Back Online, OMSCo, Birds in Autumn Landscape

After nearly a week of appalling phone connections & almost no internet we now seem to be linked to the outside world again...touch wood, fingers crossed etc. The telephone engineer came out and twiddled with various little bits of wire and certainly the phone line was much clearer, but I think the problem arises when it rains, which as we are in saturated West Wales may prove an ongoing difficulty. However, this morning it is glorious after a night of torrential downpours so the technology is working well...so far.

Yesterday the Farmer, Younger Son & two very excited labradors went off to spend the day beating. They had a lovely time and came home mid-afternoon with a brace of pheasants. Apparently the dogs behaved beautifully and worked very well prompting some flattering comments from the other beaters & the guns.

During the week the Farmer & I attended a meeeting with OMSCo (http://www.omsco.co.uk/) for a update on how the organic milk market is doing. UK sales of organic milk are still too low & much of the milk is still being exported to the continent, though ironically, it is then coming back into the UK as milk powder. It is all quite mad.

Autumn is well under way and temperatures do seem to be dropping a little. It has been so mild lately and of course, very wet. From the office window I have been watching blackbirds feeding on the great crop of cotoneaaster berries and there are many blue tits & sparrows around and there are odd glimpses of wrens.
There have been murmurations (such a wonderful collective noun) of starlings flighting their dramatic sweeps across the skies to land in the fields and this morning a buzzard took off over my head as I was out with the dogs, only to be mobbed by a couple of aggressive crows. Everywhere I walk now apart from being very squelchy, is covered by a carpet of fallen rusten leaves which unfortunatley are too soggy to be kicked through making that wonderful autumnal rustle and sigh.