Paula Hynes: I greet my guests with a 'Welcome to Fawlty Towers' sign

Last week may have been a bank holiday weekend, but with so many shows on the horizon, Paula's been busy catching up and keeping ahead with farm chores ahead of her visitors arriving

Belgooly Show dairy judge Richard Forde; John Sullivan with Supreme Dairy champion Lisduff Sunflower; Martin O Regan of Belgooly show; and Georgie Hynes with Reserve Dairy Supreme Rathard Chocochip Dream.

Last weekend was Belgooly show — it always falls on the June bank holiday weekend. It is an agricultural show with an amazing community spirit and one which I always look back on with fond memories because it is the one that Becky won her first-ever showmanship class at a few years ago. I still pinch myself when I see what she has won since then.

We always do our best to support Belgooly Show — the girls learnt their trade there, and with all the big shows they compete at now, I think it is crucial in life not to forget where you started. 

Three of the heifers we took were on their first outing of the season, and we also took Dream for the Jersey cow in milk class, although a seasoned campaigner as a young Jersey heifer, it was her first outing as a milker.

Richard Forde was officiating as judge in the dairy ring, and the girls kicked off the day with Georgie winning the junior showmanship and Becky winning the senior class.

Richard certainly put them through their paces. Moving onto the heifer classes, Georgie won the January born heifer class with Rathard Legit Maddie, who is out of Lisduff Mary, who we purchased at the Lisduff sale a few years ago, we had another Legit sired heifer in the autumn-born heifer class, where she was placed third and behaved well, which we were happy with as she is a really sharp feisty heifer on the halter so isn’t the easiest to show.

Georgie won the Jersey heifer calf class with Kalani — she is a daughter of our good Jersey cow, Kasey, and a full sister to Khaleesi. Kalani is a calf we are really excited about, so we will see where she goes for the rest of the season. She went on to take honourable mention in the junior championship, with Maddie claiming the reserve champion.

Moving on to the milking classes, Georgie teamed up with Dream to win the Jersey cow in milk class. The Friesian cow in milk class was won by Lisduff Farms with Lisduff Sunflower, who went on to win Supreme Dairy Champion, with Dream being tapped out for the Reserve Supreme spot. 

Great credit to all involved in Belgooly Show for organising such a fantastic show; they will be celebrating their 80th show next year, and hopefully, many will put the show in their diary to help create a great party atmosphere there.

One of the most impressive sights at the show was the showmanship classes in the beef cattle ring — it truly was amazing to see a packed ring of young people capably handling so many different beef breeds. 

Pedigree beef breeders need to be applauded for encouraging the next generation of show handlers, who will, most importantly, ensure beef show cattle continue to go from strength to strength.

A busy bank holiday

It may have been a bank holiday weekend, but with so many shows on the horizon, Sunday and Monday were spent catching up and keeping ahead with farm chores. Time passes by so quickly, so before the diary gets any busier, we changed the liners in the milking parlour this week and also replaced any worn pulsation tubes. 

Liner changing is a hard job on the hands, pulling off all the old rubber wear, but with a team effort, we got a system going and had all 20 units replaced in two hours. In an effort to maintain SCC levels and ensure cows are milked out correctly, it is crucial to change liners at least every six months.

The cows also got a haircut this week, with all their tails being clipped to keep their udders clean. Next on the agenda is power-washing the cubicle sheds to ensure we are ready for the autumn. 

We have a list made of all autumn-calvers, some of which we will be drying off in the next week. While we are still in the midst of the breeding season, we also scanned a few this week, and I was delighted to see Espresso was confirmed pregnant. She is the granddaughter of Esprit, the three-time Swiss Expo Grand Champion.

Tragically, Esprit died last year in Switzerland when she was struck by lightning — she truly left her stamp on Espresso, who has grown into a true powerhouse and a heifer we are really excited to calve down next year. We are lucky to have her on the farm.

All our second-cut silage ground has received an application of nitrogen, so we decided to go with protected urea, which is ideal in this showery weather.

It is impossible to call the weather forecast from day to day at the moment, and at least if it is a sunny morning, the protected urea will not be lost into the atmosphere and is safe until it sees rain. The fertiliser also included sulphur, which can be a huge benefit to grass in dry weather and greatly increase dry matter yields.

While the cows are grazing full-time, I somehow feel I need to get Pete to power-wash the diet feeder and commandeer it for the next week to ease my workload in feeding the troops. 

If any of my readers have any simple recipes to feed large groups of people with a diet feeder, I would greatly appreciate the support. Emilie arrived earlier this week from France. We also have a US guest arriving on Saturday morning, as well as three more friends and two more friends from the US arriving on Sunday evening. Additionally, we have two visitors from the UK scheduled to arrive later in the week, so it will be a full house.

Hopefully, sleeping and feeding arrangements will go to plan but should the wheels begin to fall off the packed house wagon, perhaps my safest bet will be to erect a Fawlty Towers sign outside the house to remind our guests that while the service may not be five-star, the humour, craic and laughs will exceed their expectations.