March 2001

I don't think I can remember such a miserable month, the Foot and Mouth Disease that the country is now suffering is the result of shear incompetence/lack of political will of 2-3 weeks ago. I know it is easy with hindsight, but the government just did not put enough resources at the problem at the start, that was plain for all to see.

Here at the farm we have kept up our disinfectant barriers, we have hardly moved off the farm and very few people have been here - boring really. Every day we listen for more news, especially any local cases, with our hearts dropping lower all the time. Thankfully, the nearest case so far is about 8 miles away, but that is plenty close enough. My heart goes out to those families that have had to have their stock put down. We have cancelled all our tourist bookings for the time being, the village is very quiet even the traffic is very much reduced. However we have had some wonderful messages of support by post, phone and e-mail that have helped to make life a little more tolerable.

The animals carry on in their innocence. The Herefords have started calving, 2 heifers and a bull so far, they are looking forward to going out and we also look forward to the reduction in the work load. Having kept the Rooks off the newly drilled wheat for a few weeks, the seed has germinated and the field now looks better (its more green and even) than those drilled last autumn. We have been pollarding a few Willows and clearing undergrowth from round an old pond to see if the Frogs will spawn there again. The Frogs have been spawning elsewhere on the farm in some strength (March 10th) and the Toads have been doing their usual dice with death along the roads on the wet nights, they spawn a little later in the deeper water of our pools.

Just out of interest we decided to have a look at the older trees on the farm -known as Veteran trees- and for a farm with virtually no woodland I was amazed to find that we have over 100! So we have decided to work our way round them and record them all for English Nature.

I heard the trill of a Curlew this morning, now I know Spring is here.