Windfall Piglets

   It's time to catch up with our apple-mad pigs.

   The pigs arrived the day before Open Farm Sunday, and refusing to sign an involvement contract, spent most of OFS hiding.  Fortunately, pigs quickly learn that humans = food and if you bite that human, you get to the food faster as buckets fall and the air turns a little blue.  So here are the big, bad piglets now...

   They have (fingers crossed) literally grown out of their escape artist phase, but are still popular with walkers along the lane.  Those who cry "Here Piggy Piggy!" on Water Lane are rewarded by our piglet display team performing a screeching, ear-flapping yet balletic sprint in the wrong direction - their echolocation is about as highly tuned as Humbug's, and they tend to head to the food bowl first.  Something I can relate to.  But all the exercise and snuffling makes for a tasty free-range pig, and at this rate, we expect a full complement of bacon, sausages, joints and gammon for Christmas.

   Currently, they are guzzling their way through a vast quantity of apples.  With competition in our little orchard from the chickens, help is at hand from the people of Nayland - in particular the magic porridge pot of apple trees in Fen Street.  If anyone has any windfalls they would like cleared, we can put them to good use!

   In other great news, it is finally dry enough (with a little rain-dodging) to muck out the barn.  This window of dry weather has all the local farmers excited.  For us, it means for the first time this year we can transport the muck over grassland without damaging the fields.  We like the barn to be spankingly clean for the cows when they head inside for the winter and it's good to finally see that muck heading up the lane.

I am so thankful, I even papped a trailer load of manure.  I'm off now to start writing a talk for the East Essex Food and Farming Group next week.  I promise not to include the muck photo.

Farming Traditions

Harvest Festival decorations at Wiston Church

[My traditional soprano accompaniment to "We Plough the Fields.." makes local farmers thankful we only celebrate harvest once a year.]

Spuds away!

It's National Potato Week!

  Whilst we're not potato farmers (last grown at LDF in the '50s), we are surrounded by a potato growing giant, so to celebrate, we're delving into Grandad T's farming archive to compare two very different harvests...

From one horsepower  c.1945...

..to today in Horkesley

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  The valley is alive at the moment with the merry harvesters working from dawn 'til dusk to harvest the humble potato.  I like to adopt a dig-for-victory approach to growing potatoes in the garden, but Humbug rejoices in the opportunity to chase the big machines.

   And so, as Rix's workers fill the local pub comparing which model of tractor adorns their credit cards (only the most dedicated make the harvest cut), we salute the potato -provider of employment, most versatile tuber and saviour of dinnertime.

Beef chilli and baked potatoes for supper?  Yes please!

All Creatures Great and Small: Squirrel SOS

We have a squirrel stuck in a grain bin.

A squirrel, that had previously eaten through a plastic dustbin to eat the food within.  It is now quite an obese squirrel.

Arrived at the farm to find Dad has rigged up a squirrel escape route.  Apparently, "it does not like diagonal ladders"..so the escape "strategy" involves vertical ladders as well.

That's right, Dad's built a squirrel jungle gym.

It's very difficult not to fall off a ladder when you are laughing quite so much.

1 + 1 =

Two calves this morning.  Yes, that is how efficient we are (she said, laughing).  Nothing like simultaneous calving - on opposite sides of the field of course, to start the day right. First, Caribou (left), produced a non-reindeer-esque heifer calf.

Closely followed by Tepi, who very kindly allowed us time for breakfast, before producing the latest member of the Carpet Dynasty, and nephew to the lovely Axminster.

Good haul for a morning!

And also, a wake-up call. This is what happens when a calf sees my appearance first thing in the morning...

The horror.

From the belly of beasts...

 ..come forth MONSTERS! 

Introducing 'No.1's Calf Mark IX', 'Arkwright' for short - he's almost the calf equivalent of birthing the Ark Royal.

9 calves and a figure that snaps back like that?  No. 1's Calf, we salute you!

Two Calf Mondays

Why stop at one when you can have...

A daytime miracle...

and a starlight marsupial fright...

Cute now, but when it was born, it looked more like an opossum.

And that's not what you want to be faced with on a dark night.

Any name suggestions (starting with the letter 'A') for these two lovely bull calves?   Starlight calvings reduce creativity, and you should do it for the animals...otherwise, I will name the latter Apossum.

Would you trust this man with your combine?

 Questions have been asked regarding the aesthetics of the back end of this mean machine.  Little do people know that "crumple chic" is top of Claas' optional extra request list.  Yours, for a small fee.  You could of course just park it on a hill without the handbrake on.

So, good people of Essex, be not afraid for 'tis the roar of our Mer-Cat-or, not a lion, as with a puff of smoke this beast devours the spring barley.

 You can keep your Lexions and Tucanos, make mine a Mercator.