2014 International Year of Family Farming



We have risen to a morning without rain! Admittedly it rained heavily during the night but at the moment I am looking out onto glimmering watery sunshine and palely washed blue skies & the birds are singing...if you can call the eternal squabbling of hedge-sparrows singing but it is a cheerful sound accompanying the trills of blackbirds.

2014 has been designated the International Year of Family Farming by the United Nations. We only learned this when we recived the latest issue of The Land magazine (www.thelandmagazine.org.uk), it is not something that has been heralded in the mainstream farming press as far as I am aware.
According to UN figures there are an estimated 500 million family farms in the developed & developing world.These farms feed 'billions of people' and are being recognised by the UN Food & Agriculture Organisation as 'leading figures in responding to the double urgency the world faces today: improving food security and preserving the natural resources.'
In Britain events to celebrate the International Year of Family Farming are being organised by The Landworkers Alliance and the Family Farmers Association, www.familyfarmingcampaign.net


Here on our very own family farm work on the new dairy continues apace with the floor screed laid yesterday& there is much discussion on positioning of doors and windows. The window placement is particularly critical as we don't want direct sunlight coming in warming the room up, after all by definition dairies are cool dim places.
Here in the farmhouse I have what was the original dairy from the days of hand-milking by dairy-maids and the vast slate slabs where the bowls of milk were set to cool are still in place. The room has two windows which are not glazed but filled with a zinc mesh to allow cold air to flow in. I now use it as a larder and in very cold weather I turn off the fridge as there is no need for it.
The dairy also had some enormous slate salting troughs for curing hams etc. They are beautifully made, carved out of a dark blue slate but they are now used outside as plant troughs.

Despite the weather the cows are milking well and the are very content in their winter housing. They are being fed fodder-beet as well as silage and the milk is noticably richer and with a good flavour. The Farmer & Sons spend the first half of every morning feeding all the stock and cleaning passages with the tractor mounted scraper & then putting out clean straw for bedding. As I write I can hear the constant hum of the tractors in the far sheds with a backing chorus of the calves waiting for their breakfasts.
The milk price at the present time is very good and so we are making the most of it. The market price fluctuates so much that when demand is high & the price is good we all rejoice. I think at the moment we are getting about 40 pence per litre and as a result we are receiving some our biggest milk cheques ever but we know this won't last hence the investment in the new dairy while we can afford it.

First Snowdrops, Winter walks, New Dairy

The first snowdrops have appeared in the hedgebanks and are a very welcome sight cheering up the perpetual gloom of this sodden February. The continual grey skies and saturated fields are making for a difficult working environment for the Farmer & the Sons who have to be out in the weather whatever the weather maybe. Even walking the dogs is a slippy gooey endurance test through the muddy fields and water damaged lanes & tracks.
However it is not all grey & dismal...yesterday we went down to Newport beach and had a lovely blowy walk with no rain (!!!) along the full length of what is a a superb long open beach bordered on its southern side by the attractive village of Newport overlooked by the brooding mass of Carn Ingli(Angel Mountain) and the other mounds of the Preselis.

The Farmer and the boys are busy constructing a new purpose-built dairy and work progresses well despite the weather.The present dairy is many years old and getting tired & shabby. It is housed in an old Victorian building so to have a smart new room specially built for the purpose will be a of great benefit to the whole process of milk production.
A new milk bulk tank is ready & waiting to be installed once the building work is finished. There will also be a seperate washing room as required by law as no washing facilities are allowed to be in with the bulk tank, it will sit in solitary state in a white cell that can be hosed down. The present system that we have in place whilst acceptable and perfectly clean and hygienic is just out of date, so investment in a new set-up is going to be very worth while.

Barafundle Bay, Shooting Weekend, Cattle Inspection

Having been trying to add a picture to this posting I have given up as the technology is against me it seems. Instead I shall have to rely on words to illustrate a beautiful day out that the Farmer & I had this week.
Despite, or maybe because of, the seemingly ceaseless rain of the past month or more we decided to take a day off and go down to Pembrokeshire to discover a part of it that we did not know, Barafundle Bay. After driving down through indifferent weather we found the bay and parked the car.
To reach Barafundle itself one walks for about 20 minutes along the coast path and suddenly one is confronted by a high stone wall built of silvery white rock with a gateway in it. Through the arched entrance is revealed a most beautiful expanse of sand on what is, apparently, said to be the 4th most wonderful beach in the world (according to National Geographic)!
It is certainly a lovely beach and we saw it on a January day that was of clear blue skies and golden sunshine masquerading as high summer...it was warm, windless and deserted, just heavenly. A real treat for farmers weary of grey skies, incessant rain & mud and permanently damp so-called waterproofs! We even saw the first daffodils in flower on our run home.

