Archived News

6th July 2008

Fred used to say to Laurence ‘maize should be up to your knees by July’.  Well here we are in July and the maize that started off under plastic is now over 5 foot tall - above Laurence’s shoulder!  It’s raining today which is good for the crops and just what they need before the summer, should it ever arrive.

It’s been another eventful week on and off the farm, with no time to write. The week started off with a routine visit to the vet with Brock, my fifteen year old dog.  He seems fine in himself, just getting old.  I weighed him on arrival and he has lost 1.5 kilos since January so after a good chat with Helen, the vet, some bloods were taken for analysis.

By Tuesday morning I heard that the results indicated a liver shunt or a liver tumour and the latter was confirmed by an ultrasound at lunchtime.  Helen has been fantastic explaining everything and talking through the options but there is a lot to take in and consider.  I can still remember the day I went to collect this delightful little pup in Northamptonshire.  I saw him sitting quietly at the top of the garden path, as if waiting just for me.  Brock came to us before we were married and before our children so inevitably there is a very strong bond between us.

The likelihood is that the tumour will rupture any day now, so we are trying to ensue he doesn’t spring about as he normally tries to do and he mustn’t get bumped or knocked by children or dogs which is quite a challenge.  We go back to the vet tomorrow and decisions need to be made, it is incredibly difficult when I am greeted by a wagging tail each morning and Brock is still trying to play stick with Monty.

Catherine Peters came to visit us this week from EdComs, an educational consultancy that is  developing ‘Countryside Investigators’ an inspirational Key Stage 2 education resource for the internet about the countryside, teaching children about various aspects of the countryside – a farm, a village, woodland and a country estate.  This will involve two children from the city coming out into the countryside to meet farmers, a vet, a village shop keeper, river keeper and game keeper. Short films for each of these rural professions will be built into a website with a virtual village and many educational games. It all sounds very interesting and we look forward to meeting the EdComs team again in August for filming.

Laurence and I went to the Royal Agricultural Show at Stoneleigh on Thursday, which from an agricultural point of view was actually quite a disappointing day.  There was so little to see that was agricultural compared with even a few years ago.  The main machinery displays have all but gone and can only be seen at the Cereals Event and this year just three of the huge livestock sheds were filled compared to ten sheds in the past.  The particularly low livestock turn-out was due to the Bluetongue zoning. 

Still, we enjoyed sampling regional food and bought a few false eggs to encourage our hens to lay in the nesting boxes rather than secret locations around the farm yard.  

We also found a man selling CCTV to farmers and doing a roaring trade. One lady was returning to buy a night vision camera, having bought a day-time camera last year. It was worth us stopping because we have had numerous thefts from the farm including our welding kit and diesel, in fact just the previous day thieves tried to break into the diesel tank yet again.

They are very brazen and come to the farm three or four times a week.  I caught a couple of men last year trying to steal diesel in the farm yard at lunchtime but thankfully, when I challenged them they fled.  A couple of weeks ago I found three men loading their lorry with our scrap metal (which we aim to sell, not have stolen).  Again I challenged them and was given a cock and bull story about their starving families. I replied along the lines, that I wasn’t born yesterday and they should work for a living not thieve from others who do work.  I was glad when they left.

Back at the Royal Show, twenty minutes later, Laurence had bought a multi-camera kit with night vision and recording facility. Okay, so it wasn’t a piece of agricultural machinery we came home with, but hopefully this CCTV kit will safeguard our property and record any uninvited visitors.