You are currently browsing the monthly archive for September, 2007.
A quick post to let you know that I have a large gathering of the clan happening from today and won’t, I shouldn’t think, have a moment of time to write. Read the rest of this entry »
Gordon Brown seems to be backing farmers.
“Their actions live out our shared understanding that our countryside is more than the space that surrounds – it is the oxygen for the towns and cities.”
“And in order to be the country we should be, Britain must protect and cherish, not just our cities, but our countryside too,” Mr Brown said.
I’m delighted. No, really, I am. But… Read the rest of this entry »
The FMD story grows alarmingly. There appears to be chaos and confusion once more. Misinformation, non-information and contradiction.
With DERFA’s website appallingly devoid of basic facts and figures it seems that even those worried farmers and smallholders in the protection and surveillance zone, desperate for hard news and exact locations, are being kept in the dark. Read the rest of this entry »
An old wooden gate led into a tiny cobbled space surrounded by waist-high cob walls covered in flaking, powdery pink, lime wash. This yard was outside the living quarters, or cottage part, of the longhouse. On its right hand side was a rusty corrugated lean-to, smothered in a tangle of bramble, ivy and nettle, which housed the well. By the side of this was an old stone retaining wall next to substantial, incongruous, concrete steps leading up to a steep overgrown garden.
To the front of the yard, the cottage grew out of a bank; its cob walls the same chalky pink. A peeling, bitumen-crumpled, corrugated iron roof covered the old thatch. Three closely pained windows and a small lopsided door, recessed deep into the cob walls, gave the cottage a quaintly human expression. Read the rest of this entry »
On Friday it was Robert’s birthday. I love September; a golden, mellow, honeyed-quince month. Robert’s not so keen…on September (the days are drawing in) or on birthdays (why celebrate one’s demise?). Read the rest of this entry »
It’s odd how strangely divorced I feel from the news of the new FMD outbreak in Surrey and all the horror it entails.
I can’t really understand my own reaction. It surprises me. But I don’t think it’s just me. Even the national news is remarkably devoid of hype and those gruesome, unnecessary, pictures of dead or dying livestock. And when I speak about it with anyone involved in farming, there is a telling hesitation before the appropriate expressions and remarks. Read the rest of this entry »
I was going to tell you about how apparently cows could one day help to meet the rise in demand for alternative energy sources, according to Ohio State University researchers, who used microbe-rich fluid from a cow to generate electricity in a small fuel cell. There’s a rather macabre description of how it’s accomplished and I have a horrific and gruesome vision of lines of cows wired and plugged up complete with shunts and catheters supplying our power needs… Read the rest of this entry »
The little family arrived from New Zealand late on Saturday. The rest of the world appeared to have arrived at Heathrow as well, and a weary, exhausted trio walked through the arrival gates nearly three hours after their plane had landed. Read the rest of this entry »
Yeay, yeay, yeay! We’re clear!
I’m at the top of the roller coaster…wow! Got through it again.
Threw my stick on the ground, punched the air and hugged the vet.
A reprieve of six or twelve months, depending on regulations. Read the rest of this entry »
Our cattle were skin tested for bTB today. The first stage that is.
Now we wait seventy-two hours (Friday) when the vet returns for the second stage.
This waiting is the worst part. I used to torture myself by trying to feel the lumps on the cattle’s neck. Now I try to avoid any eye contact with the area. Read the rest of this entry »
Well, this is it.
Not a week I’m looking forward to.
It’s bTB testing time…again.
I began gathering up the cattle yesterday, so they are on the home farm, and easily accessible to move into the yard on Tuesday.
I hate it. I worry. Read the rest of this entry »
cut hay waiting for the sun so it can be baled
If I thought it was busy when I went away I had another think coming… Read the rest of this entry »
