More hay pix

It's hot work - but it really is as idyllic as it looks.  And the satisfaction with a crop like that!  Wow.

It's that time of year again

Hay!
Wonderful stuff.
There are three fields to make this year, and it's a lovely thick crop after the mild wet winter and hot summer.  The sheep are a bit pinched for grazing in this heat, but I have to look ahead to the winter too.

This year, as last, Nick from Monmouth is making it for me.  He did time at an agricultural college, worked on a farm for years, still misses it.  Even so, I have to pay him!  So half the crop of bales will be stacked in one of the fields, under a tarpaulin, until I can find buyers for it.  I can advertise it as "lighter bales very suitable for ladies" - because that's how I need them to be.

After my "winter horribilis" I still haven't got round to buying in any pigs, and the veg garden is sparsely planted this summer, but I have had a brilliant idea - of moving most of the veg growing back down behind the house (the proper permaculture place for it) where it's more easily available for short spells of work or picking.  The poplar windbreak has got so overgrown that the air behind the house there is often stagnant and laden with spores in a hot summer, which is bad for veg.  One, I will have the poplars severely cut back (thereby providing myself with large quantities of firewood and wood chips for mulch), and two, I will just have to live with that!  This means, too, that I can alternate veg and hens out there, utilizing the hens' fertility - a very good thing.

In this pic you can just about see the faces of two house martins peering out of the nest, awaiting the arrival of the parents with beakfuls of insects.  They are nearly ready to fly.  I am thrilled about this, because they're the first house martins to have fledged in all my 26 summers here.  Twice, a pair has tried, and each time the magpies waited till the eggs hatched and then struck.  This year it was the magpies who got struck; by the jackdaws.  I cheered, I'm afraid (anthropomorphism at work.  But if I provide a lovely soffit for house martins, I don't see why I shouldn't have the result  . . . . .  ).

Where next?

If you have read earlier posts, you will have seen that my mother died last October in her cottage on the farm, after living here for 18 years, and contributing far more than her age - 80s, 90s - might warrant.

A month ago my husband died in his nursing home. We had bought the farm together in 1989, after 10 years of partnership, and ran it together for 14 years as the first registered organic farm in Gwent.  Michael suffered a series of strokes from high blood pressure after the Foot and Mouth outbreak of 2001, lost more and more of his mental capacity, and finally retired to a nursing home in 2009.  I have been effectively running the farm's 30 acres (11 hectares) single-handed since 2004, and expected to be able to go on doing more of the same now as a single woman, but I find that - at any rate to begin with! - it's quite different.

I am struggling with the responsibility and all the work involved.  No doubt many wwoofers will be a little put off by this.  But, if you aren't, I need strong arms and minds more than ever before!  I believe I am as sociable and talkative as before - but am finding it difficult to cope with the immense business of keeping the place on its feet.  If anyone feels like being a lifebelt - do, please, get in touch!

. . . . . And so spring springs, as ever

There's something about lambs  .....

No.2 ewe, on the left here, gave me some sleepless nights.  For weeks she was globular, with an udder like a football.  But she had just the one lamb, this morning, large and fit, and both are healthy.



 
This not-so-little mite was no.1, born three days ago, and is getting deeply curious about his human carers already.








And here are the first twins.  Their spotty knees are the genetic inheritance from their mum; her breed is mostly Ryeland, a medieval breed based locally, between Hereford, Ross on Wye and Monmouth, and developed to make the most of the local red soil which lacks some minerals.  We've always found they do well here; should I go back to that breed after my trial of primitive Hebridean sheep?  My major problem with the Hebs is their colour - black - impossible to find under a hedge on a dark night.  I hadn't thought of that.

But don't forget the veg garden! It's still claggy and water-bound, but now is time to start sowing - broad beans in the tunnel, and tomatoes, celeriac, chillis, and more in the greenhouse.  The ground would be warming now if it weren't so wet.

Wet

"Wet" doesn't do it justice  . . . . .  In the past 8 weeks the farm has had 500mm (20 inches, in old money) of rain.  To put ir into context, the hot dry year of 2003 gave us a total of 636mm in the whole 12 months. Most years we get around 900mm.

Not much can be done in these conditions!  The higher end of the farm is just very wet - but the bottom is completely sodden from the rain rushing off the lane and through the fields on its way to the stream.  The veg garden is in the middle.  There will be more slugs than soil come spring.  Thank goodness there are no pigs on site right now.

 
Wet sheep.  I've moved them uphill now; their new field will soon be a bog too.






Wet hens.  They spend the day sheltering by the back door.  No wind or rain there, but lots of mess for me to step through.




I'm still hibernating.  Roll on spring!  And the fun of tackling those slugs!  Wwoofers, you will be so welcome!

And So ... ... ...

What a long year.  Achievements seem in short supply.

It was a lovely autumn; much drier than usual; the leaves hung on the oaks till mid-December, and the ones that did fall were heaped in toasty piles round the trees and hedges.  Until last week, that is, when the rain started again  ...  oh lor'.  The sheep stand round with their heads down, waiting for it to stop; the hens cluster round the back door, tapping on the glass to be let in; the cats leave a line of muddy paw prints along the edges of my bed, before jumping up and drying themselves on me and my night-clothes.

Next year's aims; yes, let's be positive! :

1.  More pigs again.

2.  Try to sell the first year's (2012 and 2013) half-bred Hebridean lambs.

3.  Find the right tenants for my mother's little cottage.  (May be there already with that one.)

4.  Of course, get the veg garden in spick-and-span, top-class condition.  You wouldn't believe how hard that can actually be!

Happy Solstice / Yule / Christmas-if-you-must to you all!

The End of an Era

No doubt many wwoofers remember my mother, happily digging and weeding in the vegetable garden into her 93rd year.  She loved working in the sun, and sitting in the sun.  Between 2005 and 2009, when all my time and energy went into being sole 24-hour carer for my husband, she alone kept the veg garden alive; it's only thanks to her efforts that I have somewhere moderately clear to grow food today.  She was 85-89 during that time.

Over the last summer her health declined and she died in October of heart failure.  She was 93 and a half - she was always proud of reaching the half-way point to the next milestone.

Sustainability shouldn't end there.  The family wanted, as she would have wanted, the most green and natural burial possible.  With the support of a Natural Burial Ground near Monmouth, we buried her shrouded in her beloved cellular blankets (pure wool) with no coffin, straight into the grave in a dedicated and very beautiful field.

  She is lying in her pink blankets, by the grave.












And is being lowered into the ground by her son-in-law, grandsons, and eldest nephew.

And is settled gently into the comfort of her last resting place.









We'd all recommend this as a moving and very personal way to say goodbye.

Now back to work on the farm and garden and orchard  . . . . .  I may have laid hands on a pair of horses at last.  They are so tiny that I could almost pick the smallest one up in my arms.