March, 2008

Well, this month has been plain upsetting.

Firstly, the weather (rain, wind, snow) has seriously affected our markets such that the advantage we were feeling in January and February is now wiped out. It's quite hard work preparing for a market, getting there, setting up and serving for a morning/day, then packing away, but a job I mostly enjoy, meeting people and talking about our life on the farm. However, we have noticed that people will not come out in the wind and rain, and we had some howlers this month. At our farmers market in Old Town in Swindon, we didn't even get the umbrella's up. We sold out of the back of the vans to the stallwart regulars who battled against the elements to restock their larders! Probably the worst market I've done in a very, very long time and by the time I got home, I was suffering a sense of humour failure!

Secondly, Lorraine's father's home was burgled whilst he was away visiting us all. Anna, our eldest daughter who lives with him, returned home after work at about 1am to find the place ransacked. How distressing! Whilst only a couple of things could be accounted for as missing, everywhere was a mess and much of our late Mum's paperwork and possessions were strewn everywhere - young people looking for cash and taking advantage of an empty house :-(

Thirdly, as if we needed a way to empathise with Pop's experience, the fox visited one night and all but wiped out our flock of Ixworth chickens, 30 or so. He took the heads off some birds in the Easter chicken shed (the rest died of fright) and laid a second shed to waste too. The following night he came and took mother goose. This kind of thing just leaves a sick feeling in my stomach and customers without their Easter lunch.

Well, that was as bad as it got... we're still here to tell the tale... and some good stuff happened too!

The great seed sowing is underway and Dougal's veg plants have taken over the conservatory. Looks like we may need to extend the vegetable garden!!!

We "won" a trailer on eBay - a nice big white one for us to use for our catering stuff. Dougal has got stuck into fixing it up, building a ramp, mending the jockey wheel and stabilising legs, reattaching trim and putting on new lights. It's been for a couple of runs out to collect whey for the pigs and big sheets of wood and pulls like a dream, so I'm looking forward to having that up and running and looking very professional this year.

And finally, Emma's Cotswold sheep started to lamb. The first being Magda, who presented her with triplets at about 11pm one night. The first two got up and going fairly well, the final one was more of a cause for concern, so we brought her into the house where she has been keeping everyone awake with her "feed me NOW" bleating at all hours of the day and night. Very cute, very loud and very tasty (soon!).

There you go, the fall and rise of Vowley Farm and another month goes by.