Mud Men Series 3, School Visit, Growing Puppies

We have just had a busy day with a film crew from ITN making a programme for the Mud Men series for the History Channel.
A crew of eight turned up this morning including the two presenters of the programmes, Johnny Vaughan & Steve Brooker. The reason they were here on the farm was for the Farmer to show them the care of sheep for a programme about the medieval wool industry in England & Wales. They had already filmed at the National Wool Museum which is only 10 minutes down the road from us and came to the farm for some hands-on experience with real live sheep.
 It all went well & after lunch which I provided (soup, home-made bread & cheese & bara brith...very easy) they went on to film a sequence involving a sheep carcase (which in true Blue Peter style the Farmer had prepared earlier...or at least off camera!) and locating & removing the bladder to demonstrate how it was inflated for medieval football type fun & games for a seperate episode in the series about the history of sport. The bladder was inflated using compressed air and we were all quite impressed at how much a sheeps bladder would inflate, though not really big enough to play football. I think in medieval times the bladder would have been stuffed with hay & dried rather than blown up, I should check that out really.
Mud Men is a programme we had not heard of, but apparently is very good & has quite a following, hence the 3rd series being made. It is based around finds from the mud of the Thames by the mud men and then follows through the history of items and their uses and the wider stories of the industries & occupations for which they would have been made.

Tomorrow we have a visit by some pupils from a high school in Cardiff which should be interesting. We have had only primary school visits up till now and it will be good to have older children to talk to and show round the farm.

The puppies are growing apace at nearly 6 weeks old.and are now everywhere...terribly sweet & funny but bit of a nightmare out on the yard when they cluster around ones ankles making progress somewhat tricky without causing them to squeak as you try to avoid treading on their toes. Their long suffering mother will be very glad to see them leave for their new homes in a couple of weeks time. She really does not enjoy puppies unlike the old dog Poppy who just adopts them all and allows them great liberties with her kennel and her person.

Sometimes I sits & thinks & sometimes I just sits.

Kathryn Tickell;Northumbrian Voices, Thriving Puppies, Exmoor Holiday

Last evening the Farmer & I went to a wonderful gig at Theatr  Mwldan in Cardigan given by the acclaimed Northumbrian small pipe player Kathryn Tickell and her band. It was fabulous...wonderful music, great words & feeling. The show was called Northumbrian Voices and featured Mike Tickell, Kathryn's father speaking the words of the farmers & shepherds of the Northumbrian moorlands. It was a telling of stories & singing of songs celebrating traditions & a way of life that are under threat and are yet still living on in the lives of  farmers and the country people, particularly in the remoter parts of the British Isles...much that was spoken of resonated with those of us farming in the Welsh hills & how we are bedevilled by government environmentalists & the needs of modern people; how young women will no longer accept a life of isolation on a hill farm, how environmental scientists come along and disturb habitats & centuries old ways of living on the land with particular reference to hefted sheep (and although it was not mentioned, hefted people) and how removing them from their traditional lands the knowledge of how to live there dies and can never be brought back.
It was evening of joyous music-making and deep thought. If you get chance to see Kathryn Tickell in concert do go.

The puppies are now just over 5 weeks old and very jolly. They are thriving and I have got good homes for all but one sweet little black bitch & one sturdy chocolate dog. I have problems downloading pictures from my camera at present so you will just have to imagine how lovely they are and what fun.

The Farmer & I had four days away (!) last week down on Exmoor. We had a lovely quiet time walking & reading mainly & visiting the lovely antiquarian bookshop & several galleries in the pretty village of Dulverton.
 It was a much needed break after a very busy summer but as the Farmer said on our return on Friday evening he has 'hit the ground running' and has been kept fully occupied with various things from the moment we got home.
I had expected to get back to welcome guests to the holiday cottage from New Zealand but had a message to say they had cancelled their trip, so I have week empty which I should turn to my advantage and use to do some decorating in the cottage. It gets well worn over the summer season and paintwork needs touching up so I am now off armed with paint-brush and a tin of white gloss to paint window frames...what joy!

