, its self seeded a lovely bumpy lawn.. I'm soo sad about the state of it, i nned help preparing it and digging it, it still isn't ready to plant up... so yesterday i fed the pigs most of the chitted potatoes, and officially gave up.. but i cant, i kept some to plant some where, who knows where.. i decided today , never give up, when i get the poly tunnel up then i can catch up and keep on going through winter... am i delusional ??? mm don't know just cant give up yet, am considering moving the pigs back on and clearing it so as to plant up in autumn ready for next season.. so that's the latest mad plan.....

Also i've discovered how to check who is reading my blog... its real cool in the 1st hour of posting earlier i had 9 vews from the UK, 5 from USA. some from Mexico, France and Germany... so i hope you readers return ,, maybe i should carry on my warbling on, or just take a look on my face book the welsh small holder page and comment just say hello please so it will be a bit more real.... bye...  so Bonjour, GUtten targue, Hey there , and Buenous noches!! excuse all those awful spellings please.... xx

ABATTOIR CRUELTY

HORROR & CRUELTY AT THE LOCAL ABATTOIR....






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ABATTOIR HORROR. the other week we took 2 pigs in to bishops castle.. DAYS DROVE.. we watched as the farmers pigs in front of us were kicked & booted severely by the ab man, he at 1 point held on to the roof bars in the trailer back &  booted with 2 boots.... he then picked up the back of 1 and thew him out of the trailer... I tried to film it but didn't do good job, so.. we gingerly unloaded our friends precious piggies that we had given him 4 xmas...  escorted them in & they ran very willingly, 1 dared to go in the wrorng directon where upon he kicked her in the face.. I nearly killed the man, put in huge complaint, they say its not regular practice.... 


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IT IS UNACCEPTABLE>>>> they have given the guy final written warning and say it will never happen again, they have sent him 4 training .& said he had a bad weekend after being robbed, they phoned me to discuss it seriously & made every attempt to put it right... 
i paid £116 to get the meat back &  unsure if they can be trusted ... I told them if i was to use them again, i would take my pigs in & not allow there staff near them &  i would also be there at the end inspecting there handling, they say they are happy to accommodate me..... i will leave comment 4 u..

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Free range eggs... The super market way.... not my way...

Egg laying madness, the free range dream, of the big super markets!


IS time to tell you what I think of the super markets free range well all the big names too... We went to a very clean and new looking barn, in the middle of the country side surrounded by fields, 10,000 birds were housed here... all down the one side of the barn they had a metal slatted area, about 15 foot wide, then they had electric fenced off and netted small paddocks, all had no grass on, just dirt and stones with shelters on for rainy days, the chickens all hung out on the metal slats, mostly..outside they had a large metal cattle trailer that was stuffed full of birds, we started to load them, I couldn't believe the birds were in the condition they were, bald and patchy, totally anemic looking, with most of them having no colour to there combs, a lot had, bleeding and saggy vents..~(where the egg come from) one had a slice radiating out from hers, it must have been so pain full to lay, just like an appeasiotamy.. I also have never seen hens bleeding from there vents, and grazed from there too...they were bleeding from being attacked by each other, they were so stressed and panicky... the lady explained they were 12 mnths old, and have to be culled or rehomed at that point due to not being able to carry on.. i thought only battery hens would look so ruff after a period of intensive laying, not, free range birds, I'm not implying there was any cruelty to the birds, just the system I believe to not be as it should...

