Vacation on the Farm

So, I am now an accomplished multi-tasker (ignore my post "Old Dogs", that was the wimp I was before conquering my milking phobia!). I can now milk Bessie with one hand on the bagpipes, whilst reading the Foxfire Book collection, listening to NPR, and discussing bovine digestion with coach Robin on my cellphone. I am Renaissance man - skilled in the old ways of the farm, shouldering my share of our life's travails with my bread-winning wife (not averse to bed making and cooking, I still have trouble with dusting, and washing machines - Hey no one's perfect you know!). There is a wonderful sereneness about pacing one's life to accommodate feeding times for horses, a calf, chickens, birds and dogs, and milking the cows. Pre-electricity, you got up at dawn and went to bed at dusk, and that cycle still exists if you want to follow it. The chickens are ready to go out as soon as it is light, and Merlin crows his welcome to each new day. Equally, they put themselves up as the light goes. The horses are perfectly aware of feeding time, as are the cows when it comes to milking. It is pretty much a 24/7 lifestyle, although we do keep our fingers crossed that nocturnal colics are avoided, and I have tried to make this summer as interesting as the daily routine will allow.

With the long, hot days this summer has been very like the Lot Region in Central France. My ex-Brother-in-Law (long story) has a farmhouse there, in an area not too disimilar from Southside. Mainly rural, agricultural communities with a few small towns. Pleasant people, still living a lifestyle unchanged for decades (well except for electricity, the motor car and television of course). Anyway, working around the farm I have aquired a tan similar to the one I used to get sunning myself by the side of the Dordogne, and most marvellous of all we now have a source of goat's cheese (at its best a greatly underrated cheese over here) from Goats-R-Us that rivals the fromage chevre I used to get at the local market in Bretenoux. Add a bottle or two of George DuBoeuf's Beaujolais Villages and, voila, those farm chores just melt away. Well, there you have it, want to make light work of your working day? Enjoy the sun and turn it into La Grande Vacance with goat's cheese and red wine. You can't beat it.

Of course since I started drafting this post Le Deluge commenced, and the farm is more like Louisana swampland than France's Massif Central. Yesterday we awoke to clouds skimming the trees, high humidity and a temperature in the 70's. Makes one want to throw off one's clothes and embrace the soft showers of cleansing rain. That is until the wind switched to the North and the drops became buckets. Vacation over, as the horses and cows turn the gate areas into a quagmire. Ironically as we looked out on the flooded fields and driveway the radio announced that Chesterfield had put drought restrictions in place! Just to emphasize that we probably need another month of this to rectify the low rainful and drought of the past few years. Oh dear, I'm starting to sound like an Englishman, always talking about the weather and never without my rolled-up umbrella! Just go back to the beginning and stop at "goat's cheese and red wine".

Water

With Jorg and I heaving a sigh of relief that, touch wood, we aren't going to get the drought conditions of last year it seems appropriate to consider the importance of water to large and small farmers alike. We, like many, live or die on the capacity and sustainability of our well (the farm's third in around a decade). Our pond filled up nicely after last years drought, with the winter and spring rain, but fell at an alarming rate during June, and is now well on its way to the low of last year. The latest rain will help, but we do need a lot more to ensure our usually steady water supply. With 20 horses, 2 cows, three sheep, chickens and the house pets, plus the usual modern conveniences, we need a lot of water per day.

Did you know that you can save water by putting a brick, or a bottle of water in your WC tanks? Collecting rainwater, and using dish washers and clothes washers less will all contribute to conserving your well. Any other ideas for water conservation gratefully received. Rainbows have been a brilliant feature of the thunder storms we have been having here lately, of course I never have my camera handy when one appears, so I am indebted to the Penn State Climatologist, whose rainbow picture is reproduced above. To illustrate the global water situation, I have linked to the UK Guardian newspaper's environment photo gallery of today, a sobering and thought provoking piece by photo journalists across the world.