Castles, Encounter with a Golden Eagle

The Jack Russell puppies have now all gone to their new families...this was the last one to leave and he's gone to live down in south Wales as companion to another Jack Russell where he will have a lovely life.

Today, a grey cold day, the Farmer & I took our nearly 5yr old grand-daughter out to visit Llansteffan castle. It was great. The castle is set high on a hill above the estuary of the river Towy and in its hey-day must have been an imposing sight for travellers coming up or down the river. Small grand-daughter loved clambering over the ruins and venturing up the very narrow spiral staircase in one of the towers, but of course best of all was being shown the lavatories, or garde-robes, set deep into the walls!

On our way home driving along a narrow country lane in the middle of nowhere we had an exciting and unusual encounter.
A man was walking towards us with his arm outstretched carying something very large...it turned out to be a Golden Eagle! He took time talk to us as we had stopped the car so as not to disturb the bird and we were able to see the magnificent creature at such close quarters as we will probably never experience again. It was beautiful & threatening & wild although it had been bred in captivity in Scotland and was now being trained but I guess such birds can never been really tamed. The ferocity in its eye and the unmistakable strength in its grip on the double layers of gauntlet that it's keeper (no-one can 'own' such a bird) wore, were testimony to its power as a killing machine. It was fractious and kept flying into a bate although firm hold was kept on its jesses, it would suddenly launch itself into the air with great flapping of its huge wings and then come back to the man's arm where it would glare at us with its piercing eye. At only 18 months old it was still learning what was expected of it and it was hungry apparently. A really wonderful thing to have been privileged to see at such close quarters and wholly unlikely in the depths of west Wales.

Children & Puddles, Silage Fungi, Marmalade Making

Another wet afternoon so nothing better than taking the grandchildren for a walk in the rain & sploshing through the puddles and streams. Two year old grandson lost his wellies twice and 5 year old grand-daughter wailed at getting her pink tights splashed...so all normal & happy! Actually, they were great and splashing in puddles entertains them for ages as does poking around with sticks in muddy streams. They love watching the water purling and bubbling over the rough surface of our concrete drive as it runs down to the bridge where we play Pooh-sticks. The water then gushes through the drainage holes on the sides of the bridge walls to cascade down into the tumbling stream. On the whole a jolly afternoon despite the continuing vile weather.

Whilst out today I came across these fungi growing out of some bales of silage. They are called Schizophylum Communae and are edible and very popular in the far East where they are cultivated. Here they grow in through the holes pecked in the silage wrap by birds. There was a goodly crop on the bales I saw and I have picked them for our mushroom expert friend. I'm not overkeen on exotic mushrooms, they tend to be be quite strongly flavoured and rather rubbery in texture, I use shiitake a lot in cooking as they are very palatable but other types I have found to be less so.

It's marmalade time again and the Farmer has been busy. He loves marmalade and is very happy to be in charge of making it. We bought some lovely organic Seville oranges from the excellent organic shop in Lampeter andd the kitchen was then filled with the delicious aroma of boiling oranges. The Farmer made about 16lbs and most of it went into the jars...there was however a citrus stickiness all over the kitchen, every drawer handle, door knob, work surface & table top seemed to have at least one or two gloopy dollops of marmalade on them, even the tea-towels were gummy, ugh! Paddington Bear would have been in ecstasies at the amount of marmalade freely available, he & the Farmer have quite lot in common!

Happy New Year, St. David's Cathedral Christmas, Stray Dog

Penblwydd Newydd Hapus! Happy New Year!

Well, 2016 has dawned with a dry cold morning, perfect for walking the dogs and such a relief not having to don waterproofs. There is more rain forecast but for the moment we are relishing this brief respite from lashing rain and buffeting winds. We are so lucky to have been spared the horrors that the north of England and parts od Scotland are suffering as result of Storm Frank, though is a lot of flooding in the Teifi Valley but it is mostly just fields that are under water and some roads & bridges have been impassable. We have had torrents of water rushing down the yard and cutting channels in the surface but so far there has not been the damage done as in previous years.
The winds on Wednesday night were hideous, so much so they removed the entire covering of one of our poly-tunnels which now stands in skeletal glory, its grey metal ribs exposed for the first time in about 10 years (the plastic has done us very well!) There is no question of attempting to replace the plastic until the weather is more settled and so it will have to stand in its nakedness until the spring. Unfortunately it is the tunnel that we use as a lambing shed, so the veg. growing tunnel may have to become a a home for the sheep in March.

