Making New Friends

        Meet Karen, Ian, Nick and Michelle.
We all got together, here at Pry House, last night.  Karen and Nick are the new owners and managers of Keld Lodge. Ian and Michelle moved Park Lodge in August last year so both couples are relatively new to the village; both on the brink of a new beginning in their lives; living and running businesses in the dale.   It was a good opportunity to get to know each other better and to do a bit of 'networking'.  Chris and I welcome them to Keld and wish them well in all they do.  Visit http://www.keldlodge.co.uk/ and http://www.keldbunkhouse.com/ to discover their ideas and aspirations.  

Damsel in Distress

We haven't had a lot of snow this winter therefore no cries for help from stranded motorists in need of a tractor to pull them out of a snowdrift.  Tonight however a very distressed and badly shaken young lady appeared at the dining room window (nearly gave me a heart attack!) obviously in need of assistance.  It has been snowing higher up on the moors for the last couple of days so the road to Kirkby Stephen is a bit tricky.  Instead of travelling on the A66, the main trans-pennine route, her SatNav directed her across our dark, lonely, snow covered moor!  Not a nice feeling for a newly qualified driver with no experience of driving in ice or snow or on roads without street lights!  She was scared to death, poor thing.  Her friends came to her rescue and drove her down the dale and back to civilization.  If you read this, Jess, I hope you are okay and enjoy your stay in Yorkshire and don't forget to buy a road map!

cows in the building

cows outside and tractor spreading

Where there's muck, there's GRASS!!

We have had several frosty nights and the fields are white and hard.  The air is sharp and still and the landscape takes on a new beauty in the winter sunshine.  These are ideal conditions for getting onto the land with machinery so this morning the cows were put outside for some fresh air, the buildings were cleaned out and the muck spread on the fields.  Once the building is finished, fresh straw bedding is laid and the cows are let back.  They are pretty hungry by now and quickly tuck into a new bale of silage.

The use of artificial fertiliser is restricted on our meadows so instead we feed our grass the traditional way using organic cow manure.  This natural fertiliser helps produce young sweet grass for the sheep during lambing time and then later in the year a flower & herb rich meadow crop that we make into hay.