March 2006

This has to have been one of our lowest months on the farm. Our financial situation has reached a crisis, exacerbated by the lack of single farm payment from DEFRA.

Spring suggested she would arrive at the beginning of the month, but then brought with her rain and wind such that everywhere was wet and boggy, worse than it had been at times in the winter! The cows stayed in the barns and the puddles got deeper. Fortunately it was easy to plant some little trees we have been nursing and they are in the chicken paddock hopefully to provide a bit of shelter for these little feathered ones in years to come.

One of the hard (and often inspiring) things we have found about working with animals is that they see life differently from us and just don't conform to our "norm's". At some point during the wetness of this month, the horses decided a change of scenery was needed and forayed over and through the electric fencing and into our neighbours garden. Unfortunately, it was several incursions over a number of days/nights that lit the fuse on our neighbour's temper - first Bruce demonstrated his Badminton potential by jumping the 5' wire from a standing start! Then Barnaby and Jazz took a moonlit walk... and not to be outdone, little Blitzen (a miniature Shetland Pony) found a perfect pathway through electric fence and stockwire. Needless to say, a relationship that is already uncomfortable became downright hostile, further aggravated when the gates on the back yard mysteriously blew open and 4 steers disappeared off up the bridleway and also found their way into the garden. I currently have the feeling that someone or something is working against us. We are doing our best right now to be understanding of their anger and make amends for these intrusions and the marks left by hoofprints. They are filled with compost and will be seeded and topsoiled so that by summer, all should be well and the horses have an ever increasing barracade of taller wire, trailers and other obstacles to dissuade future assaults.

So, whilst the overwhelming tone of this month is of deep frustration and downright hard slog, there are some lighter touches I can share.

We've had lots of support from our friends, WWOOFers and family with suggestions of how to improve things, who we might contact and a network of people interested in talking with us about our produce and our lives here. Mark especially took all this to heart and set to creating a new web site!

He took this work with him when he went on a bonding (and skiing) mission to stay with our daughter Emily who is currently working as a chalet girl in France. That left me and some girlfriends in charge of the farm for a few days... we had a fun, good and productive time! The turkeys started laying - lovely cream coloured eggs with light brown speckles, very pretty. We cleaned the yards, built a fence, planted seeds, created a path, did some spinning, cut one of our friend Emma's Cotswold Lambs and even managed a day out to Bradford-on-Avon (have you seen the fantastic cheese shop there?) and Stourhead when my Mum and Dad came for a few days.

In spite of the good stuff... I can't say I'm sorry to see the end of March.