Last week the countryside was shaping up well for a beautiful autumn with the rich shades of yellow, gold, copper and red showing across the hills - to be lost in a day - the gale ripped it all away, leaving a drab winter landscape.

The house and buildings have just been surrounded by floods - a relatively normal event that happens every year or two. We can usually get in and out with the Landrover and happily the farmhouse (they knew what they were doing 500 years ago) has been built just above the highest flood level. As usual it receded after 24 hours leaving behind a mass of debris scattered across the fields - another clear up job for us! One of my jobs is the Parish Flood Warden which simply involves briefing newcomers, taking a few sandbags round, passing on information from the Environment Agency and checking everyone is OK during a flood. It's not very arduous but I feel it helps sometimes.

Once again its been a very wet month and on the farm we have been struggling between the bouts of rain, We have managed to get in the maize silage and to drill Winter wheat after Potatoes. We have brought most of the cattle into the buildings, so the routine of feeding, bedding down and mucking out has started. The Cows have been calving steadily through the month (one conveniently for our Dutch guest - mother and son are both doing well!) and they seem to be milking well on their Organically made silage- some of it the best we have ever made.

I have been on a Grouse moor twice this year. Once, in Scotland, walking miles against horizontal rain a gruelling but stunning day when all cleared. The second time a few miles away in Wales, where the beaters are all on horseback, an amazing sight approaching line abreast over the hills. The Heather Beetle seems to have killed hundreds of acres of Heather, a very sorry sight, I hope it will recover.

Walking round the sheep the other day I came across two things, one was a nice shiny Fire Extinguisher that must have fallen off a plane! The other was a pair of feet and a pair of wings, the remains of a recently eaten Barn Owl. I think that one of our Buzzards is the culprit, but it could be a Goshawk- that's the third in three years in virtually the same place!!