First Frosts, Autumn Leaves and the BBC!

Woke up to a white frost this morning which was a shock to the system.  The garden looked lovely with the sun shining on the frosted autumn leaves.  It was great watching Beattie playfully prancing about in them. Her first frost.  It's not going to last though. More wet weather to come tomorrow. God it's saturated out there.

We've got a couple of weaned calves suffering a bit with a cough.  Mark injected them as we don't want to loose any to pneumonia due to the changing temperatures!  Wished the weather would make up its mind and stay cold, to kill some of these bugs.

My husband is working so hard, he's milking 13 times a week AND doing all the yard jobs.  Our relief milkman, John, usually comes every morning thoughout the winter, so Mark can do the bedding, feedings, mucking out whilst the cows are being milked.  A couple of weeks ago, John fell and has fractured his arm!  Another relief milkman we use, is fully booked and can only offer us one milking per week.  I wonder how long before Mark needs an injection against pneumonia!

On a brigher note, we had our crew from BBC filming us again last Monday.  This time they brought Kay Forester with them.  She's a regular weather girl on East Midlands Today (EMT) who said it was her first time interviewing someone!  She was very good and very pretty.  I had to run upstairs and do my hair and makeup.   We sat in front of my Aga in the kitchen and Kay interviewed me about the weather and the effects it's had on our farm this summer and now.  Later we went out to the calf shed to feed them together.  It took a number of "takes" to do.  Boy those baby calves had so much milk that day, they were very bloated!  I will let you all know when it's on TV, sometime in mid December they said.  Not sure of the title of the programme but it is a local programme with weather in the title.  They also came with me to be filmed whilst doing one of my "Tales from a Farmer's Wife" talks, in Oakham.  I always start with an introduction like "my name is Jane Barnes and I'm married to Mark who's a rare breed"!!  That line will be in the programme for sure!

Sadly we've lost another chicken, so down to four now.  No sign of the carcus so I'm hoping its run away to another friendly home rather than being chased and killed for the fun of it by "charlie the fox"!  Only had two eggs this morning from the remaining chickens, so where are they others laying around the farmyard.

Charlotte and I went hunting with the Cottesmore Hunt yesterday.  The meet was in Sewstern near Buckminster on the Grantham road from Melton.  God it was wet and deep.  We mainly walked over the fields and around the boundary hedges to keep Mr Farmer happy.  Hounds were silent all day though, no sent and no foxes about we think. 

The picture above is me on Nemo who we are currently selling.  We look smart don't we?

As I'm writing this, Beattie the puppy is busy in my waste paper bin, taking out envelopes or A4 sheets of paper and shredding them all over my office floor!  Anyone want documents shredding for free?  Keeps her busy while I'm typing away.