Wiltshire Village Meats Farm Diary - Aug 2009 -

	Wiltshire Village Meats Welfare - - Quality				In association with Walter Rose and son Family Butchers
OCT/NOV 2009 SEP 2009 AUG 2009 JUL 2009 JUN 2009 MAY 2009 APR 2009 MAR 2009 FEB 2009 JAN 2009 DEC 2008 NOV 2008	FARM DIARY THE EVERYDAY STORY OF LIFE ON A WILTSHIRE FARM
	Links to other pages HOME FARM SHOP FARM SHOP - Greeting Cards WALTER ROSE ABOUT OUR FARMING FARM DIARY RECIPES QUESTIONS CONTACT US		Aug 2009 - Harvest, holidays and geese Harvest continues, slowly, slowly. As the forecast shows yet more weather fronts sweeping the country it does feel like a depressing re-run of the last two wet years. So far (mid-August) we have only cut our winter barley and oilseed rape, we still have all the spring barley and winter wheat and the therefore the majority of the straw still to bale and bring in. There is nothing to be done except take whatever chances come and hope the weather will improve eventually. School holidays are here which means trying to juggle work and children - no summer holidays for us I'm afraid. Our seaside holiday was in May and in retrospect we were lucky with the weather compare to recent weeks Our goose egg hatching experiment failed. Although two of the eggs were fertile they failed to hatch. All was not lost as we saw five goslings advertised locally which we bought. They were only four weeks old but already quite well feathered. They were incubator hatched and had obviously imprinted on people and so followed us everywhere. The children thought this was very funny and ran races with them. After being here a fortnight they are a little more independent, they are growing so fast - as fast as pigs! They are sharing the orchard with the chickens for now and enjoying the faller apples until they are big enough to share a field with the sheep. Ode to Joy! Our pet ewe, Joy, was found dead in the field this week. She died very suddenly probably from a clostridial infection with no signs of illness. This can happen without warning sometimes triggered by a change in diet or over-eating, we don't know what caused this. Needless to say the children are very upset. It has to be said it is quieter without her as she was a particularly noisy sheep, shouting at every passer-by. We imagine her singing in a heavenly choir of sheep - I don't think this is very theologically sound!
	For further information on anything on this site please contact Muriel Naughton Email: Naughton@Farming.co.uk