Family Christmas Away

It is New Year's Eve and having been away for Christmas I must end the the old year with a 'tidying-up' post.
The Farmer & I instead of doing what has become a our usual Christmas escape, a run down to St. David's cathedral for choral matins on Christmas morning, this year went to join all my family in a remote and rambling farmhouse in the sheep-strewn hills of Radnorshire. Our Sons stayed home of course to attend to the cows and had Christmas with small children while the Farmer & I had a splendid time in a party of twelve including all the grown-up nephews & nieces some of whom we had not seen for nearly two years. It was lovely and on Boxing Day more family arrived to make a total of eighteen for the traditional lunch of left-over turkey.
We were staying in a very old farmhouse that suited our needs perfectly and the owners had provided a beautiful Christmas tree for us. We three days of much laughter, too much food and very good company.
On Christmas morning some of us went to the eucharist service in the lovely, small, ancient church of Llandeilo Graban where we sang carols most heartily and listened to a very heart-warming homily from the cheerful and enthusiastic vicar. His message was that even if one is not a church-goer the fact that on the special days days of the year such a Christmas a need is felt to mark the day by going to a place of spirituality is important.
We had reared turkeys again this year and so were able to supply the birds for lunch as well some home-cured hams from the television pigs (see previous posts) while the rest of the family brought Christmas puddings and many other good things. We had excellent coffee as one niece is a barista home briefly from the Antipodes and a variety of cocktails concocted by one of my nephews who has become expert in that field having been working at Hawksmoor in Spitalfields in London.

The weather has been very un-Christmassy, warm and damp with heavy grey skies and mud everywhere. I do hope that we get some good cold weather soon.

On our return after three days away the most important thing that needed to be done was the slaughter of the two pigs that that the Farmer had bought to replace the tv. pigs after they had been been turned into sausages, hams and joints. So this week has seen the cold store in use once more with the carcases hanging before being butchered into the necessary parts. We will take meat to a local butcher to be made into sausages though the Farmer will cure the hams himself. Home-cured ham is delicious, quite different to commercial ham. The last hams made here were cured using dark brown sugar and there was definite treacly hint to the ham which was very good.

Younger Son is hosting a New Year's party this evening to which he has friends coming from all over the place so, no doubt, the farm will be dotted about with hangover victims tomorrow. Unfortunately the barista cousin is on her way back to New Zealand so is not available to make sure of a goodly flow of coffee to clear the heads in the morning.


Blwyddyn Newydd Dda Happy New Year

Storm-tossed Gulls

As I sit here in the farm office I am looking out onto a sky full of gulls, hundreds of them wheeling about against a grey cold sky. They are pure white as they come closer to the house but those that are drifting higher are the colour of shadows as they toss and turn in the blustering winds that are buffeting the house and causing the trees to wave their leafless limbs in supplication against the storm. All night the tempest has roared causing the old house, which must have endured so many such batterings in its 400-plus year history, to shudder and tremble and now in the morning the winds have not abated and windows rattle, even upstairs floors shiver and doors swing as though the shades of past inhabitants are seeking corners to hide.
A chill rain has now started to fall from the darkened skies yet I can still hear the small hedgerow birds chirping to each other as they flutter through the hedges looking for food and shelter, blackbirds, thrushes, sparrows and finches to say nothing of the robins who all frequent the gardens and live in the thick ivy that grow smotheringly up the trees and along walls.

It is a day for the making of a hearty soup for lunch and then the baking of old-fashioned comfort food, scones & chocolate cake to be eaten with a cup of aromatic tea by a log fire. I have just put the marzipan on the Christams cakes and set them aside for a couple of days before dressing them up in their royal icing with the old family decorations.

The Secret Life of Farm Animals on BBC4, Polish family at Penyrallt

Tonight sees the broadcast of the television programme we spent much of the summer working on. The programme is called 'The Secret Life of Farm Animals' and is to be shown on BBC4 at 8.00pm tonight, Thursday 6th December. (I'm sure it will on BBC iPlayer soon after broadcast if you miss it.) It is the first of 3 episodes each an hour long. We have been told that the trailers for it have been lovely but as we don't have television (not for 30 years!)we have not seen them but we shall be going over to one of the Son's houses to watch. It will be very interesting to see how the long hours of filming with sometimes rather unco-operative livestock will have been edited and put together in what I've been promised will be a very beautiful programme. We were not the only farm that used as a location and we are curious to see the other farms featured.

It's been a while since my last post, things have been busy we seem to have been off the farm quite a bit lately. One of the outings was to the Royal Welsh Winter Fair at Builth Wells. It was good day out catching up with old friends and bumping into neighbours whom we rarely see though they may live only a couple of miles away. There was much of interest to see and the Farmer spend much time talking to reps. from a variety of agricultural and technology companies about the merits of alternative technologies, the latest designs in mowing machines or lighting for miklking parlours. I did some Christmas shopping or as the Farmer irritatingly refers to it 'retail therapy'!