Whilst having friends calling and we were in turn calling on others as usual over the Christmas weekend, the holiday was very different for us. Instead of spending Christmas Day in the bosom of our family (for perfectly amiable reasons) we went down to St. David's cathedral in Pembrokeshire for Choral Mattins. It was wonderful. The choir of St. David's is superb and the choice of hymns, carols & anthems really demonstrated their skills & it was marvellous to sit in that beautiful ancient building and feel it reverberate with the power of the organ and the sweetness of the choir as it has done for so many centuries.
After such an uplifting experience we then drove a short distance to the lovely Whitesands Bay for a good walk along the beach. It was surprisingly busy there considering it was Christmas morning, many people obviously taking an opportunity to walk their children & dogs before returning home to the turkey. There were even some brave souls swimming in the rather billowy sea, some in wetsuits, others not!

Yesterday I drove into our local town along a road that gave superb view of the flooded acres by the river Teifi. As I approached the outskirts of the town I saw a car had stopped on the opposite side of the road and a woman flagged down the few cars to stop while she crossed the road to where a sheepdog was crouching in the hedgerow. It was clearly very disressed and had obviously been out in the weather for a while. The woman approached the dog slowly with her hand out to it and it allowed her to catch hold of it and take it to her car. I guess it must have been a stray from a nearby farm that had got lost in the stormy weather. I hope it has been re-united with its owners, I'm sure the person who rescued it will do all she can to find out where it came from. It really has not been a Christmas for man or beast to be lost out in the wind & rain.

The rain it raineth every day!

This is how it should be but is not!
The rain has gone beyond biblical in that we are now well over the forty days & forty nights endured by Noah and not an Ark in sight! Every day sees us donning waterproofs and setting out to do the chores sliding & squelching through the mud that has overrun every surface of the tracks and yards. At least we have enough housing for all the cattle so they are dry and comfortable. The tractors churn up the mud of course just making it worse and walking through the fields is wellnigh impossible as they are so saturated and soggy. Two days ago I had to go out to our local village in the car and drove past flooded fields where the river Teifi has overflowed its banks to an extent we have not seen for along time. Bridges in the area have been impassable with the flood water up to the top of the parapets. Torrents of water were running down our driveway and our little old stone bridge was a lake as its drainage holes could not cope with the quantity of water running down though water was gushing through them at a great rate. It seems there is to be no let up according to the Met Office and there is more heavy rain & winds due to arrive...we really are dreaming of a white Christmas!(See picture!)

Today is of course the winter solstice, the longest night which heralds the change when the sun begins to be seen for a little longer each day. Mid-winter was a time of celebration and feasting and has in our modern times become absorbed into the Christmas festivities. Decking the halls with holly & ivy are remnants of the ancient pagan rituals and lighting candles to banish the darkness and welcome back the light.

Nadolig Llawen a Penblwydd Newydd Hapus!

Jack Russell Puppies, Royal Welsh Winter Fair, Organic Distillery

Aren't they lovely? 15 days old and thriving. Their eyes opened this week and they will soon be rampaging around in their nest driving their ever anxious mother to distraction.She is convinced that the labradors will eat them though they are just being curious but she sees them off with much growling and terrier-swearing and they are suitably cowed and slink off pretending they have something much more interesting to attend to.

At last we have dry morning. The incessant rain lately has been hideous and depressing. The whole farm is soggy and the ground is saturated so walking across the fields is like walking on a sponge. Ghastly! As well as the downpours we have had very strong winds so there are fallen branches everywhere. There has been serious flooding locally with fire service having to rescue people from their cars apparently.
On Monday we went to the Royal Welsh Winter Fair at Builth Wells despite the weather. We had arranged to meet up with an old friend whom we had not seen for several years so we braved the rain and drove up into mid-Wales. It did not stop raining the whole day and yes, we got very damp but as most of the Fair was under cover it was not as bad as it could have been though those poor traders in little tents outside did suffer with the wind blowing and because of the rain people were not very willing to stop and peruse what was on offer but walked hurriedly on to the big pavilions where there were many trade stands of all kinds...the show is a big shopping opportunity, anything from a huge tractor to a mole-trap to an antique diamond ring! I spoke to a friend who was there with his wonderful award winning cheeses and organic spirits (excellent gin!)and he was not having a good day simply because of the weather. www.teificheese.co.uk. I bought a bottle of his seaweed gin made in the Da Mhile distillery in west Wales, just a few miles from the farm,www.damhile.co.uk, which is the first organic distillery in the UK.

