Farm Diary continued (3)

16th March 99

It's been a glorious day. We haven't had any rain for more than a week now. It's been sunny and warm. Sitting outside the kitchen having lunch, it got too hot! Yesterday was lovely too.

Walking up over Slade (for field names, see farm map), larks were flying up from under my feet. The bird song is almost deafening. I wish I knew what all the birds were. There's a lovely flock of dozens of yellow breasted birds that sit in the hedge in Plat and wait for the lambs to finish their corn , when they swoop down for the left-overs.

We are still busy preparing for the new chickens next week Four tons of organic feed went into the new feedbin today. The automatic water things arrived, too. They have a dozen or so seperate parts and no instructions, so that should be fun.

James cracked one of his ribs a few days ago. He's a bit accident prone at the moment. It hurts a lot when he sneezes, or when he does something like throwing water at a visiting tom cat.

There was a skittles match on Friday night (fundraising for the Horticultural Society). There were 11 teams of 6, each team member had to throw 3 lots of 3 balls. I was so shocked at knocking down all 9 skittles with my first ball, that I went on to throw 3 in succession that went between the skittles without touching one.From one extreme to the other. It went on quite late. It was a lovely evening. This is a very sociable part of the world, and we are fortunate to be living somewhere where there is a real sense of community.

I am trying not to put too many photos on each page. It's easy to get carried away.

I went out with the camera yesterday morning. It was sunny and very clear. Bodmin Moor looked close enough to touch and there were wreaths of mist in the valleys between us and Dartmoor. In the photos I took, everything loooked far away and flat. I wish I could show you how beatiful it is here. Every day the views are different, I never appreciated fully before how the landscape changes with the weather as well as the seasons.