Back on our soggy farm we are having weekend of guests. Younger Son has invited some shooting friends to stay so we are about to be invaded by tweeds & labradors...all great fun! and I have been busy preparing game pie for supper, appropriately enough.
I hope the rain eases off for them tomorrow on the shoot.

We have had a cattle inspection this morning. Someone from the Rural Inspectorate Wales came to check that the paperwork for all cattle on the farm was in order and that all ear-tags were correct. Fortunately all was as it should be; all births, deaths & movements are meticulously recorded as required by law.
The penalty for having errors would be a percentage deduction from the Single Farm Payment.

Winter Storms, Happy Christmas, Christmas Lamb

New Year's Eve and we did have a frost a couple of days ago but mostly we've been dealing with the aftermath of strong winds and very heavy rain. The driveway had been washed away and we had mini-Niagaras down the steps again. The Farmer & the Sons have spent a lot of time replacing stone on the drive and filling in gullies that have been gouged out by the quantities of water rushing over the farm. At least we don't have floods coming into the house...living on the side of a hill does have its advantages.

Christmas was lovely...a good family Christmas with small children, excellent food and general happiness and good humour all round.

The Farmer & Younger Son have been to the local shoot in the past week and yesterday went they walked over the farm with neighbours, guns & dogs and came back with a couple of brace of pheasant. Game pie will be on the menu next week I guess.

We had guests in the holiday cottage for Christmas week and when they left on the 28th I had more people in for 2 nights and then a family arrived yesterday for 4 nights.
It has been a week of laundry - no joke when having to deal with full sets of bed-linen and towels every couple of days and nowhere to dry them other on an airer in the kitchen as the weather has been so awful. I now have several hours worth of ironing to do having been putting it off while dealing with all the other things that happen over the Christmas period.

Out walking with family members who were staying with us over the weekend on the one glorious frosty morning we we all very surprised to find that one of our ewes had lambed! We were in the field with the in-lamb ewes to move them and suddenly saw this tiny creature huddling in the midst of the ewes. It was probably about a day old and was real surprise as lambing is not due to start until March!
I seem to remember a similar thing happening last year...we must have had very efficient & keen ram lamb in the flock that had escaped the rubber ring and had performed his precocious duty before he was sold.

Cyfarchion Flwyddyn Newydd
A Happy New Year To All

Christmas Turkeys, Christmas Lights, Christmas Cooking

Well, the turkeys have been taken to their final destination and we shall collect them as fine beautifully plucked & dressed oven-ready birds tomorrow. The Farmer usually dispatches them himself but this year we've decided to send them away for reasons I'm not quite sure of...but it does lessen the work load which as always over Christmas, seems to double.

We've just prepared the holiday cottage for Christmas guests who arrive this evening.We've put in the Christmas tree, lit the fire and generally have it looking festive. Next we start on our own house in preparation for a gathering of friends over the weekend.
I should not be writing this now but ought to be chained to my kitchen cooking vast quantities of party food, however the profiteroles and game terrines can wait ten minutes.

One of the perennial fiddly things is sorting out the Christmas lights. I guess every household goes through the same ridiculous performance every year; firstly trying to find the various sets of lights put away in 'a safe place', secondly untangling them from the mares nest of cabling, thirdly discovering that a set of lights that worked perfectly five minutes before they were stored away have now over a year of inactivity decided to die, presumably of boredom. The spare bulbs have all dispappeared from their safe places and one particular set of lights cannot be located at all...of course the longest and prettiest of them all.
We do not have outdoor lights, but the Farmer does like to have twinkling strands lighting the beams in the dining room & draped across chimney-pieces and looking-glasses & admittedly it does look very pretty and festive.

We had the most fiercesome storm two day ago.
The wind racketed & buffeted around the house blowing the rain with great force against the windows and the flow of water once again down the yard from the fields was of such volume & power as to gouge out new gullies in the bed-rock. Thes will all need to be filled again of course. Much time is spent filling in pot-holes on the drive and on tracks around the farm.
On higher ground there was a scatering of snow but the temperature has risen slightly now so everything is just wet & soggy.
Anyway, off to my kitchen now for a marathon cooking session...pheasant terrine, shiitake mushroom quiches, chocolate torte, profiteroles, ginger cakes and all good things.

Christmas is Coming

We are now in the run up to Christmas of course. Its a time of year that I really enjoy...I love the winter landscape and although today we have a steady persistent rain it does not detract from the beauty of our leafless skeleton trees standing against the grey skies. The hedges are skeined with the crimson gleam of rose-hips sparkled with raindrops and the little hedgerow birds are flitting in & out of the undergrowth. There is still plenty of food about for them despite the hedges having been trimmed.