Sheep Injured by Hit & Run Driver

A heart-warming incident has just occurred this morning...A young man, a complete stranger, arrived on the yard to ask if we had any sheep up near the main road as there was a sheep out that had been hit by a car.
As it happens we do have some sheep up in that vicinity, however after some further conversation we established that it was not our sheep but was one of the neighbours tack sheep, so the young chap went up to tell them. I was so impressed that this boy had bothered to interrupt his journey to work to try to find out the owners of the injured ewe. As he said, he couldn't just drive on and leave it as had the driver of the car that had hit it. I hope the hit-&-run driver feels badly about what he has done!
(Tack sheep are sheep that are on land that has been let for sheep over the winter, the flock owner pays the land-owner for the period that the sheep are grazing.)

It is another grey and damp morning with more miserable weather to follow I think. The fields are very squidgy and just walking the dogs one slips and slides on shallow slopes. The streams around the farm are running well with the water eddying and swirling over the stones carrying leaves and twigs down and depositing them in small barrages at intervals creating little pools that slow the flow of the water to the main drains.
The wind is very strong, buffeting & blustering through the trees around the farm and howling down the chimneypots. The doors and windows are rattling with ghostly whistles and moans from the wind as it beats about the house. A day for settling by the fire with good book and some knitting that needs to be done by Christmas.

We had our second part of the TB test at the end of last week and were very disappointed to find we had one cow test positive, so we are under restictions for another four months at least.

Cow Comfort & TB Testing

The past few months have been very busy with the erection of a new cattle shed and here are our cows all warm and snug in their new quarters. They lie in what are known as 'cow comfort' cubicles which are designed to give each cow as much space and ease for movement as she needs including enough 'lunge' distance for the forward movement of a cow as she prepares to stand up. There is also plenty of room for the cows to wander around and to have easy access to water troughs. The shed is protected from the weather by Yorkshire boarding which is the name given to the evenly spaced boards fixed above the block walls giving plenty of ventilation to avoid condensation in the shed.
Today the Farmer & the Sons had to have all the cows, beef animals and calves on the farm ready for TB testing. Since we went down with Tb back in March all the livestock is now tested every 60 days. The test is given today and then in three days time the vet comes back to see if any of the animals have reacted and if so they will have to go for slaughter. We all hope desperately that we will be clear but there is no way of knowing until the end of the week. If we can have two tests clear then we will regain our TB-free status.

We are enduring hideous weather at present, warm and wet with strong winds. It is much too mild for the time of year and with the persistent rain we are really fed-up with having to wear water-proofs which are very hot and sweaty to work in but essential because of the rain and the mud. Oh, for a good frost!!

Samhain, All Soul's Day Biscuits

The morning after Samhain the valley is swathed in a heavy mist and the ghostly hedges interspersed with spectral trees loomed out of the mist as I trudged across the fields with the dogs who dashed in and out of sight throught the mistiness. Visibility was only a few yards and the fields seemed very empty and isolated.
The autumn colours are superb and now they are just emerging from their thick blanket of mist with a pale sun lighting up the golden leaves.
This is one of the most beautiful times of the year on the farm as we are surrounded by trees and have views across a heavily wooded valley and so we have a gilded landscape as a background to the daily chores.

The pagan festival of Samhain took place last night but today and tomorrow, the 1st & 2nd of November are All Saint's Day & All Soul's Day, two Christian festivals that tried to blot out the ancient pagan beliefs. The yew tree as symbol of everlasting life grows in many churchyards and through recent research it has been found that some of them may be anything up to four thousand years old, pre-dating Christianity and so strengthening the belief that many churches were built on ancient pagan sacred sites. There is a marvellous old yew tree at the ruined Strata Florida abbey near Tregaron in mid-Wales and also at Nevern church in Pembrokeshire.

There was tradition in Wales & elsewhere of making Soul Cakes on 2nd November, All Soul's Day and I found this recipe in a fascinating book 'Kindling the Celtic Spirit' by Mara Freeman;

1/2 tspn mace
1/2 tspn cloves
1 tspn baking powder
1 tspn baking soda
1/2 cup milk
1 ounce brandy
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup molasses
21/2 cups flour
11/2 tspn ginger
1 tspn nutmeg

Cream together the butter and sugar, add the eaggs, beat well. Add sifted dry ingredients. Blend in the brandy. Pour the thick batter into 2 greased 13"x9" baking tins and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.
Cool for about 15 minutes, then turn out onto a foil-lined falt surface and using gingerbread man cutters cut out biscuits.