The Latest From Garrendenny

Jack and DaisyIt’s been a busy few days. The lambs have been up and down – it seemed like Jack had joint ill (which could kill him) and then he was puffing and panting a bit so it looked like he had pneumonia. Daisy was a bit flaky and fussy for a day too so she got a nice big needle too. Happy to report that both are feeding well again – they are half way through their second bag of lamlac and I introduced them to lamb meal a few days ago too.

Our first heifer calf of 2014

We have four calves now and this is the firstborn, a lovely little heifer. I’m planning to start regular blog posts on behalf of one of the heifer calves, probably this one as she will definitely stay in the herd. The blog posts will be written from her perspective (yes, I can interpret her moos) and will follow her progress as she grows over the next two years and enters the milking herd in two years time. I may even set up a twitter account for her too – I’ll see how time goes!

I need a name for her though. ?Suggestions include R?alt (Irish for star and as you can see, she has one star on her forehead and another on her back), B? (Irish for cow), something with a social media influence such as Tweetie, or an old fashioned name such as Buttercup. What do you think? Suggestions gratefully received as I need to decide within the next couple of days!

Heifer Calf

She is a cutie!

What else has been going on? Well, Amanda and I got some photos taken last week for We Teach Social so I had an ‘author photo’ taken too! What do you think?!

Lorna Sixsmith

I ordered another print run of ‘Would You Marry A Farmer?’ so have 900 books in my hallway again! 100 went to Argosy, the national book distributor to independent book shops so it is now available to order (in paperback) from all independent bookshops 🙂 ?Scary but brilliant. ?It is available now at Book Depository and Kennys.ie – both offer free shipping worldwide too!

It is also available on Kindle – if you have read it and would like to leave a review, I would hugely appreciate it.

Would You Marry a Farmer?

The AI catalogues have been arriving – whether to go for sexed semen on the heifers this year or not! Good to see Garrendenny Lucifer in the Dovea catalogue.

Garrendenny Lucifer

Our herd is now number 24 in the top EBI dairy herds ?(which is fab)?and we have one cow listed at number 55 in the top 1000 cows. ?If she has a bull calf, one of the AI stations might be interested in him (as long as they still like the look of the sire!) and if she has a heifer, she will stay in the herd.

ICBF_EBI

It was the farmer’s birthday and the 9 yo decided to emulate the British Bake Off creations and cook her daddy’s favourite cakes – carrot cake, sponge and profiteroles – into a 3 tier cake and it was scrummy! The best birthday cake he has ever had.

3 tier birthday cake

You’ve probably heard about #felfies that are taking twitter by storm. It’s a selfie of a farmer with his/her animals. It is easier said than done to take a photo of oneself with a cow, calf or lamb! Here’s one of me with Daisy!

#felfie with Daisy

Pet lamb

I’m going to be tweeting from the curated @ireland account on twitter next week so if you are on twitter, do say hello 🙂

So, any thoughts for a name on our blogging calf! She may even start blogging by the middle of next week!

7 thoughts on “The Latest From Garrendenny

  • Philippa

    The cake looks amazing………..lots of praise for the baker. I hope it was enjoyed by the Farmer! My daughter was very impressed, and made her think about doing some-thing similar. Currently, she is into bread making and at the weekend made amazing bread rolls.

    Reply
    • Lorna

      great to hear from you Philippa, Kate was into bread making but then got tired of it. Hoping she gets into them again 🙂 Cake was scrummy and is long gone!

      Reply
  • M T McGuire

    Wow! Not busy or anything then! 😉 I love your new heifer’s eylashes. Rather jealous of those. I like the idea of a name with the word ‘moo’ in it, like MOOnbeam. Except better.

    Cheers

    MTM

    Reply
    • Lorna

      Thanks M, someone suggested The Social Moo and I was thinking of using that to name the category and indeed, a name with Moo in it such as Maisie Moo – Moonbeam is an idea too 🙂

      Reply
  • Jardin / Lorna

    Fantastic! All really positive news and lots of nice photos (including your own).
    Love the idea of the “cow post” – I enjoy one or two from doggie perspectives but haven’t seen a calf one – looking forward to that! Like the idea of an Irish name.

    Reply
    • Lorna

      Thanks Lorna, the only animal one I’ve come across are Suzanna’s though I remember doing some research for a client once and came across lots of dog ones – the whole blog was written from their perspective. I’d actually forgotten about it until you mentioned it.
      I’m leaning towards Realta or Buttercup 🙂

      Reply

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