Autumn on the Farm.

This is one of the lovely comments left in our cottage visitors book this summer...remarks & drawings like this do make us feel that we are getting something right in what we offer our guests. (Click on photo to enlarge it to read the comments.) We have had a very busy season and although we are now officially into autumn we still have guests coming to stay. The countryside at this time of year is glorious, the trees and hedges are still green but with hints of tawny gold beginning to appear and the rich ruby ripeness of the hawthorn berries adding a depth of colour to the high hedges. We have been having such lovely weather this past few days that it puts a glow over everything. The swallows have now left us, just in the last couple of days, on their long flight back to the southern sun. We are now in the season of lighting fires in the evenings and ensuring that the log supply for next year is well advanced. A shed full of seasoning logs is a deeply satisfying sight.
Over on the coast there are reports of seal pups on several of the beaches. People are advised to stay off the beach itself and keep their dogs on leads but the pups can be viewed quite easily. They are a beautiful sight, the fat roly-poly pups in their thick creamy coats with their huge dark sad eyes. The mother seal is usually out in the water keeping a close eye on the pup and she is very wary of any intrusion.

On the farm things are busy with slurry-spreading and hedge-trimming. We are taking lambs and bull calves to the various markets each week at present. Calving is well underway and we have about thirty to feed each day with more due over the next weeks. The bull calves we sell on but the heifers are all kept to be reared as 'followers' to the dairy herd. We have always calved down at this time of year though many dairy herds tend to go for spring calving and some do all year round calving, but it suits us to have the calves all come at one period though it can get very labour intensive.