Christmas preparations are under way in that I am busy making batches of mince-pies having made the mince-meat a couple of months ago, so it is nicely matured. The Christmas cakes were made about the same time and the I still have puddings left over from last year, amazingly.

The Farmer & I made one of our rare visits to our local 'big' town yesterday. The stores were all full of Christmas 'stuff' of course but there were not many shoppers spending money...town seemed very quiet though I guess maybe next-week might be different story. I do hate the mass of horrid stuff that is wheeled out every year by the big stores But I particularly loathe the advertising targeted at children. I occasionally see some of the tlevision adverts and am horrified...grumpy granny moment I'm afraid! Do people still make presents themselves for the children in their families do you think, rather than buying yet more garish, plastic rubbish?
Elder Son & his wife took the grand-children to our local narrow gauge railway to see Father Christmas last night. They were very cross that they had were charged for the baby of only 4months...fair enough paying for themselves and the 3 yr old, but for a babe in arms? Sadly they came away feeling that the whole thing had been a huge con which is very sad but the 3yr old enjoyed herself which is I suppose the main thing.

We have the cottage booked out for Christmas week but New Year is still available.
Friends are coming to cottage for Christmas so we should have rather jolly time.

We are in the middle of calving and have had a good run of heifer calves which is always what are wanted.We have been sending a lot of milk lately and the milk price is excellent for us at present. There is an increased demand for organic milk it seems which is very good news.

A Farmer's Funeral

A country funeral, like a country wedding is an event drawing members of a community together.
This week the Farmer, the Sons and I attended the funeral of our good friend & neighbour who died so tragically after being attacked by the stag in his small herd of red deer.
The congregation numbered about 300 people, many of whom had to stand outside the small country church in our local village and will go down as one of largest funerals ever to have been seen in the parish.
It was a coming together of country people of all ages. Our friend had been part of the lives of so many and it was touching to see that there were farmers and others all involved in the countryside, young and old all coming to mourn the passing of a man who had in his quiet and cheerful way lived his life in the farming community and had given his friendship to so many.
I was very touched when our Elder Son was asked to be one of the bearers of the coffin to the graveside. He had known our friend since babyhood and had always had a great respect and fondness for him, so to be asked to take such a role was an honour and a privilege.
It was deeply sad occasion and the neighbourhood is still reeling from what was such a dramatic and ultimately tragic event.

Stormy Weather, Country Accidents, Labrador Puppies

This was the sight that greeted us last Saturday outside the house.
These steps lead up into the field above the house and had been transformed into a pretty spectacular waterfall which in turn fed into the river of chocolate brown that swept its way down the yard. It was an impressive sight to say the least.
The water & winds notwithstanding the local hunt was out on Saturday and came across our land...or at least the hounds did, the horses were keeping to the roads as the fields were so wet.

All was going well until the Master came off his horse on the drive and knocked himself out. As luck would have it the Farmer, Younger Son & I along with a couple of followers were only yards away so were able to help. YS called an ambulance while the Farmer did the necessary first aid. I was left to hold one of the horses, a huge 17 hand hunter  who thankfully was very calm and easy ( I'm not very experienced with horses) while the huntsman helped ease the Master. It was all very tense and we none of us were really sure how badly injured he was. Fortunately it turned out to be only a few cracked ribs and bruising...he was very very lucky.

It has been week of accidents. One of our nearest & dearest neighbours in in very serious condition in hospital having been mauled by the antlered stag in his small commercial flock of deer. His injuries are appalling and he was flown to hospital by air ambulance...a journey of 40 miles achieved in 8 minutes!! Deer are beautiful shy creatures but a stag in the rutting season is a very dangerous animal even one that is 'farmed'. What happened was a pure accident, no foolish risks had been taken but as with all male animals at certain times their tempers & instincts take over. Such an event could just have easily happened with a ram or a bull (and does). We are all praying that our friend makes a good recovery.

On a more cheerful note, the puppies have all gone now. The last one left us last weekend to go to live in the West Midlands where she will be the adored pet of some lovely people who will give it a perfect home. They have promised me they will not let her get fat! All the puppies have gone to great people & will have have happy lives giving their new families lots of fun. The puppy we have kept is a sweetie called Jess and Younger Son has already started training her. She is very quick to learn and will come on well.

Autumn is turning out to be wet & blustery though we are seeing rainbows and the trees are adopting their autumnal hues across the valley. if it stops raining long eneough I would like to be out in the gardens planting daffodil & tulip bulbs but at present we are getting sharp heavy showers every ten minutes so I shall just have to stay in my nice warm kitchen and get on with the ironing.