So what shocked me????
Well meaning, ethical shoppers are being duped into a false sense of security and helping this continue!!! What I imagined free range to be and what the super market reality is is quite another... the birds legally have to have 1square meter of land each, could this include the metal slats and the barn?? I wonder!! To me free range is exactly that.. free to range, my hens are free to range, whether that be, on my field of lush green grass, dust bathing under the hedge, or being brave, crossing the road and going onto the neighbours open moor land, being free to scratch the grubs up in my veg patch to be... or going into the forest on safari, hiding under the old roots and laying in peace and quiet... these birds looks tooo tired and stressed, living on there nerves, imagine living with 10,000 panicky women, living in terror, if one became scared the others all followed, they behaved as one...
I wouldn't be surprised if a) they used a light at night to trick them into a 2nd lay thinking thy had had 2 days!! and b) that most of the birds never saw the outside due to be unable to get through the congestion at the metal slatted area... only the brave ones may have fought there way through!!! so I suggest you post and repost this and ask your friends please support your local small holders, buy from the farm gates, there free range eggs, as in my eyes, this practice afore mentioned, is not free range, and should not be supported... Also I went into Tescos yesterday and took a look at there free range eggs, look at the lovely ideal picture on the box, a lovely fluffy, full feathered, non bleeding hen stood free ranging on deep lush grass.... what an ideal... but oh not a reality, yes in reality you can't farm 10,000 chickens on a piece of land and keep it lush and green and expect them all to access it... I am tempted to go back and buy another 100 or so, as Wednesday they are all killed for pet food, Joe's comment.... he said , you know whats the most shocking and upsetting part???? the fact that in 1 month, when they have disinfected and scrubbed the whole unit down, for that is how long it takes... the whole process happens again, and another 10,000 birds will live the free range night mare again!!! Please stop supporting this sham... Please search out your local farmer with truly happy free range birds.. PLEASE.. xx I'm off outside to talk to the girls, to see how many eggs they have given me.... and for there future what lies ahead??? well... I am not going to give them layers pellets, for a few weeks, I wont them to rest, I don't want to force them to lay, I will provide them with grit to help harden the egg shells that they are laying, they, will relax and free range on my farm then i will rehome, them in small numbers to responsible people for £ 5 or £6 each, when they look happy and feathered... i am rehoming some of my original flock so I can keep these new girls as one unit, to avoid any possibility of cross infection, Oh one other note.... I asked at the farm weather they fed antibiotics as a norm to prevent illness, she replied she hadn't had to yet, but that they had them should they need them... I will next post you my experience of visiting a real pig farm who supply Tescos and you will then see the relevance of the anti-biotics issue!! please post and repost.. oh by the way, the ladies that ran the farm, were kind and gentle, they wanted to rehome as many as poss before they were all culled, they showed kindness in all there contact i witnessed with the birds, gently handling them etc, its the big picture i'm angry with, the system, not the individuals who are running it with in the guide lies the RSPCA and others have given them.... and the industry standard

TO SEE THE PICTURES LOOK ON THE WELSH SMALLHOLDER FACE BOOK PAGE and look for the artcile

Monday 4 April 2011

SLAUGHTER HOUSE CRUELTY

 Local abbatoirs bad behaiviour.

SICKENING SLAUGHTERHOUSE CRUELTY

I have just googled to check out more info, and its rife, cruelty that animals endure to give us meat.... I wish I could do something to change things... why cant we have the right to have a traveling slaughter man again, like in the old days, a fully licened kind man, that you contact and therefore vet, choose to bring onto your farm and responsibly kill your meat animals.... its enough to make you go vegitarian, How dare people abuse your carefully reared livestock, and undo all your love that you have put into them, I thought I was being responsible, rearing and slaughtering my own meat and not going to Tescos etc for meat that I had no idea of ther animal welfare situation, just for it all to go wrong out of your hands at the final mins of life..... take a look at yesterdays blog about the ordeal at the local abbatoir.. thanks for listening..x

Sunday 3 April 2011

ABATTOIR CRUELTY....

HORROR & CRUETY at the local abotoir...
...
Last week we took 2 pigs in to bishops castle.. they were 2 we had bred and given to a good friend for xmas... he had brought them on beautifully feeding them on barley and wheat...

As we waited in the small que we watched as the farmers pigs in front of us were kicked & booted severely by the abotoir man, the farmer just stood back and watched whilst this cruel beast of a man booted hell out of these pigs that refused to leave the trailer...

He at 1 point held on to the roof bars in the trailer back &  booted with 2 boots.... he then picked up the back of 1 and threw him out of the trailer... I tried to film it but didnt do good job, mobiles are not that good... Joe and I couldnt believe the beating that was happening we discussed leaving, but they were not our pigs and our friend was in Cyprus so no one was home to feed them, we decided to carry on but under no circumstances was he to touch the pigs.... we had no where else to take them as there are 3 week waiting lists....

So.. we gingerly unloaded our friends precious piggies ...  escorted them in & they ran very willingly, the man spoke not a word, just muttered under his breath, I treated him with contempt, for that was what he was due...

he gave us no direction but the pigs, moved on well , I had no idea which way to go and he told us nothing, he thumped them on there backs with his heal of his hands his attitude stank.... I know in a business theres no time for messing about and they need to move on and not hold up production, but they were moving on and no one was behind us. so I just moved between him and the pigs and spoke gently to them...