The Jack Russell puppies are thriving, now six weeks old and very lively and jolly. We have homes for them both, one is going to live on sheep farm up near Lampeter and the other is going as a family pet down in South Wales. Both little dogs will have very happy homes

Another of our trips out was to meet a friend in the attractive samll town of Llandeilo being a reasonably central point for us all. We meet for a delicious lunch in the Cawdor Hotel and caught up with family news from both sides.
We first met Krystyna some 15 years ago when she called at the farm in search of her history. It turned out that she had been born in our farmhouse, the child of a Polish cavalry officer who with a fellow officer had bought the farm after the end of the Second World War. Her father had been from a very wealthy background in Poland but had lost the family estates due to the takeover of Poland by Germany. Somehow he survived the horrors of Katyn Forest and ended up in Britain and turned to farming to build a new life. What brought him to what, at the time, was a remote corner of west Wales I don't know, unless land was cheap here. However he and his fellow ex-cavalry officer worked Penyrallt for a few years and raised their families before moving on elsewhere. It is an amazing story but not unique as there similar tales of Polish soldiers settling in other parts of Carmarthenshire. Krystyna had traced the address of the farm and came to see us. She was so delighted to see the farm and of course we gave her a warm welcome and showed her round. It turned out that she had photographs of the farm back in the early 1950's but had never been able to work out their location but was now able to match the images with the reality. It had not changed so very much. We have since become friends and she and her Scottish husband and her family have visited us several times and we have been to her home in mid-Wales. She also lives in London and has an apartment in Cracow. Her Polish heritage is hugely important, she receives Polish television & radio in her house and has brought her family up in Polish traditions. She is an artist specialising in religious icons and exhibits in London.She is a delightful addition to our circle of friends though we don't meet up very often and her story is part of the fascinating and rich history of an old farm in west Wales.

Pembrokeshire Holiday, Jack Russell Puppies

Last week the Farmer & I ran away for few days and spent a lovely time down in Pembrokeshire near Abermawr. Although it is not far for us to go it is real break from the farm routine and if need be we can be back very quickly. We had glorious weather and walked sections of the Pembrokeshire Coast Path in beautiful sunshine. We saw many seal pups lounging fatly on tiny inaccessible beaches whilst their mums kept a careful eye on them from the water, as well as choughs, kestrels and even a homing pigeon grazing on the edge of a a field of stubble...I hope it was not lost. We went down to St David's and walked around the lovely cathedral once more then visited a very good second-hand bookshop & came away with good haul of vintage reading matter. The cottage we were staying in was opposite an old church and wandering around the churchyard in the gloaming we came across the grave of an unknown man found washed up on Abermawr beach in 1916 who was buried by the local people in the churchyard. It is thought he may have been a mariner from a ship lost to enemy action. An intriguing and sad story of another unknown warrior but given decent burial by compassionate strangers in what may have been a land unknown to the dead man.

The flood waters have receded but we are hearing of many people in the locality who are having to dry out their homes and are in temporary lodging. The Farmer is being kept busy dealing with fallen trees both on our own land & on that of neighbours. A silver lining to the storm is that we will all have plentiful supply of fire-wood for some time to come.

Two days after we came home my Jack Russell terrier produced two dear little puppies, one boy, one girl. They are doing very well and spend their time with Dottie snug in a bed by the Rayburn in the kitchen. They will be allowed to stay indoors until they start to become mobile at which point we shall put them out in a lovely hay-lined nest in one of the buildings where they will be safe and not piddling all over the kitchen floor!

Storm Callum hits the Teifi Valley

This is the scene near our village over the last weekend when we were battered by Storm Callum. The villages in the Teifi Valley have suffered badly with massive flooding and many houses and businesses have been badly damaged. We here on the farm came of lightly being half way up a hill but we had torrential amounts of water pouring down of the fields and through our yard and several trees came down. Our electricity supply was affected which was frustrating especially at milking times but it was all manageable. The Farmer and I remember the last time this happened 30 years ago. There are strange sights to be seen such as canoes stuck up in trees and silage bales in odd places having been washed down by the torrent. Many of the bridges across the river have been damaged and are closed to traffic which is going to make life difficult for many of us as most of our villages have to be accessed by crossing the river.
The Farmer was hero of the hour going to the aid of some friends of ours who live in an old mill right on the river. When the river water came into their basement the Farmer went down to rescue them and their 5 week old baby before they were completely trapped. As it was he had to piggy-back the new mum down from the first floor of the building as their steps were under water to almost waist height. Mum & baby spent the night with us, the dad having opted to stay put and do what he could to rescue things. Fortunately the water did not quite reach to ceiling of the basement so did not enter their their first floor living area but the resultant mess now that the waters have dropped is pretty awful.
Neighbours have also called upon the Farmer and Sons to go and cut trees that have fallen across their tracks.
The most tragic story from the weekend was of course the death in a landslide of a young man from our small market town. He was known to us slightly and his death has shaken the community far more than the material damage done to bricks and mortar.