Growing Puppies, Missing Calf Turns Up, Autumnal Insects

The puppies are now two weeks old and have grown hugely. This morning was the first day when their eyes are properly open and they were so funny trying to lumber around their nest and discovering thier siblings. Up to now of course they have lived in a world of smells and warmth, needing to be in huddles for warmth and now with vision, albeit rather blurry, they can start to explore. This next week will see them rapidly change into jolly playful pups & hopefully if the sun is shining they will be able to play outside.

We have started calving and so far have had an excellent start with two sets of heifer twins which is very unusual. One pair of twins was real surprise to us as the cow had calved out in the field and when Elder Son & the Farmer brought her in they brought one calf with her, it being the only calf to be seen. The reasonable thought was that she just had the one  as twins are unusual as I've said.  However, 36 hours (!!!!) later our neighbour from the bottom of the farm appeared saying that he had found a very small calf on the woodland track between his place & ours, which surprised him & us not a little. On investigation this small creature was the twin to one brought in two nights before and must have been lying hidden in undergrowth and had then toppled down the steep wooded bank to the trackway. It was completely unharmed and perfectly fit & healthy. The Farmer  reckons it had fed very well before going to sleep in clump of bracken where it was so well concealed, which had seen it through its ordeal. It is extraodinary how well baby creatures can survive, though admittedly she probably would not have coped with another night out. Thank goodness our neighbour walks up the track every day excercising his dog in our lower fields.

We have entered the spider & daddy-longlegs season...they are everywhere. I am constantly having to clear them away from corners, unfortunately they are particularly fond of the holiday cottage & I have real battle keeping the place as free of them as I can. Old country cottages & farmhouses are much more organic than town houses, we have nature encroaching upon us at every opportunity, having had bats flying around in the farmhouse these last few evenings (though they soon find they way out through the open windows again) as well as the spiders, moths, daddy-longlegs & beautiful shiny black beetles than venture over the doorstep.

New Litter of Labrador Puppies

Last night my black lab Hattie produced a litter of 8 beautiful puppies, 4 black , 4 chocolate, 5 females, 3 boys. Just perfect.
She had the first puppy without any trouble during the afternoon but by 9 o'clock in the evening no more had appeared so we had to make an out-of-hours emergency visit to the vet. It was found that the next puppy in the queue had arranged iteslf sideways across the birth canal with one front leg sticking out. After much manipulation & judicious use of forceps the puppy was turned around and brought into the world, fine & healthy. We then returned home and from then on the puppies arrived at regular intervals with the last one  being born about 1 o'clock am. I sat up until I was sure there were no more to come & then left Hattie who was none the worse for the early difficulty & settled down proudly with her new family.
Our old Lab Poppy has as usual come into milk and over the next few days we will gradually introduce the puppies to her to be fed which eases the demands on Hattie. Poppy is a brilliant surrogate mother and loves feeding puppies. Even though it is a couple of years between litters she drops into the role very happily each time.
This morning Hattie was contendedly curled up with the puppies who look like little moles and squeak incessantly until they are warm & well-fed when they drop into the deep slumbers of tiny babies with the occasional twitch of a minute paw as they dream their milky dreams.

After the incessant rain yesterday, I don't think it stopped at all, today started out wet but now in the middle of the afternoon we have blue skies and sunshine which hopefully will dry up the sodden lawns and the squelching yard.

