Sunday 23 December 2012
Here comes Christmas!! and our BBC TV programme!!
After all that over indulgence during the festive season, you might like to laugh it off by watching the Barnes family on TV in a weeks time. The East Midlands version has a section at the end featuring the effects of the wet summer, autumn and winter has had on our dairy farm in Somerby.
This BBC programme will be aired on Sunday 30th December at 5.30pm on BBC One and its title is "Wild Weather in 2012". They filmed Noel (my 82yr old father in law) on his memories of past wet seasons of weather over his lifetime, my husband Mark on the effects the present rainfall has had on the land, my son Harry (15yrs) on his thoughts of the weather can have on this farm and myself, who had the nice warm Aga in the kitchen for the interview. Countryfile's Adam Henson, eat your heart out!
Talking about this wet year, we've had another deluge over the past couple of days. My rain meter in the garden can't take more than 1.5 inches so we've had more than that. Consequently, we are daily underwater throughout the outdoor yards and with 120 cows housed inside, we've been unable to scrape out the muck to the muck store. Mark's getting rather stressed about it and has now got a cold to boot. Why can't Christmas be in July when all the cows are outside feeding themselves, spreading their own muck and don't need a daily bedding with fresh straw? We'd have time to enjoy the celebrations instead of having to fit Christmas in before afternoon milking. Barely time to open all my presents, eat a roast dinner and have a glass of something alcoholic!
So it's the day before Christmas Eve, Charlotte and I have finally found one of the last Christmas Trees available at the local garden centre and decorated it before lunch. "So Santa now has somewhere to put all my presents!" exclaimed Charlotte. No help from the boys in this household, just Beattie the puppy who took off as many baubles as we were putting on!
Just been Carol Singing around the village, which was fun and definitely filled us with alot of Christmas Spirit. Or was that the Mulled Wine and mincepies.
Anyway, don't forget to watch "Wild Weather in 2012" next Sunday at 5.30pm on BBC One, for a good old fashioned belly laugh!
Have a good Christmas and New Year. Roll on a much drier 2013!
Thursday 13 December 2012
I should be ironing but it will soon be Christmas!
Can't believe how close to Christmas it is! With all the yard jobs done by 4pm, I'm in the house and plan to catch up on the huge pile of ironing whilst we've got dark nights so early. But here I am, finding another job (distraction) to do instead - writing my blog!
Most of the Christmas shopping done online this year, so just waiting for some extra presents to arrive and wrap. Christmas cake made and iced (we do love rich fruit cake - I always make ours but have to hold everyone back from eating it before the big day), two dozen mincepies in the cake tin as well as a chocolate log (homemade of course, I bet that doesn't last the week!). All this baking is because we're still getting four fresh eggs per day from my White Leghorn hens - think we'll call them after the Telly Tubbies - Tinky Winky, Dipsey, LaLa and Po. You can't tell them apart but every morning I let them out of the hen hut, three have already layed their eggs, and one (Dipsey - I think) runs as fast as she can to the straw barn, as if in desperate need to lay her egg! Sure enough ten or so minutes later, she announces she's laid her egg in a feed bucket of hay!
Back to Christmas preparations. I always worry we'll run out of heating oil, tractor diesel, cow cake, horse feed etc as everyone will close down on Christmas Eve for the holidays! It seems that most of the world is having a few days off work and we're the only ones still working on Christmas Day. I've been brought up with it of course. All the cows need milking, feeding, scraping out and bedding down before we can open a present! Usually breakfast comes before that too so its well into the morning when we can think about sitting down as a family to open our presents together. This has turned into a family tradition. I've done this all my life and it's funny to see my teenage children still want us all to sit together and see each present opened.
Christmas lunch is always at 1pm in our house. That's because we're outside again just after the Queens Speech to do the milking and feeding round. We have my parents coming round this year - who are semi retired farmers now - and my in-laws will join us for lunch too. So cooking for 8 this year. I don't mind as it seems easier to have everyone here than rush off to another house for lunch which might not happen until 4pm! I usually cook the "bird" overnight so its cooked by breakfast anyway. Just leave it to rest in the bottom oven of the Aga whilst preparing the rest of the meal.
It's sad we just don't have time to go to Church on Christmas morning which would be nice as we would see some of our neighbours and we live on Church Lane. Some years ago we went to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, which was lovely but again, we're up early next morning with so much to do before breakfast, it just doesn't fit in.
This cold snap we've had these past few weeks has been a blessing in disguise. We love the dry, solid ground and only once has the parlour frozen up during the night. Some of our yearling heifers are still outside and we're taking hay to them daily. Some have turned alittle wild and nomadic as they've got so many acres to graze and shelter from. Sadly the forecast is for more wet weather and warmer temperatures this weekend, which is bad news. Sometimes, baby calves hate the change in temperatures which can lead to them getting pneumonia. If left untreated they can die from it. So listening out for any slight cough or runny nose in the youngstock.
Well, this is not getting the ironing done. I wonder if I can pay Charlotte with cakes to clear the ironing pile.
Most of the Christmas shopping done online this year, so just waiting for some extra presents to arrive and wrap. Christmas cake made and iced (we do love rich fruit cake - I always make ours but have to hold everyone back from eating it before the big day), two dozen mincepies in the cake tin as well as a chocolate log (homemade of course, I bet that doesn't last the week!). All this baking is because we're still getting four fresh eggs per day from my White Leghorn hens - think we'll call them after the Telly Tubbies - Tinky Winky, Dipsey, LaLa and Po. You can't tell them apart but every morning I let them out of the hen hut, three have already layed their eggs, and one (Dipsey - I think) runs as fast as she can to the straw barn, as if in desperate need to lay her egg! Sure enough ten or so minutes later, she announces she's laid her egg in a feed bucket of hay!
Back to Christmas preparations. I always worry we'll run out of heating oil, tractor diesel, cow cake, horse feed etc as everyone will close down on Christmas Eve for the holidays! It seems that most of the world is having a few days off work and we're the only ones still working on Christmas Day. I've been brought up with it of course. All the cows need milking, feeding, scraping out and bedding down before we can open a present! Usually breakfast comes before that too so its well into the morning when we can think about sitting down as a family to open our presents together. This has turned into a family tradition. I've done this all my life and it's funny to see my teenage children still want us all to sit together and see each present opened.
Christmas lunch is always at 1pm in our house. That's because we're outside again just after the Queens Speech to do the milking and feeding round. We have my parents coming round this year - who are semi retired farmers now - and my in-laws will join us for lunch too. So cooking for 8 this year. I don't mind as it seems easier to have everyone here than rush off to another house for lunch which might not happen until 4pm! I usually cook the "bird" overnight so its cooked by breakfast anyway. Just leave it to rest in the bottom oven of the Aga whilst preparing the rest of the meal.
It's sad we just don't have time to go to Church on Christmas morning which would be nice as we would see some of our neighbours and we live on Church Lane. Some years ago we went to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, which was lovely but again, we're up early next morning with so much to do before breakfast, it just doesn't fit in.
This cold snap we've had these past few weeks has been a blessing in disguise. We love the dry, solid ground and only once has the parlour frozen up during the night. Some of our yearling heifers are still outside and we're taking hay to them daily. Some have turned alittle wild and nomadic as they've got so many acres to graze and shelter from. Sadly the forecast is for more wet weather and warmer temperatures this weekend, which is bad news. Sometimes, baby calves hate the change in temperatures which can lead to them getting pneumonia. If left untreated they can die from it. So listening out for any slight cough or runny nose in the youngstock.
Well, this is not getting the ironing done. I wonder if I can pay Charlotte with cakes to clear the ironing pile.
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