Two Fine Days!

At last we had two fine days together and we finally managed to finish first cut silage. We had one field on The Lots left to do which we managed to cut, bale and wrap yesterday.

Now - there's only half of second cut left. There doesn't seem to be much of a break in the weather over the next few days. At least if it's raining we won't have to make A Difficult Decision on Thursday. It's Westmorland Show and I don't know which way we would turn if the weather was fit for silaging. As it is we'll be at the Show (which is guaranteed to be on despite any rain we've had or will get,) so if you're there come to the Cattle Lines to see one of the best displays of Dairy Shorthorns in the country.

No Show But Another Cup

As you know Grayrigg Show was cancelled yesterday, but we still managed to win another cup. The classes judged on farm (General Stock, Beef and Dairy Herds) had already been judged - in our case in appalling rain on Tuesday. Last night we went to the after show dinner dance and were very pleased to receive the cup for the Best Dairy Herd.

The Deed is Done

Just a quick update re websites etc - we're started the process by ordering Broadband from BT. This is due to be activated 11th September. So on that day there is the possibility that emails could fall between the cracks (or into the black hole that exists between BT and FOL). When that is working I will transfer the domain name and upload the website.
That's the plan anyway.

But just a word of warning - 11th September is Westmorland Show, so don't expect much to happen during the day.

Doom and Gloom

There's bad news and there's more bad news.

Unbeknownst to me Farming Online stopped hosting member websites on Monday 1st September. So the Strickley site, including the weather page, is currently offline. I have started the process of moving to another ISP (requested a MAC) but I'm not sure how long will take or how simple it will be to upload the site to another host. (But as I work in the right department for unlimted IT help I'm reasonably confident!)

And the other news? Grayrigg (tomorrow) has just been cancelled. If you could see our weather page you'd know how much rain we've had lately.

And is this Good or Bad News? We get to keep the cups for another year - even the-great-big-over-the-top -for-a -small-show-one!

There May Be Trouble Ahead

Ever since we first went on line (in the slow old days of dial-up) we have been with the same ISP. We stayed with them we we eventually got Broadband, and then took advantage of their offer of webspace to launch the Strickley website.

We've been happy with their service and would probably have stayed with them. Although I had started to look at other options after our broadband problems last week. But while I was chasing up the non-working of the Strickley site after their upgrade, I was told that they are stopping hosting members' sites from next Monday!

So it's time to jump ship. I think we will put all our eggs in one basket - broadband, website and domain. I will start to phone up today, but I don't expect it to be instant. So apologies in advance for any disruption in service. As I can update the Blog from any PC I can post updates of the progress

Now I know what's gone wrong next

Having fixed the Broadband and the Weather software, access to the Strickley website and weather site is suddenly restricted (so you may not even see this if you access the Blog via the main website). I've looked on our ISP's site and seen the following - which I assume means hosted sites may be offline


::SERVICE NOTICE
IMPORTANT The Farming Online website will have limited functionality while upgrade work is carried out.
Access will be limited to News, Weather key Prices. Full service will resume within 48hrs.
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Flatlining

If it's not one thing it's another!
Having got the Broadband working again, and the Weather back to updating every 15 minutes, the Console that picks up the signals from the weather station seems to have had a funny few hours, hence a very flat graph until I realised that it might seem to be the same weather as usual, but there's usually a few peaks and troughs.
I think it's fixed, but I'm waiting to see what else will go wrong