January 2008

We start the new year "cautiously optimistic"! Our Christmas sales were good and January has been steady. For the first time I feel as if we have turned a corner and it really looks like we can make life work here. Not only is there light at the end of the tunnel, but perhaps the end of the tunnel is in sight... how exciting!

Winter grips the farm... mud everywhere and water on the fields... Dougal's making hurdles... Travis came and did some spectacular hedge laying... Lorraine's knitting socks for everyone... markets are cold and wet... but... by the middle of the month we were able to load pigs for the abattoir without using the barn lights :-)

One of the jobs when you have new calves is to give them a couple of ear tags - we use one metal and one yellow plastic one (rules and regulations so that you always know which animal is which) - and castrate the boys (well, we do that because we don't have capacity to keep another bull and let him grow up separate from his mum and sisters) - and we try to do this on day 3 or 4, otherwise you can't catch the little beggars! So, tools to the ready, we set about this task with some of the newborns in the back yard. Liberty, who you may recall was born in the field last September, still hasn't been caught. We will run her through our cattle crush when we have more time, but she's got too big to catch and hold (as Dougal found out!). Lady Penelope didn't even bother to get up, Pugh was quite unaffected by the whole manhandling experience, (although his mother, Patsy, had plenty to say on the matter all starting with a loud MOOOOO!), Spotty and Sparky both behaved very amenably... then came Patties boy. NB: If you are of a squeamish disposition, perhaps you'd better skip the rest of this paragraph! We caught him easily enough... ear tags were attached without too much ado... but when it came to attending to his nether regions that was quite a different matter. Now, what you need to do when castrating a young calf is find the testicles (2 - that's an important number in this operation!), then slip a small elastic band, specially designed for the purpose, over them. Within a week or so, they just drop off and the little ones seem none the worse for the experience. Whilst it's easy enough to describe, sometimes the practicalities are more challenging, and so was the case with Patties boy. He kept sucking one of his testicles back up into his body so we could not do the job. I guess, who can blame him, but this will cause us a problem later in the year. Anyway, after several attempts, it was clear that he was not going to play ball (if you'll excuse the expression) so we left him to it... we have his number marked and will get the vet out to do the deed with scalpel and ligature thread when he's a bit bigger. Now, aren't you glad I told you that? Bet that's made a huge difference to your life!!!

Towards the end of the month it was my birthday and we went to Venture in Malmesbury for a family photo shoot. If you want a family portrait done, something that's not your usual sit up and look pretty shot, you could do worse than find your nearest Venture studio - www.thisisventure.co.uk - we had a great time and await with baited breath the results of us playing with the dog, drinking champagne, tickling each other, blowing bubbles, hugging, leaning and running together. We had fun.