Polish Connections

After a long gap of several years we had visit today from a friend who is of a Polish family but was born here at Penyrallt.
We first met Krystyna when she came to the farm looking for her birthplace. Her story, or rather that of her parents is extraordinary. Her father had been a Polish cavalry officer who fought in the last cavalry charge against Russian tanks during the 2nd World War. He was captured by the Russians and narrowly escaped being one of the victims of the massacre of Polish officers in the Katyn Forest where thousands were shot.
 Krystyna's mother had been captured by the Russians also and was sent to a camp in Siberia. She survived that terrible place. Somehow after the war they made their way to Britain and were married in Leicester & in turn somehow ended up buying a farm in Wales. They lived here for only two years but during that time Krystyna was born and although she was only  baby when they left she had been brought up with stories of the Welsh farm. When we went to visit her she showed us her family photographs and there were pictures of Penyrallt as it was in the late 1940's.
This Polish connection is another example of how varied & odd the history of the farm is & how many different people from all kinds of backgrounds  have been involved in its story. Certainly the idea of an aristocratic Polish cavalry officer living here is one of the most intriguing.
Krystyna now lives in Kracow & near Builth Wells where she runs a very good B&B in her lovely house in the Welsh hills (www.theyat.net).

End of the London Olympics & More Silage.

While the rest of the nation was watching the end of the Olympics here in the countryside the need to cut yet more grass for winter fodder was upon us as we had few dry hot days again...the Farmer & Sons have spent the last three long days on silage again & now it is pouring with rain once more.
As I don't get involved with tractors driving, thank goodness, I was able to view some of the last Olympic events including the Men's Marathon...such a triumph for the Ugandan winner!
We did watch the Closing Ceremony which was great fun, even the Farmer watched it to the end despite his grumpiness about it starting so late. The party atmosphere was wonderful and the whole thing, while still having a very surreal quality about it as did the Opening Ceremony, seemed to work. Timothy Spall as Churchill declaiming Shakespeare was definitely bizarre (& when is Mr Spall going to become Sir Timothy?) & Ray Davies performing 'Waterloo Sunset' was great. Once again it was all just quite mad & Britishly (?) eccentric & huge fun.
I hope the athletes can all go home feeling that London had given them a massive 'thank you' concert.

Olympic Athletes Drink Organic Milk

We have another few days relief from the rain and as usual there is mad rush to get grass cut and baled before the next bout of low pressure sweeps in across us as is due tomorrow night. The Farmer & Sons are rushing about in tractors with complicated bits of machinery hitched on the back  keeping ahead of the weather which really ought to become an Olympic sport!

Talking of the Olympics, which I had vowed to avoid at all costs, I find I have been inexorably sucked into the vortex of national pride & enthusiasm for our athletes, and of course for all those from other nations. Although we do not have tv I have been able to watch elsewhere & the BBC live coverage of the games has been fantastic ( the computer generated picture of London that has been used for the live broadcasts is stunningly beautiful). Yes, we did see Usain Bolt become the greatest athlete in the world.
The number of medals that Team GB has won is amazing, though I do have problem with women's boxing, or any kind of boxing actually. I really do believe it should be banned. I also found the women's wrestling quite hard to watch for more than a couple of minutes.
What has struck me is how incredibly efficiently the whole thing has been run & organised...it must have been the most complicated timetable plan imaginable.
On a great note for us organic dairy farmers apparently the athletes have consumed 75.000 litres of ORGANIC milk which can only be good thing for sales of all organic food in this country, one hopes.

Dairy Farming, Olympics Viewing Depsite Resolve to Avoid It All!

Go to www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/19061889 for a very good piece on informing the public about the dairy industry.
With the Olympics dominating the news the dairy farmers have been short of air time so I was very pleased to see this article on the BBC website.

Well, despite my moaning about the Olympics, the expense, the media frenzy, the general pointlessness of all that physical energy being expended without an end product like a trailer full of hay bales all hefted up on a pitchfork or a 100 sheep having been shorn & having no tv,  I will confess to having given in.
I watched some of the opening ceremony (bizarre, wierd, messy & endearing) and to seeing the equestrian events & the men's gymnastics on BBC Live on the computer. Wow! Both events were gripping & I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing, but that's me done now...I don't feel the need to see much more of it.  I had said to the family all along that if I was to watch any of the Games it would be the horse events and the gymnastics though they are accusing me of gross hypocrisy in having watched any of it at all, but then that's families for you!

We are back with torrential rainstorms again & strong winds which are wrecking the gardens unfortunately but the change in the weather does mean the menfolk are having a more restfull week after the frantic activity during the recent good weather.