1 dared to go in the wrorng directon where upon he kicked her savagely in the face.. I nearly killed the man, I said " Dont you dare kick my pigs!" I was so angered  I was about to kick him my self.... he was so nasty... I hung about for a short while to check they had settled and then completed the paper work, he didnt look me in the eye and muttered inaudiable words... ignorant beast I though.....

I was shaking with anger what a vile 2 legged creature, I stormed into the office to  put in a huge complaint, they looked shocked , they say its not regular practise....

IT IS UNACCEPTABLE>>>> I heard them rip him to shreds... I said if he wants to go an kick animals give him a job in the back and let him kick dead ones...... they told me he was a sad guy that they had kept on from the former employers and managers of the old abotoir and that he was local , and bla bla bla he was a poor old thing... this didnt wash with me he should not be there doing that....

On the yard a man come to me and said it was his first time there and would I recomend them, well you can imagine what I said, he looked quite shocked and said if they hurt his pigs he would kill them, and I think he ment it....

I recieved  call from them later that day,  they have given the guy final written warning and say it will never happen again, they have sent him 4 training .& said he had a bad weekend after being robbed, they phoned me to discuss it seriously & made every attempt to put it right... They did seam genuine I gave them my ideas, that the man that recieves our preshous piggies is actually a very important face for there business... he needs to make us feel we have left them in safe caring hands, and that they would do well to get rid of him and see the opportunity they have for promoting them selves with the individual that would do his job...

I paid £116 to get the meat back &  unsure if they can be trusted ... I told them if I was to use them again, I would take my pigs in & not allow there staff near them &  I would also be there at the end inspecting there handling, they say they are happy to accomodate me.....  I was shocked they actually took money off me after my experience...  I will leave comment 4 u...

Saturday 12 March 2011

fortune 500 referrals scam ????

My experience of this company..I hope you take a look at my previous blog page and can make a educated decision.....
For me its back to my self sufficient life, writting my blog and eating my produce... simple life... but quality..

fortune 500 referrals temptation... clicks make money .... mmmmm

I oh so nearly got sucked in..... scam or no scam????

Well the other day I got a phone call from a very wierd looking number, I missed it so rang back.... 1st mistake..lol
 When I heard a strong American accent I nearly died, I told them I dont know where I 'm ringing but its obviously an expensive call so if they wanted to speak to me to go ahead and ring me back....

Money is tighter than ever, so why would I want to waste it on ringing a stranger, who probably wanted to sell me the most expensive pile of nothing... ( who in the end I found our was a man pretending to be american, ringing from PAKISTAN!)

Alarm bells were ringing in my head but I thought, if theres a chance of making money, what if I threw that chance away, I knew that there are clever ways to make money... well there must be as theres new millionaires everyday....

So they rang me back with a very strong American accent, the lady told me she worked for fortune 500referals.... I bit my tongue and listened...  she asked me how much money per month, extra I would like to make, so I thought and decided that £1000 would be a really usefull figure.... so would a nice thin figure like a size 12, but I knew that would be imposible...lol... if they had said something like that .. now, I would have put the phone down as thats, down right impossible, but they pulled the right strings.... MONEY..


MONEY TALKS!!!

And boy could they talk... well she said a load of stuff but managed to say nothing,

I was none the wiser as to what they were selling, she asked me about running an internet business, and making a fortune at home doing nothing.... tempting.. but possible???? Surey not....


So I sort of managed to work out that they were selling the idea of you being paid when people clicked on adverts that are attached to your site that they build for you after you pay them 100's of dollars.. to be taught how to run this sight, that they, build for you, and then, at the end of it they, pay you... ALL the money back that they took off you.... mmm perfect????

well maybe they should have offered to pay the lost interest too..

While they were making these amaizing promisses... at this point I was about to say no way, but she asked me if I would listen to some words from the big boss of the company... mmm ok... so whilst I listened to the recording with pretty music etc.... I looked on the net about there company, nothing bad came up,

~I~ couldnt find anything, they said they were linked to the big 3....

Google, Ebay and Amazon,

and that you cant fail as people would be directed some how, to click on these ads and then when they rang up there company ,if they, too got conned to pay up the money, then you would get up to I think it was $400

......I THOUGHT SOUNDS LIKE A PYRAMID selling thingy .....I'm sure there illegal... but as he went on... and on.... and on....It started to sound plausable, I put him on speaker phone for Joe to hear there message he also started to prick his ears up thinking money....