Holiday Cottage with Hot Tub

The past couple of weeks have been spent installing a wood-fired hot tub for the use of our guests in the holiday cottage. It is a handsome piece of kit looking like a large barrel. It is made of larch with an internal fire-box and can take 4 adults comfortably. The Farmer has been busy cutting planking for the decking around it and it will eventually have some sort of fencing or trellis around two sides to give it a little more privacy while still having a view across the paddock and pond. My daughters-in-law have said there need to be solar-powered fairy lights and such prettinesses draped around it and no doubt it will be dressed up to look very attractive but we've got to get the basics finished first. It will be available to guests from the first week in November. A deadline is always a good spur to get on with a job!

Autumn is certainly upon us now with the days drawing in & leaves falling & colours changing across the landscape.Tthe hedgerows are full of berries and as I sit here now I can see blue tits and great tits foraging in the cotoneaster which is laden with rich fruit with blackbirds and sparrows trawling the field hedges for late blackberries and rose-hips. The hawthorns & rowans have been heavy with berries and the sloes are ripening which as soon as there is a frost we must gather for making sloe gin. Walking around the farm there are fungi everywhere of all kinds especially on fallen timber which is gently decaying into the woodland floor.

We have managed to get a third cut of silage in the recent good weather and the supply of winter fodder is looking plentiful, always a good thing.

Wildlife Conservation & Farming

Today is the Autumn equinox and very blowy and blustery it is too, just lovely. Blue skies with fluffy picture-book clouds scudding across in the face of a cheerful wind making the treetops dance and sending a sea-sound of sighs through the branches, a glorious afternoon for being blown with the dogs across the fields.
There has been much pontificating in social media & elsewhere lately about how the countryside is bereft of wildlife and how the wicked farming food-producers are to blame. Admittedly there are areas where intensive farming has reduced the amount of wildlife by farming practice which cannot be above critiscism but I am sad to think that the vocal conservation lobbyists are tarring all farmers and land-owners with the same brush. We here at Penyrallt have prided ourselves for many years on the huge diversity of species that can be found on our land. I made a rough list of what I have observed here over the years and it comes to well over a hundred different species of trees, wildflowers, butterflies, moths, hedgerow-plants, insects, mammals, birds, fungi etc. and those are only what I have actually seen for myself. There will be many more that live their lives unseen and unobserved. A single oak tree provides habitat for over 500 different species and we have many oak trees around the farm. There are corners of the farm that are left uncultivated & rarely visited, we have vigorous nettle patches and wild corners with bramble thickets, four ponds & squelchy patches of boggy land that are left for the insects, small mammals, grass-snakes & buterflies amongst others. We have owls and bats resident in our house and in the farm buildings, swallows and martins return each year to their ancestral breeding posts in the eaves of the house and barns. We are surrounded by multitudinous wildlife which live alongside the very animals that are kept to produce food for the nation and it is sad that we and so many other farmers who live similarly are verbally attacked by media personalities and their followers.
We are an 'open farm' and welcome anyone who wishes to come and see for themselves how a hard-working dairy farm is run and to learn that wildlife and modern farming practice can exist in conjunction and harmony.

September. Local Agricultural Show

September has arrived bringing with it some glorious weather, this photo is of the mist rising off one of our recently ploughed fields this morning with the promise of a beautiful day of clear blue skies and sunshine. A neighbour arrived shortly after this picture wa taken to start power-harrowing the field in preparation for the new grass seed going in later today.

The past weekend was busy with us attending the local agricultural show. The Farmer is on the committeea and so was bsuy a couple of days beforehand helping organise the setting-up & on the day itself he was stewarding for the beef cattle judge which means he was in charge of the rosettes and in making sure all the entrants were in the right place at the right. With several classes to oversee it was a long day. We as a family did our usual thing of entering the baking and craft sections. The grandchildren entered various classes involving decorating weetabix (I kid you not!)and faces made of sweeties on a paper plate. My entries were a lttle more mature and conventional and I was very pleased though somewhat surprised to receive a first prize for my 'Colour Photograph suitable for a Birthday card'(see the photo below) with some very stiff competition and a third for my 'Floral Arrangement in a Cup & Saucer' (flower arranging is not really one of my primary skills!)along with a handful of placings for various bits of baking. So,an enjoyable if tiring day as we spend the whole day up on the show field which is great opportunity for meeting up friends and neighbours whom we don't see very often.

As well as cattle and sheep being shown, and a dog show and the Domestic and Handicraft, Floral and Horticultural competitions there are displays of vintage tractors and the local hunt, The Vale of Clettwr, come into the ring with the hounds which run in their usual joyous rabble and all the children are invited to come into the ring to meet the hounds face-to-face which is always hugely popular.