It’ been a mixed week – to say the least

With a promise of seven dry days on last Sunday’s weather forecast, I was quickly on the phone to various contractors in the hope of getting all of the silage, hay and shearing completed in what would in effect be the first (and possibly only) week of summer.

First call to Graham (who cuts and bales the silage) only to find that he is approximately 600 acres behind on his list of work and couldn’t possibly come for a fortnight. Not very encouraging - it might be snowing by then!

Better luck with the next call to Greg the shearer. He says no problem – leave it with him and he will fit us in.

Lastly, I call Johnny and instruct him to cut the 4 acre field we always use to make some traditional small bale hay for the horses. ‘Am I sure?’ – yes of course I’m sure. Look at that glorious sunshine.

It was all going well until Thursday morning when the ‘possible light shower’ turned out to be a downpour followed by a couple of hours of steady rain. Make hay while the sun shines, goes the old proverb, and how true. Perfect hay is sun dried and each shower of rain that falls on the freshly cut grass will dramatically reduce its feed value.

So, with the weekend looming we had damp hay, no silage cut, but with at least a promise of shearing on Friday – as long as the sheep were dry. And thank goodness they were, for we woke on Saturday Morning to the news that Foot & Mouth had been found in a herd of Longhorns in Surrey. A complete shutdown on all livestock movements was implemented within hours of the outbreak and this has also stopped the shearers from working farm to farm.

So the sheep are all now shorn (except for four that gave Greg the slip – I will tackle these errant girls myself on Monday), and I have given up on making the hay (after another overcast day on Saturday it seemed wisest to just get it quickly into big bales – not such good quality, but adequate bullock feed nonetheless), and have spent the rest of the weekend reassuring campers that, despite what they see on the news, we still open and very much business as usual – mores the pity!