So then I was handed to this other Guy who started asking me to write down figures, then started ordering me to right down other stuff, and look up this site and look up that, at one point he told me to look up ....

mypersonalcashcow.com
&
mysuperaffiliatesite.com (amazon made easy) came up with that one...

the firstis stream lined ebay ad.. there were people adverts for stuff they were selling on ebay..., HE TOLD ME that these people were in there scheme and made money because of it, so me being devious, clicked on an advert which then directed me to a doll for sale, in America by a normal ebay customer... so  I mailed this guy, I told him about this companies claims.... I told him they said he was making money through there programme etc etc... and pressed send...

Mean while this sales man banter was begining to make sense I could see there might be a way of making these huge amounts of money....

THEN HE MADE A CRITICAL ERROR!!!!!

He told me... if I paid this huge amount of money today at the end of this phone call... by giving him my credit card details..... he would take so many hundreds of dollars off the cost, but only today, If I chose to think about it and research it and ring him back... then I would loose this one time chance to save .... right surley its a scam!!!

But I still felt uncomfortable doubting .... hed bee very clever and built up a friendship , a relationship, I didnt want to say no to him...

What if I was throwing away this chance to make money???

Dare  I loose this opportunity???

Uncomfortably and also nervously I said that I would be interested, BUT, in one months time, after I had come back from my fictitious business trip.... He tried again and I repeated that I was about to leave the country for a month, and that I would speak to him then...... little did he know that in one month I  will have finished with my present phone contract.. he wouldnt be able to get to me... I could choose to call him if I wanted from my with held number.....

So after I managed to get rid of him......

I started to think, I thought maybe I was wrong, maybe I was going to make terrible mistake and loose out on this chance of a life time, oh yes there were only limited opportunitys only 3 in my area and those were disapearing to others every minuite I wasted..... thinking....

So I thought again and cooly looked on my laptop at the links he'd given me I looked hard and read the fortune500referrals contract..... pages and pages of it .. loads of small print.... now that was eye opening, def not good... then  looked them up on a scam reporting website... wow.. what a shock there they were with story after story from conned people desperate to make money, all the storys were the same, I'm not saying these storys were totally true surely people may add bits etc and they are there thoughts but, people were talking about money being drained from there bank accounts.... large figures of cash....

WHAT A NEAR MISS....

My desperation to make a few extra pounds to help pay for food, diesel, animal fodder, could have been a terrible error for this family, I nearly lost sight of our goals our special little bubble we live in,


NOW IM NOT STATING THESE PEOPLE ARE 100% CON ARTISTS AS I WOULD HATE TO BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR SLANDERING THERE LOVLEY LITTLE BUSINES....

BUT FOR ME I CHOOSE TO LISTEN TO THE STORIES ON THE NET...

I CHOOSE NOT TO TAKE THEM UP ON A ONCE ONLY OFFER TO LOOSE MY CASH... YOU CHOOSE HOW YOU FEEL, IF IVE BEEN HARSH I MY JUDGEMENT OR NOT.....

BUT AS A LAST NOTE...

THE EBAY GUY GOT BACK TO ME........

suprise, suprise he had never heard of them, he NEVER had any dealings with them, he never knew they were using him to sell there business idea, we have spoken through mail twice today and it is quite clear they were lying about him.... I WONDER COULD THE REST OF THE STORY BE MORE OF THE SAME????????

YOU DECIDE.... IM OFF BACK TO MY PIGS IN MUD,

My new litter of piglets, my chucks and ducks, my mess my mud, and yes very little money, but I shall carry on,

I USE ADSENSE THEY ADVERTISE ON PEOPLES BLOGS ETC,LIKE MINE....

THEY PAY YOU FOR SURE... WHEN PEOPLE USE THERE ADS, I KNOW THIS FOR SURE...... I HAVE EXPERIENCE OF THEM...... WELL I NOW HAVE EXPERIENCE OF THE OTHERS TOOO,.....

You want to make money out of clicks?? then set up an interesting blog, hopefully more so than mine as I only have 8 followers.... much appreciate though you are.... and go look into moneytising your blog,  look up ad sense.. see if its for you.... they are not a scam they make you money.....


RANT OVER!!!!! here piggy piggy , now wheres that hen laying, oh no Lily dont drop the eggs ....aarrrgghhh!! mutter mutter ... mutter....